[HurricaneJosh]

This topic comes up often in the tropical thread and elsewhere, so perhaps it needs its own thread.

As I mentioned in the tropical thread, I am a hardcore chaser. I need to be in the absolute severest part of a hurricane when I chase it, need to feel that-- but I do not look at traffic accidents or watch disaster shows, nor do I even watch violent clips on You Tube. I have no interest in any of that. Human misery does not excite me in any way.

I like watching the hurricane itself-- the wind ripping hard, giant waves, stuff like that. I like to hear it, to feel it. It's not about destruction, although obviously, destruction comes with it.

A hurricane landfall is a truly dramatic event-- better than any theater, any movie: the increase in the wind as it approaches, the pandemonium that occurs as the eyewall nears, and then the violent climax of it-- the energy, the frightening sound of it. There's something very moving about it. I experienced this as a teenager and then-- sort of like a drug addict-- I felt like I needed to replicate that experience again and again.

Therefore, I chase.

I'm not offering justification for my chasing. I don't feel I need to. I'm more just describing what goes on in my head around this topic.

[WEATHER53]

HurricaneJosh, on Aug 10 2007, 11:59 AM, said:

This topic comes up often in the tropical thread and elsewhere, so perhaps it needs its own thread.

As I mentioned in the tropical thread, I am a hardcore chaser. I need to be in the absolute severest part of a hurricane when I chase it, need to feel that-- but I do not look at traffic accidents or watch disaster shows, nor do I even watch violent clips on You Tube. I have no interest in any of that. Human misery does not excite me in any way.

I like watching the hurricane itself-- the wind ripping hard, giant waves, stuff like that. I like to hear it, to feel it. It's not about desctruction, although obviously, destruction comes with it.

A hurricane landfall is a truly dramatic event-- better than any theater, any movie: the increase in the wind as it approaches, the pandemonium that occurs as the eyewall nears, and then the violent climax of it-- the energy, the frightening sound of it. There's something very moving about it. I experienced this as a teenager and then-- sort of like a drug addict-- I felt like I needed to replicate that experience again and again.

Therefore, I chase.

I'm not offering justification for my chasing. I don't feel I need to. I'm more just describing what goes on in my head around this topic.

I think that hoping that a hurricane can intensify and take a track toward land and then impact land and thus the people, homes and businesses is a failure to have a poportionally moral outlook; your objectives are skewed.

[tornadotony]

It's going to happen whether you like it or not. Be excited if you want to see it, but pray that everyone is safe.

[WEATHER53]

tornadotony, on Aug 10 2007, 12:06 PM, said:

It's going to happen whether you like it or not. Be excited if you want to see it, but pray that everyone is safe.

The first sentence is irrelevant as we realize that wanting or not wanting has no effect. That is not the issue.

[HurricaneJosh]

WEATHER53, on Aug 10 2007, 09:03 AM, said:

I think that hoping that a hurricane can intensify and take a track toward land and then impact land and thus the people, homes and businesses is a failure to have a poportionally moral outlook; your objectives are skewed.

Objectives? My objective is to experience the storm and document it. I have no control over where it hits or how strong it is.

I should also mention that people in the stricken areas love chaser footage of the event. I shot a lot of my Hurricane Wilma footage in Everglades City, FL, which got really hammered. Months later, the town's fire chief got in touch with me because they want to use my footage and video stills in their town historical museum. Wilma was a big event for this town, and they're glad someone documented it. This is their history.

[WEATHER53]

I think it is difficult for all of us to accept, me included, that what we like so much can have a very serious impact on the populous. Yes even snowstorms and cold waves kill, it's just that death and destruction is not their principal byproduct. So it's a fine line between "rooting them on" and the morality of self serving satisfaction versus the consequences to the population.

[turtlehurricane]

WEATHER53, on Aug 10 2007, 12:08 PM, said:

The first sentence is irrelevant as we realize that wanting or not wanting has no effect. That is not the issue.

I disagree, what Tony says sums this up.

[uncle w1]

we can learn how storms act and develop by storm chasing. There was a tornado in Brooklyn the other day. About a half mile from where I used to live. If It was 15 years ago I would have been on my roof with a camera. Being a home owner makes me wish for misses instead of direct hits.

