Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Never Stop Chasing
Mother Nature is currently treating Central Floridians to the 2026 hurricane season, with El Nino conditions, according to our local weathercasters. So, with rain pounding on the roof and the thunder-lightning show appearing on an almost daily basis, I thought it would be apropos to settle into my favorite spot and watch a new documentary, Never Stop Chasing.
The film features the startling exploits of Reed Timmer, the extreme meteorologist you may know from Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers. He’s also written several books on the subject of tornadoes, based on his own experience chasing them through the U.S. Bible Belt.
When I asked some of the meteorologists here at work if they knew of Timmer, they all said, “yes, and he’s a little crazy”, or something to that extent. Which is certainly the feeling you get while watching the documentary. Though I’ve been lucky enough to escape being battered by winds so strong they can almost pick up “The Dominator”, the Ford F350 modified with special ground-anchoring hydraulics in which Timmer and his crew of adrenaline junkies crisscross the 'breadbasket' of America, I’ve still seen many of the after-effects of the storm's fury. Roofless homes. Apartment complexes with their facades ripped off so completely that you can see into the rooms of each unit, from the outside. Bodies covered in tarps. Massive flooding.
The effects of extreme weather conditions can be horrific and deadly to those it touches. Never Stop Chasing continually reminds us of the untamed, unexpected brutality that pulverizes the ground when a ‘debris ball’ touches the earth, kicking up everything as it carves a path through tornado alley. Timmer and his crew, throughout multiple scenes featuring their obvious joy and pure giddiness at watching ‘science in motion’, also stress the necessity for safety protocols for anyone in their line of work. However, it’s clear to me that the ‘birth’ of a tornado is the rush for which these storm chasers live and breathe.
Since I’m not a meteorologist, and occasionally the film gets into the weeds of the phenomenons, I wanted to get some insight into whether the doc was accurate in its depictions and story-telling. So I asked my friend, Cam Tran, Meteorologist at WESH 2 News here in Orlando, to get her take on the film. She told me “it was spot-on with what meteorologists use every day.” I also asked her about some of the terms Team Timmer tosses around which I didn’t grasp, and Cam said, “I remember hearing RFD, rear flank downdraft, PDS, particularly dangerous situation … which is what (meteorologists) use when we track supercells during tornado warnings.”
Twisters are the legendary stuff of Oz, but they live on Earth, and have been documented on other planets. The angry roar of a tornado running rampant in the film is quite a beast - wild and uncontrollable. Seeing The Dominator rolling into a Kansas farmland must be akin to watching Jim Cantore, in his Weather Channel slicker, deplaning in any metropolitan city. Something wicked this way comes, and Mother Nature is about to have her way with you.
I give immense kudos to the drone operators on the film, who provide some spectacular seat-of-your-pants footage. What Cam and I also appreciated is the film's ‘book-ending’. Never Stop Chasing opens at the somber memorial of storm chasers who lost their lives while doing what they loved; it ends in the same location, but it means even more to the viewer now. After following the unspooling events across the nation, you’ll appreciate their sacrifice all the more. These people, and their dedication to both science and safety, afford us the ability to save lives and protect livelihoods.
Hopefully, the science they use will one day be able to minimize the devastation, in terms of lives and property, that weather events like these wreak on the world. Timmer may eventually hit the brakes and turn his seat over to a younger generation, but storm chasers will never stop chasing their atmospheric dreams.
