Three veteran storm chasers among those killed by Okla. tornado
Updated 3:15 p.m. ET
EL RENO, Okla. Three veteran storm chasers were among the 10 people killed Friday night when a violent tornado barreled into the Oklahoma City metro area.
Jim Samaras told The Associated Press on Sunday that his brother Tim Samaras was killed. Tim Samaras' son, Paul Samaras, and another chaser, Carl Young, also died.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the men were involved in tornado research. They traveled the Great Plains in search of bad weather, hoping to warn people ahead of tornadoes and to help meteorologists understand the natural disasters.
The three died Friday night near El Reno when an EF3 tornado with winds up to 165 mph hit the Oklahoma City area during rush hour.
"They put themselves in harm's way so that they can educate the public about the destructive power of these storms," Canadian County Undersheriff Chris West said of the men Sunday after Oklahoma's governor turned out to view damage in his area.
In one of his last interviews, Tim Samaras told National Geographic he went out on more than a dozen storm hunts every year during storm season, and that they especially focused on Oklahoma.
"Oklahoma is considered the mecca of storm chasing. We know ahead of time when we chase in Oklahoma, there's going to be a traffic jam," he said.
Samaras, an engineer by training who designed a revolutionary tornado-measuring system, said his work was largely driven by the ongoing mystery of tornadoes and their origins.
"We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't. We're trying to collect as many observations as possible, both from outside and from the inside [of tornadoes]," Samaras said. "If we better understood some of the final mechanisms for tornado genesis, our forecasting will be greatly improved."
Tim Samaras had appeared on the Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" show until last year.
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"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Samaras his son Paul and their colleague Carl Young. Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families," Discovery Channel spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg said.
The channel planned to dedicate a show Sunday night to the three men, capping the broadcast with a tribute that will read: "In memory of Tim Samaras, Carl Young and Paul Samaras who died Friday, May 31st doing what they love, chasing storms."
In a statement, the National Geographic Society said: "The National Geographic Society made 18 grants to Tim for research over the years for field work like he was doing in Oklahoma at the time of his death, and he was one of our 2005 Emerging Explorers. Tim's research included creation of a special probe he would place in the path of a twister to measure data from inside the tornado; his pioneering work on lightning was featured in the August 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. Though we sometimes take it for granted, Tim's death is a stark reminder of the risks encountered regularly by the men and women who work for us."