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Riding the wild wind

Keeping up the chase with Jesse Hawila

By Jim Mount

Fort Wayne Reader

2014-09-23

If you've ever talked to someone who's passionate about their job, you know it. Details and experiences come out in a whirlwind of exuberance and excitement. Jesse Hawila is such a person. Talking to Hawila it’s obvious that he loves what he does and is living his dream.

You may know Hawila here locally as the weekend meteorologist at WANE. But he’s also a storm chaser, one of those people who go out looking for the baddest of the bad meteorological concoctions.

You've probably seen Twister, the 1996 Bill Paxton movie about a group of storm chasers and researchers on the hunt for the perfect tornado. Or maybe you've seen the Weather Channel where these authentic chases are documented. Watching these shows you may wonder what it's like to be in the hunt for something so unpredictable and dangerous or what drives these people to chase after them. It's a job that can be dangerous but ultimately rewarding and beneficial. And, from Hawila’s perspective, it’s also a responsibility he has to the public.

Hawila, 24, is animated about his job and wastes little time in describing what it is about chasing storms, studying nature and living the life of an on-air meteorologist, “I've always wanted to be a meteorologist,” Hawila says. “It's been in my blood since I've been knee high to a grasshopper, it's the only thing I've ever wanted to be. I live weather, I breathe weather and have always been that way since grade school.” Aside from his primary focus on meteorology and the weather, Hawila has extended interests that tie into the environment as well. He describes himself as a huge monarch butterfly enthusiast and advocate,.“”I've raised them from eggs and caterpillars since I was in the third grade,” he says. “It's a nerdy hobby for a 24 year old to have but I love the little critters!”

Hawila, a native of Houston, moved to New Castle, Indiana where he went to New Castle Chrysler High, graduating in 2008. After high school he enrolled at Ball State University where he graduated in 2012 earning a B.S. in meteorology and climatology. While still in school, Hawila's future career began to take shape,

“I became a storm chaser while still in college in 2009,” he says. “Ball State has a storm chase team and that's what got the ball rolling. Our mentor, Dr. David Call, has many years chasing experience and taught us the hows, whys, dos and donts.”

From there, Hawila and his colleagues started a yearly/multiple-time-per-year tradition of their own. “After learning proper chase etiquette and more about severe weather /mesoscale meteorology, we ventured further and further west for more serious storm chasing,” he says. “Storm chasing in the plains is another ball game. I frequently make trips to the plains during promising severe weather outbreaks to chase. With a full time job now, it's not quite as easy, but I still find the time. It's funny really... I take vacation days to go do more job related activities.”

Although it may sound thrilling to chase what could be considered a rare and spectacular weather event, Hawila dispels the notion of being in it for thrill seeking. For one, it’s not all thrills. “Honestly, for every 2 hours of action and intense chasing, there's usually about 10 hours of driving in the sun and heat,” he says.

But returning to the “thrill-seeking” question… “Being a storm chaser is something I take very seriously,” Hawila says. “It's a dangerous and life-threatening activity, but something I do to understand and learn more about my science. Textbooks teach you the ideal situations of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is NEVER ideal. Storms and severe weather hardly ever behave the way they ‘theoretically’ should.”

Having said that, bearing the proper safety procedures in mind, Hawila admits to mixed feelings when on the chase, “It's thrilling, it's exciting, exhilarating, scary, and sad in some instances. Every time I consult and group-forecast with my chasing partners about a potential large outbreak (almost always in the plains) I get goosebumps and chills. Seeing new data every hour, every 6 hours, and then different data every 12 hours leading up to the event builds the excitement and dread... yes dread. When I see charts, maps, and diagrams of data that exemplify the perfect severe weather/tornado outbreak (Joplin, Moore, El Reno, even Kokomo) I get excited to see the power of Mother Nature and sad knowing what will inevitably happen. Every time there's a big outbreak likely in a populated area (which can usually be figured out a few days in advance) I get upset because I know there will inevitably be homes destroyed and sometimes lives lost. It's an uncontrollable force.”

With today’s technology, it’s also a somewhat predictable force, though not quite an exact science. “Meteorologists can give an area where tornadoes are likely days in advance,” Hawila explains. “But exactly where in that area a tornado will touchdown, how long it stays on the ground, how violent it will be… that’s something we can't know until the minutes and seconds before the tornado strikes.”

The danger and unpredictability of storm chasing couldn't be illustrated more clearly than the spring of 2013 when a tornado took the lives of storm chaser Tim Samaras, his photographer son Paul, and meteorologist Carl Young. One of the widest tornadoes ever recorded, called a “Wedge” tornado, it occurred near El Reno Oklahoma. Measuring at 2.6 miles across and packing winds at 305 miles an hour, the tornado was violent and deadly. A combination of factors contributed to the tragedy — the transparency of the outer circulation of the tornado, poor road traction, the simultaneous unexpected sharp turn of the tornado, the widening of the tornado from 1 mile across to 2.6 miles as well as a sudden acceleration in its forward movement, from 20 mph to 60 in 30 seconds.

