El Reno Tornado Analysis - Understanding a Chase Tragedy

This is a series of animations and video analyzing the May 31, 2013 El Reno, Oklahoma EF5 tornado and storm chaser movements around it. In addition to mobile radar measurements that suggest this was the widest tornado on record, also notable of this event is that several groups of storm chasers were impacted by the tornado resulting in damage to vehicles, injuries, and deaths. Using a series of radar animations, synchronized video of the storm, and plots of the tornado and chaser positions, this video is an attempt to understand what happened during this event and what went wrong. Focus is centered on the GPS positions of four groups of chasers that were impacted by the tornado including Brandon Sullivan and Brett Wright, Mike Bettes and his crew from The Weather Channel, Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young, and Dan Robinson. The video ends with storm and tornado footage synchronized to the radar and vehicle GPS position.