News DetailCheck out the TornadoVideos.net camera probe!
Posted At: March 20, 2008 @ 12:22 AM
Posted By: Reed Timmer
Related Categories: General
Here are pictures of the camera probe we'll be dropping in the paths of tornadoes this year. The camera below shoots HDV quality, and is housed in a "bullet-proof" bubble, which will hopefully protext it from flying debris. Inside the orange frame is a steel re-enforced 300 pound block of cement -- hopefully heavy enough to keep the probe from going airborne!
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NICE!!!!!
That's awesome! I hope it sees some action this year. And hopefully not any F5's as I'm not so sure it will stay on the ground in one of those :P
NICCCEEEEE!
like to say thanks to the chasers for monday.we flew over from england and chased to your position in texas but got there too late.saw the supercell over Abelienbut then lost daylight.incredible excitement and coming back over in a couple of months,to try again.good luck
i think its reed who is taking the pic cause you can see him in the 2nd pic in the reflection.
lol, Nice guys! I can't wait to see this thing in action!
yes, Read, Great News. You guys always needed a camera probe- think of the fotage you would have gotten with the manitoba tornado, or manchester tornado. And you would have had all the time in the world to place it. Can't wait till you guys get that thing inside a beast! And I think 500 pounds is pleanty heavy - don't know how you guys can lift that.
I ment 300 pounds - still really heavy.
WHOA! SWEET!
wish I had one of those;)
Thats awesome.I hope you get some great results from this.
Im sure Reed and Joel could lift that. They look like strong guys.
Looks great guys...but how well sealed is the bubble and will the latches and hinge hold up??
The dome is contained in a depression we carved in the top of the pinewood, so air cannot get underneath it. The latches are extremely strong, so I don't think the bubble is going anywhere.
Just get underground if you see a florescent orange piece of debris flying through the air.
Wow. Good work guys. Looks like it will be able to handle a strong tornado.
good choice with the camera. is that a panasonic?
that is really cool. I'll let you know if I find one in my house this summer. LOL
Awesome guys! I can't wait for you guys to get that inside something...
Just wanted to say, today in Alberta theres enough lift and cape values are high enough for some convective precip..Thundershowers are possible at around 6:00 PM stretching from just west of Edson east to Edmonton and a bit further and then straight south/southeast to Medicine hat. I can see some towering cumulus right now, but nothing is really going to get started until later on..I'll keep you guys posted on this strange situation, this could be the first Thundershower here in Edmonton this year, and also it's very strange to see this kind of convective activity in March..on average we start to see these in mid May, and were getting them 2 months in advance! I have the camera ready, and now it's just a waiting game...
Wow Reed that is really cool! I'd love to get video of you guys placing the probe in front of the tornado!
Oh man, that's great! Here's hoping you intercept...
Fly Dorothy Fly! ;-P Good luck with the probe.
Hardhats for the cows, hardhats for the cows!
Just kidding ;-), good work.
"Just get underground if you see a florescent orange piece of debris flying through the air."
-Haha, thats funny Reed. I think it would be even cooler if it got lifted up into a tornado - And if the fotage survived - that would be amazing!
TOWERS in alberta today. I just looked out the window and there huge summer sized storm clouds. CB as well.
Mushroom cloud thunderstorm south of Wetaskiwin
HEY I think I made a post about that makeing a "Dome" with a camra inside.
Hope it stays where it is and films the inside of the tornado. I can't wait to see it on its first intercept to a tornado and any footage that can be snagged from it.
lol thats ghetto lookin, but i like it :)
Heres a photo of a tower just north of me from earlier..Convection rolling off the foothills right now..I'm waiting for it to hit me before sundown, or else it'll either die, or be crappy flurries.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6673/dsc00097ci8.jpg
Now this is a tower!
Got this one south of Wetaskiwin
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6624/mar2008251dm4.jpg
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7392/mar2008253vg2.jpg
And a photo of a thunderstorm I took from Leduc
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3643/mar2008261uy9.jpg
Are you able to rotate the camera if the tornado moves?
Plus-ya gotta put the logo on the sides!!(maybe even the logo of the camera maker?)
Looks sweet! How the heck are you going to move it into location? Have 3-4 people in the car?
Sweeeet! I wanna see this in action... haha. I can just imagine seeing this thing flying through the air, farmers with bewildered looks on their faces... ;)
hopefully this dome wont do the same as the dome in atlanta
Very cool camera!!
And you guys in Alberta--that's INSANE. I can't believe you're having thunderstorms that far north for this time of year.
build a big one so i can get inside.
and also i never seen a tornado, i've seen a funnel cloud but not a tornado thats why i said that. i hope you capture some good videos with that!
i live in kansas wheres the storms?
I'm going to have to second Susan's suggestion; you guys need to put the tv.net logo on the side.
I've seen a few cases where concrete stairs (like you see at the front of some houses) being dragged by especially intense tornadoes; is the dome strong enough to support that thing if it gets flipped over??
