I have the Discovery Channel Storm Chasers show on for background while working on something else. I don’t purposely watch this show normally but when it happens to be on, I leave it on because it is interesting.
After two episodes in a row I started thinking, they really need to tie all of these Storm Chasers together in a network to assist each other. They all have common goals of filming tornadoes and gathering scientific info to help us understand this dangerous but surprisingly beautiful phenomena. I visualize a GPS / Google Maps network application that all of the storm chasers log into. They all constantly upload their positioning information from GPS into the application. They have the ability to mark up the map with bridges that are out, bridges that are listed as out that aren’t, trees blocking the roads, etc. The Doppler On Wheels (DOW) trucks could mark the actual tornadoes and other important weather items on the map. All of this is constantly updated in real time so all of the storm chasers have the best info on how to get to where they need to get to and to be safe and gather the information and film footage that they are looking for.
The drivers of the vehicles get to watch this app so they can see their own position and the other marked items easily. Heck it could be running on an iPhone, I regularly use my iPhone to figure things out with Google Maps. It was immensely useful when I went to North Carolina over Thanksgiving.
It doesn’t take all of the competition out of the experience as the whole thing is still based on your ability to figure out where tornadoes may pop up and get into the best position to do something about it but I think it could make it all the more better overall and likely safer. I wouldn’t think it would be all that expensive either. On top of it, you could get make this application available to normal people and News Stations so that they could have more info on where the dangerous tornadoes are and where they seem to be going. Of course you likely could have some idiots that take their Ford Fiesta out and try to chase the storms themselves but there isn’t anything stopping them from doing that already…
joe
