Tornadoes are powerful and often devastating forces of nature.
Students in grades 5 to 8 at Innisfail Middle School learned first hand about tornadoes during a recent presentation by Canadian storm chaser Ricky Forbes.
“In the off-season we travel around talking to schools about severe weather,” said Forbes of the hit television show Tornado Hunters on CMT Canada. “We're sharing information and education on severe weather and what to do in a situation if a storm is coming your way. We also share some of our best stories and images from the road.”
Forbes, 29, of Martensville, Sask., was at Innisfail Middle School on Dec. 8 and has been storm chasing for the past four years. He was given an opportunity to storm chase for a week and never looked back.
“I went out there and saw my first tornado and I was hooked,” he said. “You get to see Mother Nature in her fury and some of the most dangerous and wildest storms on the planet. When you get up close and witness Mother Nature like that, to share that with the rest of the world, it's pretty cool.”
Forbes and his team are on the road during high (storm) season in the spring and summer months.
“We'll be down in Texas starting about mid-March and we'll chase all the way to the end of the summer, usually right into September,” he said. “We travel all over North America for storms. This year we did seven months straight. We travelled 120,000 kilometres, through 25 states and five provinces and saw well over a hundred storms,” explained Forbes.
In addition to hearing about Forbes' first-hand encounters with tornadoes, students were shown the customized truck that Forbes and his crew use when filming and recording storms and tornadoes on the road.
“The truck's got some special features like being bullet proof, a roll cage, and spotlights,” said Forbes.
Over the years, there have been some memorable storms for him and his crew.
“We were caught inside a tornado. It was May 31, 2013 and it turned out to be the world's largest tornado,” he said of the Oklahoma storm. “We were inside that storm for just over a minute.”
Other memorable tornadoes include twin tornadoes in Nebraska in June 2014 and a tornado that took place this summer in Manitoba.
There are several safety factors that storm chasers must always keep in mind, Forbes noted, including knowing your storms and the behaviour of them.
“It's not a hundred per cent predictable and it's not a hundred per cent science,” said Forbes. “It takes a lot of experience to stay safe out there and having the right group of individuals,” he added, noting their work with meteorologists and other weather specialists.
“We've studied this throughout the years and we have enough knowledge to do what we're doing safely,” Forbes concluded.
Ricky Forbes
"We travel all over North America for storms. This year we did seven months straight. We travelled 120,000 kilometres, through 25 states and five provinces and saw well over a hundred storms."
