"In Search Of" Tornadoes, 1978

In Search Of: Tornadoes from September 1978 was the first nationally broadcast television program to feature meteorologists and storm chasers on the hunt for tornadoes. At the time the term storm chaser was not in the public vocabulary. Show producers focused on the efforts of the NOAA Tornado Intercept Project at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. As high contrast films of tornadoes were far and few between, the goal was to document close-range debris movies for photogrammetric scientific study, in tandem with serving as a confirmation point for the research Doppler/NEXRAD radar that was still in a testing phase. Public and media awareness of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms was minimal. The national tornado/severe thunderstorm watch and warning program had only been in place for 25 years at the point this aired. Tornado and supercell thunderstorm dynamics were not well understood, but through the efforts of the students and researchers featured, knowledge rapidly increased through the next two decades. The show did take dramatic liberty in describing just how random tornadoes strike, but was part of the production formula that made the series so successful. Leonard Nimoy was program host, but never involved in the actual field production. In Search Of was syndicated and ran from 1977 to 1982 on various nationwide affiliates, and continues in reruns. Video © Alan Landsburg Productions.