The tragedy led some to question the wisdom of getting so close to a tornado, but according to Hawila, with the proper precautions and equipment — including a radar that can paint the flow of the tornado — such risks are necessary and for the public good not only for a better understanding of tornadoes but to provide effective warning for whoever may be in its path, “The public can benefit by getting a real, live look at what a severe storm is actually doing,” Hawila says. “It also gives a more detailed forecast. Hearing there's a tornado warning for Allen County won't phase many at risk anymore. But by being in front of that severe storm and showing its behavior and exactly what it's doing, where it is, and where it's going, people may start taking warnings more seriously. Also, I can give such an accurate look at who is and will be affected. For example, I could be chasing a tornado on the ground and I can report in real time that, say, the tornado is on the ground at the intersection of Lima and DuPont and moving east at 30 mph. This gives a VERY good example of who is most at risk. This helps viewers by getting them to be more serious about warnings and even gets them to actually enact safety plans.”

Hawila continues: “I've seen numerous destroyed communities while chasing in the plains over the last several years. It's never easy to see.”

Being prepared and having the right tools is important in any sphere of meteorological activity but even more so when out in the field pursuing a phenomena that is both constantly moving, unpredictable and dangerous, “When I chase,” “I have a laptop with radar data and weather analysis tools,” Hawila says. “I also have a camera for live feeds. Also, you need a lot of maps. Chasing in an unfamiliar area is dangerous enough, but not knowing at all times where you are and what direction the road you’re on takes you could be fatal. While chasing a severe storm, you don't want to find yourself on a road that curves around and puts you in the wrong place.”

Hawila had a close recently. In Nebraska, near Omaha, Hawila and a fellow storm chaser were driving east, staying ahead of a storm that had history of producing tornadoes. Their radar was showing strong rotation. With the storm looming close behind, they hit a slick dirt/mud road — worse than driving on ice. The two were faced with the choice of either keeping east on the dirt road at a slower speed, hoping the storm jogs a little north, or head west, back towards the storm, and hit the paved road they knew wasn’t too far away. They chose the latter option, making it to the north-south paved road and shooting south away from where the rotation. Their vehicle was rocked RFD winds (rear flank downdraft) that Hawila estimated to be 70-80 MPH.

Overall, a pretty terrifying situation, and one where knowing exactly where they were, what direction they were going, and having a handy map of the road network probably saved them for, as Hawila puts it, “…a whole lot of trouble.”

With that experience in mind, this brings Haliwa to observe about the mixed bag that storm chasing has become. Although fundamentally important in regards to better understanding and predicting violent weather as well as providing as much warning time as possible to affected areas, Hawila sees a danger with thrill seekers. “Chasing is become a HUGE hobby for people, some with absolutely no training, and it's creating major problems in the plains states especially,” he says. “It creates congested roadways making it difficult for emergency personnel to respond to calls. It even blocks chasers from what might, at some point, be a necessary escape route from severe storms.”
But the storm chasing community itself, he says, consists of a lot of curious minds. “Some of it is becoming very competitive too but most of the time it's a great community of those who look out for each other.”

To the untrained eye, meteorology may seem like an exact science that can forecast exact results. Hawila maintains that it isn't and experiences some pains when people expect too much from meteorology, “It’s upsetting.” Hawila says when people fail to understand, “This is NOT an exact science. We’re dealing with a fluid and gaseous medium that is undergoing microscale to planetary scale changes ALL the time. The amount of fine details one has to look at to make a forecast is amazing.”

Working in the broadcast medium, one common complaint received is about program interruption for weather forecasts, some of which in areas not affected by incoming storms. Hawila underlines the importance of an inconvenient weather bulletin interrupting programs, “We truly only cut into programming when we feel property or life is at stake because of severe weather. It’s or duty. Some get angry because it doesn’t affect them at the time. I just hope people understand that, for some, we are the only source of warning. It’s vital to let ‘Town X’ know there’s a severe storm with history of 75MPH winds and damage reports heading in within the next 15 minutes. It may not be your town, but there are families that still live there and need to know of the impending danger. Also, if radar shows signs of rotation and a storm becomes a tornado warning, no program in the world is more important than warning people of the danger heading their way. I’ve seen my fair share of towns heavily damaged and some even destroyed by severe weather. I always say, it would only take a person who complains ONE TIME to see for themselves the devastation severe weather can cause, and they’d never complain again. We have homes who watch us in Angola, Wabash, Van Wert, Cecil. Every single hometown matters just as much as the rest.”

In the life of a storm chaser, Hawila finds his motivation everyday in the constant and fluid phenomena that is the weather, “I've seen tornadoes, large and destructive hail, intense wind, some of the craziest cloud structures you could imagine (which are absolutely gorgeous), ferocious lightning, and it all amazes me every single time. The power, the uncontrollable but predictable nature, the way everyone is affected, the challenge, the ever-changing discoveries and advancements in this field and the respect I have of weather's fury is just awesome.”