8B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2005
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Kansas produces more than just wheat. For some KU students, life in the middle of tornado alley couldn't be more perfect.
By Robert Perkins, Jayplay writer
Spring
Spring is in the air. The birds are chirping, the grass is green and the flowers are blooming. It all means one thing: Tornado season is approaching, and Darin Tornado couldn't be happier.
Brunin, a Rossville sophomore in meteorology, is the kind of guy who runs to his car instead of to the basement when tornado sirens wall. He's a storm chaser. Along with about 10 other KU students and Lawrence residents, he spends his spring roaming the Great Plains in search of storms, particularly storms with tornadoes.
Brunin's love for storms began on April 26, 1991—he can rattle off the date without hesitation. That spring day he saw a small tornado pass by his house and has been fascinated by them ever since. He started chasing toward the end of his high school career and has been doing it ever since. Last year he went on 14 chases, spotting a photographically confirmed nine tornadoes. His average is pretty good, considering how difficult finding a tornado can be.
"It's not like Twister," Brunin says. "You
cannot just turn a corner on a road and have a tornado there." Chases can last for hours or even days, and spotting a tornado is never guaranteed.
It's still exciting, but not for the reasons that most people think. He and fellow chaser Stuart Manning say that their real drive to chase doesn't come from the adrenaline rush that being in harm's way can provide, but from their fascination with storms. Manning, Washington senior, says that he likes the challenge of trying to find the storms and get in the right position to see them clearly. Brunin, on the other hand, says he is captivated by the machine-like complexity of storms. Both say that storm chasers' potential to save lives by warning news stations of tornadoes 'whereabouts also helps.
While Brunin doesn't make any money from his chasing, which can cost him $40 to $60 per charge (he avoids staying in hotels to save some cash), he does have a deal with the television station, WIBW in Topeka to get reimbursed for his gas money if he provides them with footage of tornadoes.
Veteran chaser Roger Hill, 47, of Denver
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