This episode of Coffee with the Council is brought to you by our podcast sponsor, Feroot.
Welcome to our podcast series, Coffee with the Council. I'm Alicia Malone, Director of Communications and Public Relations for the PCI Security Standards Council. Today, I am so excited to bring you a sneak peek interview with PCI SSC's North America Community Meeting Keynote Speaker, Reed Timmer.
Dr. Reed Timmer is an extreme meteorologist and storm chaser, who specializes in intercepting the most powerful storms on the planet to collect valuable scientific data. You might know him from the Discovery Channel reality television series, Storm Chasers, as well as from the documentary film, Tornado Glory, and in the television series, Tornado Chasers. Graduating with a PhD in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma, Timmer is not only a hardcore storm chaser, but also a scientist driven to unravel the mysteries behind these destructive storms and how they are changing over time.
I am delighted to have you join us today, Reed, and he is coming to us as he is chasing a storm right now. And so, he is in his Dominator vehicle. And, Reed, happy to have you here.
Reed Timmer: Thank you so much for having me right in the rocket seat of the Dominator 3.
Alicia Malone: That is amazing! I'm so excited, I feel like I'm riding along with you. So, Reed, I've just introduced you as a meteorologist, a storm chaser, a scientist, an inventor, but I'm curious, how do you define yourself? What title best suits you?
Reed Timmer: Well, certainly a storm chaser or an extreme meteorologist. I like to be out in the field. I like to see the tornadoes up close and personal, if not from the inside, and also record scientific data inside of the tornado. That's the whole purpose of the Dominator vehicle that I'm inside right now. It's a tank-like vehicle that gets inside of the tornado, and we can measure data inside, like wind speed and thermodynamics, and better understand these powerful tornadoes from the inside.
Alicia Malone: So, I'm always interested to hear how people like you find their way into something like storm chasing. Did you always want to be a meteorologist? What is your story? How did you get started in this whole realm?
Reed Timmer: Well, starting at about the age of five, I've been obsessed with severe weather, and I had a tornado experience growing up in Michigan back in 1985. And ever since then, I've just been really passionate about storms and the science of storms. And I definitely grew up a major science nerd, too. I was in the science Olympiad all through school. I collected insects. I identified trees. I was into herpetology; snakes and lizards, things like that.
But weather was always my deep-rooted passion, and I would always wait for severe weather to arrive. And once I got my driver's license, I realized I didn't have to wait for it to come to me anymore and I could drive after the storms and experience a lot more severe weather. And then I moved to Oklahoma to study meteorology, and to storm chase, and saw my first tornado in 1998 during a big fall outbreak as a freshman down there. And then I saw an F5 from underneath an overpass later that spring, as my first experience up close to a tornado, and I’ve been chasing storms ever since. Non-stop, driving about a hundred thousand miles every year, and now we're actually on our way to west Texas for a storm chase later on today.
Alicia Malone: Wow, that is so amazing and so exciting. What do you enjoy most about what you do and what do you find are also the biggest challenges that you encounter?
Reed Timmer: Well, I definitely love being a naturalist and seeing all the scenery out here. We have the beautiful scenery of Tornado Alley right now as we're driving through Oklahoma toward west Texas. But I love seeing the storms and the tornado genesis process up close - sometimes from underneath and looking up at the base of the storm - and you see that clear slot cut into the mesocyclone tightening up the rotation. And then you see the tornado descend down on top of you. It's just incredible that the combination of instability and wind shear in the environment can create this perfectly organized supercell storm that's just the perfect balance of inflow and outflow and organizes into a tornado vortex. But also, a vortex that causes so many problems is the dark side that they leave behind. That's the damage and destruction and definitely mitigating risk out here constantly is a big thing that we do as storm chasers, especially when we're trying to get inside of the tornado in a tank-like vehicle like the Dominator. But all of those things - the challenges of surviving the tornado, recording the data inside of it - provide a better understanding of something that does cause a lot of problems here in Tornado Alley and beyond now.
Alicia Malone: You talked about mitigating risk and, in cybersecurity, we talk a lot about that - identifying and analyzing risk to reduce damage from future threats. Storm chasing, in a way, seems to also follow a similar principle: studying storms to understand and mitigate their impact. Can you walk us through how storm chasing helps achieve that goal and how it compares to risk mitigation maybe in the cybersecurity world?
