Tim Samaras

Paul (1925–2005) was a photographer and model-airplane distributor who was an Army projectionist in WWII.

Tim assisted in the photography and shop work.

Margaret was born in 1929 and died in 1996.

She talked Tim into watching an annual television broadcast of The Wizard of Oz at age six.

"When the tornado appeared", he recalled, "I was hooked!"

Timothy Michael Samaras (November 12, 1957 – May 31, 2013) was an American engineer and storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers.

Samaras was born November 12, 1957, in Lakewood, Colorado, to Paul T. and Margaret L. Samaras.

Samaras attended Lasley Elementary and O'Connell Junior High in Lakewood, before graduating from Alameda International Junior/Senior High School in 1976.

In his twenties, he began to chase storms "not for the thrill, but the science."

With one such in-situ probe, he captured the largest drop in atmospheric pressure ever recorded, 100 hPa (mb) in less than one minute, when an F4 tornado struck one of several probes placed near Manchester, South Dakota, on June 24, 2003.

The accomplishment is listed in Guinness World Records as the "greatest pressure drop measured in a tornado".

The probe was dropped in front of the oncoming tornado a mere 82 seconds before it hit.

The measurement is also the lowest pressure (adjusted for elevation) ever recorded at Earth's surface, 850 hPa.

Samaras later described the tornado as the most memorable of his career.

Samaras' aerodynamic probes were a breakthrough design for their survivability inside tornadoes.

A patent was pending for instrumentation measuring winds in 3D.

Samaras held a patent, "Thermal imaging system for internal combustion engines", with Jon M. Lesko.

Samaras and his team logged over 35000 mi of driving during the two peak months of tornado season each year.

When asked, Samaras said that the most dangerous part about following tornadoes is not the actual storms themselves, but rather the road hazards encountered along the way.

In total, he tracked down more than 125 tornadoes during his career.

He died in the 2013 El Reno tornado.

He would continue this pursuit until his untimely death in 2013.

Samaras was self-taught and never received a college degree.

He became an amateur radio operator at age 12 and built transmitters using old television sets.

As an adult he held an Amateur Extra Class license, the highest amateur radio class issued in the United States, and was proficient in Morse code.

He communicated by amateur radio when chasing storms and was also a storm spotter, reporting sightings of hazardous weather.

At 16, he was a radio technician, and was service shop foreman at 17.

Immediately out of high school and without a résumé, he was hired as a walk-in at the University of Denver Research Institute.

He obtained a Pentagon security clearance by 20, testing and building weapons systems.

Samaras became a prominent engineer at Applied Research Associates, initially focusing on blast testing and airline crash investigations.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recognized him for his investigations of the TWA Flight 800 crash.

His research involved high-speed photography, such as on ballistics.

He also worked at National Technical Systems and Hyperion Technology Group.

In addition to tornadoes, he was interested in all aspects of convective storms, with particular research focus on lightning, for which he utilized cameras shooting up to 1.4 million fps.

An accomplished photographer and videographer, he also used photogrammetry, with some footage derived from cameras in probes shooting from within tornadoes.

Samaras also shot for art and for pleasure.

He was an avid amateur astronomer and also interested in electronics and inventions.

Samaras was the founder of a field research team called Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes EXperiment (TWISTEX), which sought to better understand tornadoes.

His work was funded in large part by the National Geographic Society (NGS), which awarded him 18 grants for his field work.

Samaras designed and built his own weather probes, and deployed them in the path of tornadoes in order to gain scientific insight into the inner workings of a tornado.