Three students of meteorology from the University of Oklahoma died in a car accident in Oklahoma on Friday night on their way back from Kansas, where they were chasing a storm, according to the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.
The students were identified as Nicholas Nair, 20; Gavin Short, 19; and Drake Brooks, 22
The three were traveling south on Interstate 35 in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, near the Kansas border when their Volkswagen Tiguan was seaplane and disabled, blocking the outer lane, according to the Department of Public Safety. A truck crashed into the students’ car, pushing it for more than five hours before their bodies were removed by emergency services. The students were found dead on the spot. The driver of the truck was taken to a nearby hospital and released.
Just hours earlier, two of the students, Mr. Nair and Mr. Short, posted on Twitter videos of Herrington, Can., About 150 miles north, in a tornado crossing the highway.
The students were part of a larger group of students from the University of Oklahoma who traveled to Kansas to chase the storms, according to Philip Ludwick, a lieutenant on the Oklahoma Highway Patrol who helped pull students out of the vehicle. While the other student cars were returning to Norman, Oklahoma, they saw that Mr. Nair’s GPS location, Mr. Short, and Mr. Brooks were frozen, and called the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to report a possible incident. , Mr. Ludwik said.
“It was raining very hard at the time,” he said.
Dangerous road conditions can often lead to accidents when storm chasers head for or away from a storm, he added.
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“Sometimes you can have thousands of chasing storms trying to keep up with a storm so that the traffic just gets too congested so that accidents happen,” Mr Ludwick said. But he said there was little traffic at the time of the incident.
In 2017, three chasing storms were killed in a crash near Spur, Texas, about 70 miles east of Lubbock, while chasing a tornado. Two of the men, Kelly Williamson and Randall Jarnal, were known for their appearances on Storm Wranglers, a Weather Channel show.
Sarah Raffel, a meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma who was friends with the three, said by telephone that friends from their group had gathered on Saturday night to comfort each other as they covered the news.
She had formed a storm chase group with the three of them, whom they called Metcrew Chasers, a name that came to them on a cold snowy night during their first year. They made name stickers decorated with hook-shaped weather radar that was red, orange and green – symbols they would proudly display on their computers or cars.
Mara Davis, a meteorologist at the University of Oklahoma who was also friends with the students, said by telephone on Saturday night that everyone in the meteorological cohort was close and formed a “group of 20 best friends.” On Saturday, she sent messages to friends to come to her apartment so they could be together.
For most of the evening, Mrs. Raffle and Mrs. Davis remembered their friends: how Mr. Nair, who was described as cheerful and sociable, would sing a little song in his great voice, which he hoped to use. as a broadcaster one day, a good choice because he was a bad cook, his friends joked.
How Mr. Short, whose most recent research project was on hurricanes, was “the smartest man,” Ms. Raffel said she had met someone who wanted his friends to succeed.
And how Mr. Brooks, late for the friendship group, had quickly won everyone over with his quick wit and love of all things meteorology, especially forecasts.
“Their passion for time and just safety for everyone and love for the whole world – they were just loved so much,” said Ms. Raffel.
Daniel Carter, a friend of the group who also studies meteorology at the university, said via Facebook on Saturday that they were planning a candlelight vigil next week.
The University of Oklahoma College of Atmospheric and Geographical Sciences said in a statement Saturday that its community is “very much a family” and that its members are “deeply saddened.”
“Our leadership and faculty are ready to support each member of our community for days, weeks, and months as we all mourn this unthinkable heart,” the college said.
On Saturday night, the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma, posted a video on Twitter showing a weather balloon with students’ names written on it.
“On this very sad day in the Norman Meteorological Community,” said the Meteorological Service, “our evening weather balloon is dedicated to Nick, Drake and Gavin.”
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