Just thinking out loud, here.
p.s. Thunderstorms in March in Alberta... very cool (especially like the overshoot on the storm near Leduc)
A camera probe? Hasnt that alrady been done?
HI Reed.. you're funny but then again I'm a dork!
Its raining mud!
http://www.week.com/news/local/16899371.html
"A camera probe? Hasnt that already been done?"
Well, yes, but the way I look at it is, the more out there doing this kind of work, the better.
Best of luck to tv.net with this one.
Simon, i think Lanny was being sarcastic, seeing as how he is one of the Original Outlaw Chasers, and because they already have there own "Caminator" that they try and place in the path of the storms.
Yes I was Ben, but in a good kind of sarcastic way.
Reed knows what I mean.
Lanny Dean
www.ExtremeChaseTours.com
I don't recall their footage being HD though.
I thought it had been established that a good design for a tornado probe "turtle" is a cone with a gentle slope (less than 40 degrees). The winds push such a shape firmer into the ground. It would require the action of a suction vortice to dig it up - ie, a direct hit - which would, naturally, suck up a mere cement block easily enough. The aerodynamics of the device pictured above seem destined to engender issues with any moderately significant tornadic winds.
Still, considering that I've never seen or heard of any tornado probe being hit by anything better than a sub-F2 tornado, this is probably not a real issue. I'm just thinking about that pipe dream where one has the opportunity to drop in the path of a mile-wide beast.
hahah.. Storm chasing had been done before, but that didn't stop either of us!
Yeah the difference here is that this footage will be HD quality as JY said, and a vast increase in successful intercepts of course... We'll also be mass-producing these probes so a network of chasers can work to successfully deploy them
Yea, i've picked up on that Lanny, And i understand the friendly competition of Storm Chasing. The only real competition is to see who can get the best angle of the storm, and best pics/vid, other than that Everyones is friends, and also everyones wishes eachother safety.
On the competition side though if i were Lanny, I'd be saying:
"Hey Reed remember that day you stayed down in OK, instead of heading north into KS, wasn't that the biggest wedge you've ever seen?...well on video."
ya i know this is almost a year old but its relevant to this forum. Not sure if anyone else has seen this video one day earlier than the pipestone mb. monster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ScKKYV8u6E
Wow! Cool! Can't wait to see what this probe can do!
Hey! We have a blizzard here in Quebec! If you wanna see some videos of that, click there...these are from the news (those news are in french but the video is really impressive...)... There's 4 videos...the first one is...wow! I was at the "border" of this storm today in Mont-Orford and the winds were near 70 km/h with gusts of 90...we recieved 12 inches of snow and, with those winds, it was "beautiful! Unfortunately, I forgot my cam...sorry, no video from me today...but you can go on the news I was talking about! Here's the link:
http://lcn.canoe.ca/lcn/infos/national/archives/2008/03/20080321-115307.html
ive seen videos of the elie, mb f-5, but not that one.
that video right there is probably the best tornado footage i have ever seen!!! im speechless! reed, where were you and dave!?!?! you shoulda been in canada one day earlier!!!
Hey! will you give names to those probes???
hey reed,
I'll take a pepsi challenge any day of the f ing week with that : lightning strike - up close vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yobc96tDOY
that pussy was hiding inside..haha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLJ6oqToKrc
geez the winter never ends in the east. while the west is getting an early spring
That video of the Elie tornado is INCREDIBLE!
I can't believe how small the base of the vortex is at the beginning...you could probably stand right next to that tornado and run along side it since it was moving so slow.
Textbook occlusion as well when it reformed.
We were thinking about heading up to Canada using I-29 through grand forks, and then heading west to SK. If we had done that we would have seen that tornado by accident. We didn't even think to look at the conditions that day with relatively weak WNW flow aloft and 10 knots at 850. It turned out the 850 flow was slightly under forecast, and the storm propagated southwesterly giving extreme storm relative low-level shear. Likely similar to the Jarrell, TX F5, where the storm propagated "against the grain"
yeah so small but yet so destructive..its really amazing. good lighting in de footage too. hey reed ever noticed how hard it is to adjust the settings of the cam just right to capture clouds.
Yeah I always just set mine to infinity when storm chasing...then you don't have to worry about the camera focusing on rain drops on the wind shield and the tornado/clouds will be in focus.
I've been having issues in low-light situations with the picture appearing grainy. I think I need to mess with the iris/shutter speed settings.
dont worry reed, i think you redeemed yourself on the next day capturing the pipestone wedge. as well as ellis county, the BEST footage ive seen of a tornado, hands down. even my g/f, whos out of the chasing loop, said it was after watching an episode of storm chasers. i had to point out whos footage was whos!
That's correct, the probe drop has been done both by Lanny himself and the BIG capture of Reed's famous Manchester wedge from the inside by Tim Samaras ... but like Reed said it still doesn't mean there's more to be learned.
When you guys get some more dough it's time to improve on the TIV concept
Yeah it's been done before, but I bet Reed or Joel will remember to take the lens cover of theirs
Yes where insane in Alberta. Dont be suprised if u see me kenny and mike screaming down the highway after supercells :P