Confessions of a Storm Chaser
By Emily Hunteman
Kim Klockow’s idea of a good time is going to a party with friends to make fun of weather-related movies like The Day After Tomorrow. Klockow double majors in economics and synoptic meteorology, and she and her friends know so much about weather that they spot inaccuracies in Hollywood movies that they find hilarious — like charts showing ocean currents going the wrong way.
“When we go to the theater to see these movies, we laugh hysterically,” she says. “I feel sorry for the other people in the theater.”
Klockow is a Phi Beta Kappa senior from Granger, Indiana, who last summer became the first Purdue student to do an internship at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. She was one of 10 students chosen from approximately 150 applications.
Her fascination with weather dates back to her childhood in Naperville, Illinois, when a tornado chased her and her family home from signing up for French lessons. Klockow was only seven at the time.
“Mom got us in the basement and then went upstairs to watch the storm, and I sneaked upstairs to watch with her,” she says. “The sky was green, and stuff was flying through the air. In that moment, I changed from being petrified by tornadoes to being awed by them. I kind of wanted to chase them back.”
Since then, Klockow has gotten a good deal of storm chasing under her belt. She says that storm chasing involves hours of travel time, picking a particular aspect of the storm you want to focus on, and then staying in communication with someone called a nowcaster, who is at a base telling you exactly where to drive. When you get close to the storm, she says, you can start following it visually.
“Generally storm chasers see a tornado one out of nine times they chase,” says Klockow. “But during my internship, we would see seven tornadoes each time we went out.”
Klockow admits that storm chasing can be dangerous, but she notes that the danger usually is not from the tornadoes themselves, which have textbook weather patterns west of the Mississippi River. Rather, lightning is the most dangerous part. Klockow says the best thing storm chasers can do is stay inside their automobile, away from fences, and out from under trees.
While at Purdue, Klockow has learned how to combine both her majors so she doesn’t have to choose between them. During her internship, she worked on a project linking economics and meteorology.
“I first learned about economic meteorology at a conference,” she says. “It’s a new area. Many industries are affected by weather — such as the construction, energy, and transportation industries — and they’re looking for people who can advise them about upcoming weather.”
She adds that economic meteorology also can aid disaster recovery efforts.
“The government spends billions of dollars a year on disaster recovery,” Klockow says. “But it’s not allotted, and if we study what happens in recovery efforts, it will result in more efficient allocation.”
Klockow hasn’t yet decided what she’s doing after graduation in May 2006.
“The dream of all meteorologists is to get into the University of Oklahoma for grad school,” she says. “But there are a lot of other graduate programs that are developing. And I would be happy just getting a job in business.”
But that decision is a whole school year away. Meanwhile, Klockow will continue serving as president of the Purdue University Meteorological Association, teaching PHYS 152, and periodically presenting conference papers on the economic impacts of tornadoes. And watching weather-related movies with her friends. 