[AtticaFanatica]

tornadotony, on Aug 10 2007, 11:06 AM, said:

It's going to happen whether you like it or not. Be excited if you want to see it, but pray that everyone is safe.

.

[goflyers]

WEATHER53, on Aug 10 2007, 12:03 PM, said:

I think that hoping that a hurricane can intensify and take a track toward land and then impact land and thus the people, homes and businesses is a failure to have a poportionally moral outlook; your objectives are skewed.

Thank you WEATHER53, that was exactly my point from the get go. As much as we all love the weather, to get excited about a major hurricane hitting land so that you can chase it an be in the brunt of it, I think is crazy. I think some people would think differently if a major storm like that had a direct impact on their belongings or family members.

I think when most people are "chasing" that usually means that they are heading to some place that is not anywhere near their home, so the effects of the damage does not "hit home" with them.

[Logan11]

Hoping for something isn't the same as making it happen. I thought about this years ago, but its pretty silly to feel guilt about something that you had so impact on. That hurricane is going to hit a certain spot whether I wish for it or not. I'm irrelevant to the situation.

goflyers, on Aug 10 2007, 12:38 PM, said:

Thank you WEATHER53, that was exactly my point from the get go. As much as we all love the weather, to get excited about a major hurricane hitting land so that you can chase it an be in the brunt of it, I think is crazy. I think some people would think differently if a major storm like that had a direct impact on their belongings or family members.

I think when most people are "chasing" that usually means that they are heading to some place that is not anywhere near their home, so the effects of the damage does not "hit home" with them.

[goflyers]

Logan11, on Aug 10 2007, 12:46 PM, said:

Hoping for something isn't the same as making it happen. I thought about this years ago, but its pretty silly to feel guilt about something that you had so impact on. That hurricane is going to hit a certain spot whether I wish for it or not. I'm irrelevant to the situation.

I understand that you can't have guilt for something that is out of your control, we can't make a hurricane hit. What I have issue with is WISHING for something to hit so that you can get personal enjoyment/thrill/whatever out of it. That is what I think is wrong about the whole thing. Without a doubt a hurricane hitting land will disrupt peoples lives, destroy property and possibly take lives in its path. That is not enjoyable or thrilling for anyone that it happens to.

To me this always sounds like "that's great if it happens, bring it on! just as long as it's not in my back yard".

[Zeus]

WEATHER53, on Aug 10 2007, 12:03 PM, said:

I think that hoping that a hurricane can intensify and take a track toward land and then impact land and thus the people, homes and businesses is a failure to have a poportionally moral outlook; your objectives are skewed.

Even when the target is Mississippi?

[HurricaneJosh]

goflyers, on Aug 10 2007, 09:38 AM, said:

Thank you WEATHER53, that was exactly my point from the get go. As much as we all love the weather, to get excited about a major hurricane hitting land so that you can chase it an be in the brunt of it, I think is crazy. I think some people would think differently if a major storm like that had a direct impact on their belongings or family members.

I think when most people are "chasing" that usually means that they are heading to some place that is not anywhere near their home, so the effects of the damage does not "hit home" with them.

You don't understand chasers. A chaser wants to be in it wherever it is.

The first big hurricane that I can remember-- Gloria 1985 (and the one I refer to in the first post of this thread)-- caused terrible damage to my family's property on Long Island, NY. Wilma 2005 really smashed up my grandparents' house in Boca Raton, FL-- I know because I spent the next three days after the storm with them.

But this is beside the point. The chaser's passion to experience violent weather is not tied to the location and whether it affects him/her personally.

You can disagree with it, but please don't presume to understand it, because I don't think you do.

[Derecho]

Eh, problem I have is the rank hypocrisy continually displayed - people interested in the tropics are the only ones that get sanctimonious lectures about "getting too excited."

This winter if the models show a gigantic triple-phaser people will happily get orgasmic and gleeful and look forward to it possibly happening like a kid at Christmas, without anyone reminding them the 93 Superstorm killed more people than Andrew and Hugo combined.

[Typhoon_Tip]

How about a bizarre system that only strikes rich people, like one of those tornado tales, where "...my neighbor's house was unscathed yet my mansion was demolished"?

