Riders on the Storm - Transcript

[Wizard of Oz] "Auntie Em, Auntie Em! It's a twister!"

[Evan Kuchera] "We're gonna take you out and attempt to see some storms."

[Jeremy Wesley] "I'm Jeremy Wesley..."

[Evan Kuchera] "And I'm Evan Kuchera.

"My interest in weather started in the second grade.

"Oh, Wow!

"My mom got tired of me being afraid of storms, so she sat me down in our garage when a real severe storm went through and she made me sit through it and not run away scared and that was pretty much over my fear at that point."

[Jeremy Wesley] "Presently, I work at the Air Force Weather Agency.

"I work at the Air Force Weather Agency at Offut Air Force Base in Bellvue, Nebraska as a weather researcher, and so I really get to do what I enjoy.

"I would say that something unusual that we do is go out and chase or spot severe weather.

"There was a tornado that took place on June 13, 2001 just outside of Seward, Nebraska. It's commonly referred to as the Seward tornado.

"I got so enthralled with the tornado that I forgot that my camera was on stand-by.

"And so when the video jumps in you hear me hollering, 'I'm not filming! I'm not filming!'

"At one point I believe I saw debris flying up from the base of the tornado and it kind of hits you and that's a somber feeling. It's not something you want to see."

[Evan Kuchera] "This is York County, right there where the little finger is. So we're looking to head out to York and probably south a little bit, and once we're out there we'll probably have to wait for the storms to do something."

[Jeremy Wesley] "So we just head to York, Huh?"

[Evan Kuchera] "It looks like, yeah."

[Jeremy Wesley] "I've been storm chasing 4 years now -- 10 or 15 thousand miles.

"I'm a storm spotter that moves around, therefore I probably would be termed a storm chaser. I just have a hard time because lots of times storm chaser has a negative connotation."

[Gregory Brown] "My name is Greg Brown. I work for the University of Nebraska State Museum in the division of vertebrate paleontology which deals with vertebrate animals and fossils. I also am a storm spotter for Lincoln/Lancaster County Emergency Management, and I've been doing that for about ten years.

"A weather spotter is somebody who goes out in an organized fashion to keep an eye on weather.

"Unlike storm chasers, the spotters have assigned points that over-look the entire county.

"Our goals are different and our methods are different, but both storm spotters and storm chasers serve the public good.

"I would certainly not recommend that anybody, after watching some exciting tornado footage on TV -- to jump in the car to drive out to the countryside the next time there's a thunderstorm. That's foolhardy and very dangerous."

[Evan Kuchera] "It's tough, because we are storm chasers, but we're not those nuts that drive 100 miles an hour and drive through cop barriers and houses fly across the road and we just keep driving.

"Really we just want to see nature as a beautiful thing. And observe the power that is out there."

[Jeremy Wesley] "At the same time, those that work at the National Weather Station really depend on the weather spotter to tell them what is going on, what they are actually seeing.

"It really depends on how trained you are in meteorology."

[Evan Kuchera] "I see rotation Jeremy."

[Jeremy Wesley] "This is good.

"Oh, there's some lightning. Oh! There's a lot of lightning."

[Evan Kuchera] "I wouldn't drive 300 miles to see this, but we're only 50 from home and its well worth it. Earlier, we were able to see a lightning strike maybe 50 yards away. We could see the dust strike up and that was pretty interesting.

"It looks like things are starting to quiet down for the night.

"So we'll probably just call it a night then and that'll be it."

[Jeremy Wesley] "I definitely love the weather of NE, I don't think I could've been born in a better place."