Reed Timmer Timmer has been chasing storms for more than 20 years, since his first tornado encounter in northern Oklahoma as an undergraduate meteorology student. During that time, he drives more than 50,000 miles on the road every year, encountering countless tornadoes and learning more about extreme weather each time. “We still don’t fully understand what goes on inside a tornado,” says Timmer’s tracking partner, weather journalist Edgar O’Neill.
Enter the Dominator. This is the third generation of the custom-built tornado traveler that Timmer first introduced in the late 2000s. The current Dominator has an F350 chassis, weighs 10,000 pounds, and can withstand the debris, smashing hail, and 150 mph winds that accompany the most powerful storms. Timmer says his “holy grail” is to drive the Dominator within a quarter mile of a tornado and launch a sensor-laden rocket directly into the center of the tornado. Timmer has already accomplished this once. In May 2019, the rocket tracked the vortex’s pressure drop and frigid air temperatures. Next year, his team hopes to launch dozens of rockets simultaneously into the swirling updrafts of the tornado’s “inlet notch.” But even if the rockets all fail, the Dominator will still be packed with its own sensors to capture valuable scientific data. “That’s the whole point,” O’Neill says. “You can launch a probe into a tornado or you can become the probe itself. That’s what Dominator is.”
