Adding video to channels (Eia) - requested by Mordhaus.

That's some impressive shit there.

I'm not sure it's EIA, they seem to be actual tornado chasers, not just people who happen to be in the area.

And tornado chasers die just to get a picture.

^ I think most of them are getting more than a picture.

They may say they chase for different different things(pictures and videos maybe some science), but without the rush i doubt most of the would be interested. It's not hard to find that type of stimulation addictive. That's just my guess.

Wow. That was almost 'Trump-voter' level stupid.

Yeah, it must be jaw-dropping to be dwarfed by such majesty and power in person.

Also, *promote because this is easily the best footage of a tornado I've seen to date, and stuff like this is priceless for artists looking for reference.

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, May 7th, 2016 9:27pm PDT - promote requested by artician.

I'm pretty sure I heard a child worriedly saying "Dad" at 1:08...as in 'Dad, what the F are you doing?'
Even if they are 'actual tornado chasers' (which doesn't mean they have any training or even common sense, just a camera and a wish to get storm pictures), they are clearly driving a normal street vehicle, not an armored storm chaser vehicle, so driving into the edge of the tornado was just dumb. They were incredibly lucky to survive that without major injury.
So, maybe not actual EIA, but certainly attempted EIA...especially if those ARE his children with him.

*wheels

Adding video to channels (Wheels) - requested by ant.

Insane 360 video of close-range tornado near Wray, CO... has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

Although hail and debris can be an issue, I felt they were keeping a safe distance. Not all storm chasers are trying to get INTO a tornado, which the tanks you're talking about typically are used for. Some of them get around the vehicle damage problem by renting a car.

I got the impression the "child" was a woman and talking on a radio to other people in the group.

Dunno, I thought this was pretty impressive close up footage:

http://videosift.com/wtf/video/Tornado-Video-Shot-as-Home-is-Destroyed

!
I really don't think 50 ft from what looks to be at least an F3 is "safe distance", but that's just, like, my opinion, man. ;-)
I really hope the rental car insurance doesn't cover driving into a tornado. In Iceland, rental car companies offer a separate coverage for wind damage (hail, sand, debris, etc) but it's NOT covered with just the basic insurance normally offered.

I think you're not getting the distances correct. At 1:42 they're about a quarter mile off, look at the buildings to the right and the telephone poles. When you can finally see the heavy equipment trailer blocking the road, again, at least a quarter mile.

Prairies are difficult to guess distance at the best of times, let alone through video, and that twister is so out of the ordinary as to be completely useless for distance measurement. At one point it almost looks like it's hovering 10ft off the road, but it's illusory and much farther away.

I was looking at around 1:05 where it looked to be about 5 highway lines away, less than that if you count the metallic flying debris as the edge (and I do).
EDIT: Also at 1:11 (incredibly hard to pause at the right frame, but it's there), they are well under 50 ft from the piece of sheet metal that was flying across the road. You can see it flying in at 1:08.

Did the one guy say, "I'm about to run out of gas"? So let's see: driving towards a powerful tornado with your head out the window while debris is whipping around and you're running low on gas so you can't get out of the way if it turns on you or an injury requires you to book it to a hospital. Seems totally safe to me!

With that said, that is some awesome footage and one of the few tornado videos where the "stormchasers" aren't either crying, swearing, or screaming. I might actually be able to show this to my kid with sound for once!

I heard it as the twister ran out of gas (i.e. dissipated).

Thats Reed Timmer. He was one of the 'stars' of the Discovery show, Storm Chasers. He does a LOT of tornado research using doppler, probes, uav's, etc. He has a Ph.D. in meteorology. Very interesting guy and has done a lot for progressing storm safety and early warning systems.

Steve Irwin kept a safe distance from nature too, sometimes you get unlucky. The more times you take your chances the more opportunity to roll snake eyes and get the bad end of things.