Ever notice that a mansion has never been destroyed by a tornado? The reason is obvious: there are not that many mansions, so by shear weight of numbers in exposure, there is far lesser likelihood of one ever being directly impacted. But....man, provided no one was hurt...what I would give to see a mansion in a pile of rubble, with the Benz and Beamer wrapped around a girder three or four times.

Unfortunately, disconnecting destruction from death among nature's greater calamities is highly illogical. Sure there are rare events where a tornado sucks a mother with child in arms out of a dissintegrating home, heralds them through the atmosphere a few hundred meters, and somehow...by the grace of "god" ...they landed with only minor injuries.. Meanwhile, the house becomes molecular. As a realistic civility still meager enough to be ultimately determined by the quiescence of weather and climate, despite our hubris in the matter, that is just not the on-going expectation.

The irony is, science makes the big break-throughs in descovery at the boundaries of theoretical design. Example, about 10 years (or so) ago, there was a descovery that Cosmic Ray Bursters were not focused along the Galactic Plain as originally believed, but were evenly distributed about the sky. Moreover, the red shifts suggested that they were emanating from galaxies millions and millions of light years away. This defied Einsteins Theory Of Relativity. In order for the energies of the CRB to have traveled that far meant that there would have to be something fundementally wrong with the same theories, which made evaporating cities in WII all possible. Why? Because it was thought that the reports from the hyper-novi were broadcasted in every direction, which meant, more energy was being produced than the mass that contributed to the explosion. Oops.

Well, Martin Reese made the clever connection that the all-direction broadcast scheme was incorrect to begin with. As the birth of the Black Holes place detonated, virtually all the energy from the explosion was actually being compressed and focused along two narrow beams at the poles [later to become Cosmic Jets]. Running that new information back through the equations and once again, Einstein's wisdom held up to natural observation and everyone was happy.

But, the moral of that story is...the extreme had to be observed in order for the science to be tested. The same is true here, and...unfortunately, nature does not care if Humans are squeemish about disaster and loss. If we want to understand the merciless powers of Nature, one must observe the merciless power or Nature; the two are inexorably linked.

I think this is actually instinctual in Humans, hotwired in as a baser intellectual motivation shared by all. That is why gawkers have to hault the demography of an entire state at rush-hour, purely so they can get an eye-load of someone else's decapitated misery. Humans need to be connected to those extremes every so often in their experience bank, so as to be the better designers and engineers of the facets that will protect them and warn of certain dangers. Through that endeavor, new technologies are born... Eventually, in the far distant future, the integration of all that earned wisdom by all those who survived by the countless who suffered, delivers Humanity to a province of evolution's fate.

What that fate is, who knows? But, maybe one day we will be able to control the weather -- a scary proposition in its self. However, the point is, there would be no reality of Humanity ever controlling the weather, if the weather did not give impetus to stake that proxy to begin with. And, that comes in the form of killer hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, floods, lightning, hail...Earth quakes...dogs and cats living together ...and mass-hysteria.

I don't think that when discussion blossoms that sounds as though it is wanton of calamity, that is what is actually going on... I think it is the native, almost "instinctual curiosity" to observe nature at the boundary of conceivable rage. As a species of discoverers, there can be no other way.

Bring it on!!!

John

[WEATHER53]

Logan11, on Aug 10 2007, 12:46 PM, said:

Hoping for something isn't the same as making it happen. I thought about this years ago, but its pretty silly to feel guilt about something that you had so impact on. That hurricane is going to hit a certain spot whether I wish for it or not. I'm irrelevant to the situation.

I would say this is a rationalization disguised as an explaination. The discussion is about personal intent and not really weather outcome. I like the sound of firecrackers and gunfire. Yet, I cannot hopefully anticipate the sound of gunfire in my neighborhood and sluff off the fact that someone got shot by stating that my wishes had no effect on the outcome. It is the wish we are discussing .

[WEATHER53]

HurricaneJosh, on Aug 10 2007, 12:57 PM, said:

You don't understand chasers. A chaser wants to be in it wherever it is.

The first big hurricane that I can remember-- Gloria 1985 (and the one I refer to in the first post of this thread)-- caused terrible damage to my family's property on Long Island, NY. Wilma 2005 really smashed up my grandparents' house in Boca Raton, FL-- I know because I spent the next three days after the storm with them.

