Spin Cycle - To study tornadoes, it helps to wear a skirt (and rocket launchers).

To study tornadoes, it helps to wear a skirt (and rocket launchers). When the Dominator is about to intercept a tornado, Timmer uses a two-prong system to anchor the vehicle. Air compressors lower the car so its thick rubber skirt nearly touches the ground, and spikes wedge 6 inches into the earth to firmly prevent the vehicle from liftoff. Timmer and ONeal have seen roughly 65 tornadoes in the past six months. It was a historic amount, ONeal says. A lot of meteorological setups are busts, but every day we drove out this year, we felt like we would see a tornado.

- By Matt Giles - Photograph by Reto Sterchi

Reed Timmer has been chasing storms for more than two decades, since he intercepted his first tornado in northern Oklahoma as an undergrad majoring in meteorology. During that time, Timmer, who typically logs more than 50,000 miles on the road each year, has intercepted countless tornadoes, each one helping to further his extreme-weather knowledge. We still don't completely know what happens inside a tornado, says Edgar ONeal, a weather journalist