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The National Severe Storms Laboratory (top right) in Norman, Oklahoma, houses the Storm Prediction Center, the source for severe-thunderstorm and tornado watches for the nation. Those entities, the Norman office of the National Weather Service and University of Oklahoma meteorology programs are scheduled to move into the new National Weather Center (lower right) in late summer 2006. The professionals who work at these centers sometimes chase storms for research. Many dedicated storm chasers spend time in the Plains during storm season, though very few can call chasing a full-time job. Below are some of the chasers I have met, a small fraction of those who chase storms. Click on the photos or the links to check out their home pages (if the chaser in question has a site), where you can learn a lot more about storms and see some fantastic images. If you have a link to update, please e-mail me.

Betsy Abrams is a Weather Channel meteorologist who chases with Matt Crowther.

Kinney Adams is a chaser and aspiring filmmaker based in Wisconsin.

Shane Adams is often heard on chaser message boards.

Jay Antle teaches college-level history in Kansas. He calls his car "Haildodger."

Mark Aubin is a chaser and French-horn player who moved to Florida from California.

Richard Bedard is a journalist who wrote the book "In the Shadow of the Tornado."

Witty and enterprising Matt Biddle, the F5 force behind Moderate Risk Chase Services, is easily spotted in his super-cool El Camino chase vehicle.

Scott Blair is a storm chaser from Arkansas.

Aaron Blaser is originally from Kansas and is a TV journalist.

Greg Brenneman, from Arizona, chases in Arizona and in the Plains.

Keith Brown is a chaser and meteorologist who's chased with the Doppler on Wheels team.

Cheryl Chang was one of the chasers who saw the fatal 1998 Spencer, S.D., tornado.

Chris Collura, a South Florida chaser, belongs to the Weathervine chase team.

Casey Crosbie is forecasting for SPC. He deployed the DilloCam (see Charles Edwards' bio) in the path of a tornado.

Matt Crowther is a forecaster for the Weather Channel who chases with Betsy Abrams.

Jon Davies is a meteorologist from Kansas.

Glenn Dixon lives in Texas. He and his wife, Bronwyn, began chasing in 1997.

Chaser Charles Edwards runs Cloud 9 Tours. He also built the original DilloCam (see Casey Crosbie's bio) and more sophisticated successors.

R.J. Evans is a chaser based in Norman, Oklahoma. See his site for pictures of the May 3, 1999, tornado outbreak.

Dave Fogel is a writer as well as a chaser.

Jeff Gammons, a South Florida chaser, is a member of the Weathervine chase team.

Dave Gold takes tourists storm-chasing on his Silver Lining Tours.

John Guyton is a firefighter and photographer, as well as a chaser.

William T. Hark is a doctor who lives in Virginia. He has storm, butterfly and comet photos on his web site.

Roger Hill, a Colorado chaser, gained an almost legendary reputation in 2000 for his numerous tornado sightings.

David Hoadley is one of the pioneers of storm chasing.

Linda Kitchen and Kathy Velasquez, from Arizona and California, respectively, are widely known as the original "twister sisters."

George Kourounis is a Canadian who chases in a souped-up Honda CR-V.

"Cyclone Jim" Leonard marked 25 years of chasing tornadoes and hurricanes in 1998. His car was totaled by hail in 1999. He's also a mean barbecuer.

Dave Lewison, an engineer from New York state, can build almost anything with duct tape.

Texas chaser Martin Lisius (whom you may have seen in a truck ad) and Californian Bill Reid launched Tempest Tours in 2001.

Amos Magliocco writes chase accounts with flair.

Steve Marshall is one of the guys you'll see behind the wheel of the lead chase vehicle of the Great Lakes Severe Storm Chase Team.

Tim Marshall (no relation to Steve) lives in Texas and edits the well-known chaser magazine Storm Track.

Scott McPartland is a chaser from New York who may counsel against quaffing too many energy beverages.

John Moore is a chaser from Arizona.

Pennsylvania chaser Brian Morganti often hits the road with his wife, Nancy.

Lee Nicholas chases with a group of Central Florida storm chasers.

Dave Patrick and Kristy Randall chase in their Ontario homeland and in Tornado Alley.

Jason Persoff is a Florida chaser and physician known as the Storm Doctor.

Albert Pietrycha is a forecaster and storm researcher.

Arkansas chaser Jason Politte tips big when singers perform "Yellow Rose of Texas."

Mark "Rocky" Rascovich is a chaser and sometimes host of storm chaser picnics.

Gene Rhoden is a Plains chaser with a forest of antennas on his vehicle. His photographs of storms are stunning.

Mark Robinson is a chaser and writer from Canada.

Allan Rosenberg created The Gilbert Zone, a comic about storm-chasing that was renamed Negative Tilt after the corporate moguls of The Dilbert Zone threatened legal action.

Dave Sills is an Ontario storm researcher and chaser.

Gerry Singer is a pilot as well as a chaser. He lives in Colorado.

Steve Sponsler lives in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and heads for the Plains for tornado season. He's experienced several hurricanes.

David O. Stillings is a Florida chaser who calls himself the Lightning Stalker.

Susan J. Strom is a superb lightning photographer whose canvas is the Arizona desert.

Mike Theiss lives in the Florida Keys and built the Super-Cam, a.k.a. the Theiss-Device, in hopes of putting it into a tornado.

Mike Umscheid is a chaser from Kansas.

New York's Peter Ventre has often chased tornadoes with Scott McPartland.

. Tom Warner, a former Air Force pilot, flies a storm research plane and has many beautiful photos on his site.

Keen weather links

These are only a few of the many that are out there. Many of the chasers noted above have copious numbers of links on their sites, but here are a few to get you started.

• Storm Track, a chaser magazine
• Online Tornado Museum
• Edmonton Tornado 1987 (photos and memorial)
• Spencer, S.D., tornado (NSSL page)
• The Tornado Project
• WeatherMatrix
• The Nebraska Storm Chaser Page
• Texas Severe Storms Association
• TORRO: Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (UK)
• Australian Severe Weather
• Tornado Team Utrecht (Netherlands)
• Dutch Storm Chase Team
• Gene Moore's Chase Day (excellent and educational)
• Sam Barricklow's Storm Chase Home Page
• Dave Crowley's Stormguy.com
• Cailyn and Jennie Lloyd's Tornadoes of Wisconsin
• Mason's Maps Weather Links
• Stormgasm.com (Jim Bishop, Simon Brewer, Tom Santillo)
• WeatherNet weather cams
• Storm Prediction Center
• National Severe Storms Laboratory
• VORTEX (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment)
• National Hurricane Center
• Tropical storm and hurricane info/FEMA
• National Climatic Data Center
• National Weather Service
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Spaceflight Meteorology Group
• The Weather Channel

Remember the town that was blown away in "Twister"? The filmmakers bought several buildings in Wakita, Oklahoma, fixed them up and knocked them down in a swirl of debris. That includes Aunt Meg's lovely home. Now the town (what's left) houses the tiny Twister Museum in a faux "Auto Parts Store" that was an office for the filmmakers. This water tower should look familiar if you saw the movie. (Just imagine Van Halen wailing in the background.) Find out how water towers work on the "How Stuff Works" site.

If you missed Sky Diary's gallery of storms and wild skies, click here.