See more of Jim’s pictures and videos at his site cyclonejim.com
Jim saw his first real tornadoes May 28, 1975 in the Texas Panhandle. He and his chase partner and saw one to their north, but a second much larger tornado formed alarmingly close to their south and began to chase them
Later that season, on June 6, near Freedom, Oklahoma, He was lucky enough to take the first known motion picture of an anti-cyclonic (clockwise rotating) tornado in the northern hemisphere.
Now he was hooked on the dual passions of tornado and hurricane chasing, and bringing back my quarry on film. Ever since, he has thought nothing of hopping the next plane to any place in the world where he might have the chance to experience nature’s most powerful displays.
Some of Jim’s other personal and filmed highlights include Hurricane Gilbert, the strongest Atlantic storm on record, Hurricane Hugo, caught in both Puerto Rico and Charleston, South Carolina, and numerous tornado encounters, including a mile-wide monster near Allison, Texas in 1995, and another mile-wide tornado near Perth, Kansas in 1997.
His video footage has been featured in National Geographic’s “Cyclone!” on NBC, the CBS special “Forces of Nature,” “Tornado Video Classics” by Tom Grazulis, the Discovery Channel’s “Raging Planet,” the Weather Channel special “The Chase,” plus many commercials. In addition, I contribute video and eyewitness accounts of land falling hurricanes to the National Hurricane Center Storm Surge Unit.
A veteran extreme weather adventurer and journalist, 