From the earliest experiments in tornado interception in the 1960s and 1970s, simple consumer vehicles—cars and passenger vans—played a crucial role as transportation technology to enable atmospheric scientists to reach the traveling field sites of developing severe storms. As interception continued to take a central place in severe storms research, scientific storm chasers outfitted their vehicles with methods for gathering increasingly sophisticated data. Chase cars evolved from straightforward methods of transportation, carrying researchers into the field, to hosts for increasingly lab-like forms of data gathering. These began with simple instruments for measuring atmospheric data and continued with experimental objects such as the University of Oklahoma’s TOtable Tornado Observatory (ToTO) and the development of mobile Doppler. The National Severe Storms Laboratory’s 1994-1995 VORTEX project depended on a fleet of vehicles, each outfitted with technology for gathering data for an unprecedented coordinated severe storms research project. Similarly outfitted vehicles continue to bring new lab-like technology for data gathering and analysis into the field each spring. This paper takes a close look at the chase car as an evolving—and overlooked—form of technology in severe storms research.

