That image is the new promotion graphic for the Channel 4 weather team. I'm not sure why they look so disappointed. I think they were either trying too hard to be serious or they know you just spent 20-minutes today looking at Internet porn. It has to be one of the two.
The Mountain Dew drinker pictured on the far left is Reed Timmer. He's the station's new bionic storm chaser. Mike Morgan announced yesterday that Reed will be the guy to replace longtime KFOR weather sidekick "Daredevil" David Payne.
Reed is actually a well-known celebrity in the storm chasing world. He's starred in a reality show, has 65,000 Twitter followers, and even has his own Wikipedia page. Here's his bio:
Reed Timmer is a meteorologist and professional storm chaser who starred in the now canceled American documentary reality television series Storm Chasers. He also starred in the documentary film Tornado Glory.
Timmer became interested in the weather at a young age after experiencing a severe thunderstorm that reportedly dropped golf ball-sized hail in his yard. After winning the national championship in the tree identification event at the 1996 Science Olympiad, Timmer began studying meteorology at the University of Oklahoma in 1997. In October of that year, he filmed his first tornado. He earned a B.S. and M.S. at OU and, as of March 2010, is a Ph.D. candidate.
So not only can provide the strength, size and track of a tornado, but he can tell you what trees it destroyed, too. That's impressive. The only thing David Payne could do was smell pine.
In addition to all that, Reed rolls around in an armored vehicle called Dominator 4. No, I'm not making that up. I think the vehicle was made in a secret underground lab by Morgan Freeman.
Here are a few pics:
Yep, that's the Dominator. It's a super weather chasing machine with spikes, a roll cage and impenetrable armor. Well, kind of:
In 2008, a tornado in Aurora, Nebraska unexpectedly strengthened right over the Dominator and blew out the driver's window, when its exterior Lexan window failed to roll up. Designer Reed Timmer and one of his passengers suffered lacerations to the face from flying glass.
Okay, so maybe it's not perfect, but that car would still get you a ton of tail in Moore or Mustang.
Anyway, I didn't watch a lot of KFOR's weather coverage last night because I was transfixed on the train wreck at Channel 9, but this has the potential to be a game changer. I bet when Channel 9 stole David Payne away from Channel 4 they just figured Mike Morgan would huddle up in the corner with his bedazzled weather tie and cry. Instead, Mike rebounded like a seasoned player. It's like he showed up at his cheating ex's wedding reception with two European models draped in his arms. Kudos to him for that.
Even though Channel 9 won last night's rating war, I think things are about to get competitive again between our two severe weather leaders. Hell, Channel 9 couldn't figure out who was supposed to talk or how to work their giant iPad, whereas Mike Morgan had a guy driving around in a car with spikes and Emily Sutton lecturing us on how to post storm information on social media. Normally a lecture like that would be irritating, but considering we'd watch Emily Sutton read the list of ingredients found in a bag of chips, we can deal with it.
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