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and jumping in the air with bright sparks, like flash-bulbs, illuminating darkened homes and toppled trees in a ghostly light. ...”
Thereafter, Hoadley began studying whatever forecast literature was available, for what was then a young science and began hunting storms on the Dakota plains. After 20,000 miles and two years, he saw his first tornado.
Now each storm chase begins from his home in Falls Church, Va. After picking an active pattern on computer model forecasts, he packs his laptop, cameras and a week’s laundry and drives to the plains.
A typical morning begins in a Kansas motel, collecting data and developing a forecast for that afternoon. He may leave Dodge City at 10 a.m. and arrive in Lubbock that night, only to turn around the next morning and go to Wichita. He can drive 5,000 miles a week to see one tornado, but to him it is worth it (in a typical season he may drive as much as 25,000 miles).
To date, experience, persistence and luck have brought him over 130 tornadoes and numerous encounters with large hail, lightning and flash floods. He has taped several large tornados to within a half-mile, one of which chased him for several miles. He and his daughter once dove into a ditch for cover as a nighttime tornado formed over their car and then destroyed two farms.
In 1977, Hoadley began the
See TORNADO, Page B2
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