Exploring our fascination with nature's extreme fury
With the rise and growth of technology, it has become easier than ever to document extreme weather events and natural disasters.
While some people go out in search of extreme weather, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, the popularity of social media and streaming platforms has also made it easier to share their experiences with others anywhere in the world. There is no lack of storm chasers and documentaries online, recording and compiling footage of tornadoes and hurricanes from up close for their dedicated fan bases.
The current age of livestreaming means that people can also experience extreme weather in the moment, from the comfort and safety of home.
Therefore, it can easily be said that there is a general interest and fascination in watching these events unfold. Countless videos, documentaries, and livestreams of them can easily be found through an online search.
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But why do we like to watch extreme weather events unfold so much? Is it for the thrill, out of pure fascination and interest?
A study published by Simon Dickinson in the journal Environmental Hazards sought to find out what makes people want to watch extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, occur.
By monitoring the comment section on livestreams from Hurricane Irma (2017), Hurricane Ian (2022), and the 2022 UK Storms, Dickinson found that feelings of solidarity seem to be what drive many people to watch extreme weather unfold on livestreams.
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Many people expressed their own personal connections and experiences to the places being affected and would watch the livestreams in empathetic and supportive solidarity with those affected. Viewers would post comments retelling stories of their own past experiences.) in the locations, connecting with those impacted through their disconnection.
Additionally, those that were committed to watching the streams in their entirety would often show notions of personal solidarity, wanting to experience the full event with those affected while hoping nothing catastrophic happens. In these cases, people weren’t there to watch disaster happen, but rather in hopes that it didn’t happen.
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That’s just people watching from a screen, though, often thousands of kilometres away. There is another group of people, however, who take their fascination with nature’s fury a step further: storm chasers.
Storm chasers are those who go looking for extreme weather, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, and experience them firsthand. They provide valuable information to the meteorological field, gathering data and visual evidence of extreme weather and its impacts, despite the extreme danger.
The Weather Network’s own storm chaser, Mark Robinson, likens storm chasing to storytelling. The story builds around the anticipation of setting up to head out on the chase and approaching a storm in hopes that it will produce something spectacular. When chasing tornadoes, the climax of the story comes when a funnel reaches out from the sky and touches the ground below, becoming a full-fledged tornado.
Robinson says he feels privileged to be able to experience those stories firsthand and believes the storytelling aspect of storm chasing is part of why people are so interested in watching it.
He also stated that there may be so much of an interest in watching extreme weather and storm chasers simply because it’s fascinating and easy to watch. The weather is a prominent subject in day-to-day life—there are no politics involved, so watching extreme weather may give people an easy-to-digest break from the rest of the world.
Thumbnail was previously created using imagery from Canva.