But this is beside the point. The chaser's passion to experience violent weather is not tied to the location and whether it affects him/her personally.

You can disagree with it, but please don't presume to understand it, because I don't think you do.

Your last sentence is foolish and smacks of someone who is pinned down to facing the reality but rather than deal with it elects to dismiss the countering point of view as presumptous.

[turtlehurricane]

WEATHER53, on Aug 10 2007, 01:01 PM, said:

Your last sentence is foolish and smacks of someone who is pinned down to facing the reality but rather than deal with it elects to dismiss the countering point of view as presumptous.

Your beating around the bush.

[WEATHER53]

Typhoon_Tip, on Aug 10 2007, 12:59 PM, said:

How about a bizarre system that only strikes rich people, like one of those tornado tales, where "...my neighbor's house was unscathed yet my mansion was demolished"?

Ever notice that a mansion has never been destroyed by a tornado? The reason is obvious: there are not that many mansions, so by shear weight of numbers in exposure, there is far lesser likelihood of one ever being directly impacted. But....man, provided no one was hurt...what I would give to see a mansion in a pile of rubble, with the Benz and Beamer wrapped around a girder three or four times.

Unfortunately, disconnecting destruction from death among nature's greater calamities is highly illogical. Sure there are rare events where a tornado sucks a mother with child in arms out of a dissintegrating home, heralds them through the atmosphere a few hundred meters, and somehow...by the grace of "god" ...they landed with only minor injuries.. Meanwhile, the house becomes molecular. As a realistic civility still meager enough to be ultimately determined by the quiescence of weather and climate, despite our hubris in the matter, that is just not the on-going expectation.

The irony is, science makes the big break-throughs in descovery at the boundaries of theoretical design. Example, about 10 years (or so) ago, there was a descovery that Cosmic Ray Bursters were not focused along the Galactic Plain as originally believed, but were evenly distributed about the sky. Moreover, the red shifts suggested that they were emanating from galaxies millions and millions of light years away. This defied Einsteins Theory Of Relativity. In order for the energies of the CRB to have traveled that far meant that there would have to be something fundementally wrong with the same theories, which made evaporating cities in WII all possible. Why? Because it was thought that the reports from the hyper-novi were broadcasted in every direction, which meant, more energy was being produced than the mass that contributed to the explosion. Oops.

Well, Martin Reese made the clever connection that the all-direction broadcast scheme was incorrect to begin with. As the birth of the Black Holes place detonated, virtually all the energy from the explosion was actually being compressed and focused along two narrow beams at the poles [later to become Cosmic Jets]. Running that new information back through the equations and once again, Einstein's wisdom held up to natural observation and everyone was happy.

But, the moral of that story is...the extreme had to be observed in order for the science to be tested. The same is true here, and...unfortunately, nature does not care if Humans are squeemish about disaster and loss. If we want to understand the merciless powers of Nature, one must observe the merciless power or Nature; the two are inexorably linked.

I think this is actually instinctual in Humans, hotwired in as a baser intellectual motivation shared by all. That is why gawkers have to hault the demography of an entire state at rush-hour, purely so they can get an eye-load of someone else's decapitated misery. Humans need to be connected to those extremes every so often in their experience bank, so as to be the better designers and engineers of the facets that will protect them and warn of certain dangers. Through that endeavor, new technologies are born... Eventually, in the far distant future, the integration of all that earned wisdom by all those who survived by the countless who suffered, delivers Humanity to a province of evolution's fate.

What that fate is, who knows? But, maybe one day we will be able to control the weather -- a scary proposition in its self. However, the point is, there would be no reality of Humanity ever controlling the weather, if the weather did not give impetus to stake that proxy to begin with. And, that comes in the form of killer hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, floods, lightning, hail...Earth quakes...dogs and cats living together ...and mass-hysteria.

I don't think that when discussion blossoms that sounds as though it is wanton of calamity, that is what is actually going on... I think it is the native, almost "instinctual curiosity" to observe nature at the boundary of conceivable rage. As a species of discoverers, there can be no other way.

Bring it on!!!

John

Bring what on. Wind and water driven death and destruction?