Twister chasers, page 2
You may have figured out by now that the average person, unthreatened by imminent flood, hurricane or blizzard, would usually have no reason to watch The Weather Channel any longer than it takes to get to an "8." Yet The Weather Channel is so brain-suckingly hypnotic, it's hard to turn it off. The Weather Channel uncannily duplicates that false sense of security and order you experience on a commercial airliner. The On-Air Meteorologists (the vast majority of whom are white -- make of that what you will) have that airbrushed flight-attendant look and speak, brightly but not too perkily, with vaguely Southern accents. (The Weather Channel emanates from somewhere in Atlanta, although it's not part of the Turner empire.) They eschew the buffoonery of local news weatherpeople and use technical terms like "isobar" and "coalescence" a lot, which makes you feel like they know what they're talking about, even if you don't.Best of all are the busy maps that form the channel's ever-changing backdrop. The world seems pleasingly small and manageable when you're watching The Weather Channel. You can keep track of the weather anywhere, and even if this knowledge is useless, at least you feel like, hey, nothing can get by you. The Weather Channel has created an illusion of closeness for family and friends who are separated by geography. "Hey, how's the weather out there?," begins my weekly, surreal conversation with my East Coast-based dad. "Nice, in the 70s." "It's 81! The Weather Channel said it's 81 in Frisco! Doesn't it feel like it?"
The Weather Channel's slogan is "We have the best weather on Earth," which automatically makes you think of sunshine and caressing breezes, but that's not what The Weather Channel means -- "The Most Telegenic Weather on Earth" would be more accurate. The Weather Channel courts armchair rubberneckers with copious footage of hurricanes, typhoons, lightning storms, blizzards, hail, floods and (stretching the definition of "weather," but what the heck) earthquakes and wildfires. But the undisputed star of The Weather Channel is the tornado.
Tornadoes find their way into almost every Weather Channel promo and many of the regular segments (like "Spring Storm Update" and "WeatherScope"). If there weren't any twisters today, there might have been some yesterday, and you can see them on the week-in-review segment "Rewind." Tornadoes were the subject of the Weather Channel specials "Enemy Wind," "The Chase," and "Target Tornado" (now available on home video for just $19.95!), as well as the channel's most recent greatest-hits video compilation, "Tornadoes '95."
Tornadoes now occupy the place in American culture that sharks and dinosaurs did, circa "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park." They're objects of admiration and terror, something monstrous made by nature, not nightmares. No wonder Spielberg caught the tornado bug.
But while the special effects of "Twister" may lift the cinematic tornado way beyond "The Wizard of Oz," Hollywood can't take credit for the movie's human element -- storm chasers. There are thousands of storm chasers out there playing chicken with twisters for purposes of scientific research, photojournalism, kicks, or a combination of all three. And their home video footage invariably finds its way into programs like "Tornadoes '95" and "Savage Skies." All of which raises the jackpot question: Is the public obsession with tornadoes driving the current "weathertainment" phenomenon, or is The Weather Channel's relentless hyping of tornadoes driving the obsession? After all, tornadoes are to The Weather Channel what fires, murders and train wrecks are to local TV newscasts. You've heard the adage, "If it bleeds if leads." On The Weather Channel, if it blows, it goes.
Truthfully, though, tornadoes are thrilling and spooky and awesome to look at (loss of life and property notwithstanding). With other forces of nature, like hurricanes and earthquakes, you see the effect of the thing, not the thing itself. But tornadoes are towering, swirling, glowering beasts that reach down from the sky to touch the ground. They're the closest thing to space aliens -- and Biblical visions -- we have.
In a world increasingly vulnerable to the sudden horror of terrorist bomb blasts and madmen with assault rifles, there's something oddly reassuring about tornadoes and other forms of violent weather. These are what used to be called "acts of God." They can be terrible and devastating, but they are not truly random or unexpected. They're supposed to happen. We can't control the weather. But at least we can understand it.