Tales of a Storm Chaser by Chris Bell
Chris is Chief Communications Officer and Forecaster at Weatherquest Ltd, a commercial weather forecasting and analysis company based in Norwich. He is also a Lecturer in Meteorology at the University of East Anglia, lecturing on meteorological topics across Year 1 and Year 2 modules in Environmental Sciences at UEA, specifically the Atmosphere and Oceans, first year module, and Weather and Weather Applications modules in second year. He is a part time weather presenter for BBC Look East and a public speaker for Meteorology and Climate related topics.
Chris came originally from Houston in the American south but now lives in Norfolk at Foxley.
He is a 'storm chaser' and weather photographer and it is those trips to the Great Plains of America which formed the kernel of his talk. There is no doubt that he is addicted to understanding and analysing the weather, he was quick to explain that as a child of 4 he can remember being fascinated by storms and vowing that he would spend his life working with meteorology!
His job at Weatherquest raises an important question 'Who pays for the research and work?" Well, a surprising number of people are prepared to pay for weather information because wind and rain and sun have big effects on their businesses. Chris gave us a list; agriculture, broadcasts on TV and radio, newspapers, renewable energy suppliers including offshore wind farms, utility companies, flooding predictions, ports such as Felixtowe and local authority road gritting. Those are some of the people who really need to know what the weather is going to do.
Chris moved on to hurricanes and tornados, {apparently more are recorded in the UK than America but, they are very much smaller than those in America) and super cell thunderstorms. Here he showed film of his storm chasing team at work and gave some sound advice on who to take with you and what equipment is needed.
He rounded off his presentation with a series of time lapse videos and still photographs. These pictures would frighten anybody! They seemed to represent the last judgement, Armageddon. There was something comforting hearing Chris give logical explanations of what was happening in the pictures, even though in some cases he pointed out the possibility of the risks to life.
Chris, our thanks for an enthralling evening and keep up the good work!