Reed Timmer: Yeah, there are so many parallels between our different communities, and that's why I look forward to speaking with the PCI Security Standards Council at Fort Worth coming up this fall in September. And we are constantly mitigating risk out here as storm chasers, in the short term and in the long term, just intercepting tornadoes, reading the sky, seeing how strong the tornado is in real time. That's what we're trying to do with our science mission as well - by launching rockets into these tornadoes and air cannons and miniaturized sensors - is we're trying to get a real-time intensity estimate of the tornado so that we can warn people downstream and so that we can take certain precautions, as well, on our end when we're intercepting the tornado. And there are so many parallels between cybersecurity, your industry, and preventing potential threats, whether it be a tornado or a computer virus, things like that.
So, there are just so many parallels between our industries. Even right now, we're trying to mitigate risk just by driving down the road, keeping it between the mustard and the mayonnaise, going down I-44 toward our target area. When we're intercepting the tornado, we have penetrating spikes that go into the ground that anchor us to the ground inside of the tornado. So, we use those methods depending on the tornado intensity. And just a couple of weeks ago, we were inside of a tornado, and I failed to deploy the spikes, and the tornado actually rotated us 100 degrees inside of the tornado. So, that was an example of a breach in our security, a little bit there against the tornadoes, but there are definitely lots of parallels. And I really look forward to discussing those coming up at our event in September in Fort Worth.
Alicia Malone: That is some fascinating stuff. Yes, very exciting.
Alicia Malone: Well, another thing that is really prevalent in our industry, and growing in many industries, is AI. It's artificial intelligence. It's really shaking things up, including weather forecasting. So, when it comes to storms, how is artificial intelligence helping us predict them more accurately or earlier than before? Are there any exciting examples of AI making a tangible difference in storm tracking or disaster preparedness?
Reed Timmer: Yes, we have just seen a rocket ship in AI in our community, and meteorology, and forecasting, and in storm chasing. And there's a lot of products that we use these days. One is the NATO cast that's based on artificial intelligence. Our forecast models are approved with AI as well. I know the European model is definitely improved in its accuracy using AI techniques. And, even in our videos, we're using things like voiceovers. We're using artificial intelligence to improve our video editing and video production. So, you definitely need to stay ahead of the curve in our industry, and in cybersecurity, using AI to try to improve our storm tracing and our forecasting of these dangerous storms.
Alicia Malone: Well, we are very excited to see you on stage this fall as our keynote speaker at our North America Community Meeting in Fort Worth. I know you touched a little bit about risk mitigation, but without giving away your keynote, can you give us a little sneak peek at what we might expect to hear from you? What do you want audiences to take away from your presentation?
Reed Timmer: Well, the title of my presentation is ‘Never Stop Chasing’ and that doesn't only pertain to storms. I'm going to talk a lot about intercepting the tornado, the art of getting inside of the tornado. I'm going to talk about what it feels like to be inside of a tornado with a pressure fall and almost getting concussion-like symptoms from the pressure fall inside of a tornado when you're getting battered by those 200-mile-per-hour winds. I'm going to talk a lot about the overlaps between our different communities, cyber security.
I'm going to have the Dominator on hand too. I'm driving it down from Oklahoma for the event, so you’ll be able to see the Dominator 3 in person. We might even launch a rocket out of the parking lot if safety permits out there. But I look forward to at least deploying the hydraulics in the parking lot. And we've dropped the outer shell of the vehicle flush to the ground which prevents the wind from getting underneath and keeps us anchored down inside of these tornadoes.
But I look forward to telling a lot of stories about my storm chasing career, 30 years of storm chasing now, and I'll probably even share a story from later on today when we intercept a tornado down here in west Texas.
Alicia Malone: Amazing! Oh, my goodness, I cannot wait to see this Dominator in person in Fort Worth. Well, Reed, since you are on Coffee with the Council, we like to ask our guests how they take their coffee or, if you're not a coffee drinker, what do you prefer instead?
Reed Timmer: I drink my coffee black, so I don't have any sugar products in there or anything. I just like the raw taste of the bean. You know, just a straight coffee. Sometimes I'll start it off with a double shot of espresso.
Alicia Malone: Ooh, for that extra punch. Well, that’s great. Thank you so much for joining us on Coffee with the Council, Reed, and we look forward to seeing you at the Community Meeting this fall.
Reed Timmer: Alright, thank you so much for having me and never stop chasing!
Alicia Malone: You can catch Reed on stage as the keynote speaker at PCI SSC's North America Community Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, September 16-18. Registration is now open on our website, and we hope to see you there.
This episode of Coffee with the Council is brought to you by our podcast sponsor, Feroot.
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