Extreme Meteorologist Dr. Reed Timmer talks about his storm-chasing sidekick Gizmo as well as his top "Gizmoments."
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 You've seen him here for years on AccuWeather, intercepting monsters of tornadoes, reporting from the eye walls of massive hurricanes. Take a listen.
00:08 Right now I'm still on Panama City Beach, standing in front of all kinds of damage that we are seeing just like this.
00:16 Extreme meteorologist Dr. Reid Timmer is known for embedding in some of the most severe weather storms in U.S. history so he can research, report, and warn others before natural disasters strike.
00:30 But what you might not know about Reid is that his longtime storm chasing sidekick is Gizmo, a 15-year-old Yorkie who has been storm chasing with Reid for her entire life, clocking hundreds of tornadoes.
00:45 And as you can see, Gizmo is used to all kinds of severe weather. I suspect that Gizmo likes the air blowing in her face.
00:54 Yes, I love that.
00:55 Joining us to talk about storm chasing with Gizmo and all the best Gizmoments, get it?
01:02 I do.
01:03 Is Dr. Reid Timmer and his sidekick Gizmo. Reid, always great to see you.
01:08 Great to see you too.
01:10 Alright, well with this quiet weather pattern lately, what are you and Gizmo doing? Are you guys bored? What have you been up to?
01:18 We're never bored. Gizmo and I always have activities that involve extreme nature and we're taking a little bit of a breather after this crazy 2023 season with so many tornadoes and chasing the hurricanes as well.
01:31 And it's fall color season down here in the southern Appalachians, so Gizmo and I have been checking out some of the beautiful colors up there in the high country up in the Appalachians, up above about 5,000 feet.
01:43 We were up there just the other day checking out some of those beautiful fall colors.
01:47 And Gizmo's done a lot of leaf peeping over the years too. It's one of our favorite activities.
01:51 She's done a lot of it in the Rocky Mountain West as well, seeing the bright gold aspens during the fall.
01:58 And now we're out here at my mom's place. Gizmo's in a little bit of a pseudo retirement.
02:02 She still storm chases for the really big events, the big outbreaks and hurricanes. Chases a lot of cats as well in my mom's backyard.
02:09 But mostly this time of year we're just doing a lot of leaf peeping up in the southern Appalachians.
02:14 Reid, I need you to know that every time Gizmo comes on camera you get sighs and gasps from everyone here in the studio.
02:19 What a cutie!
02:21 In 15 years together, Gizmo has been through hundreds of storms, more than most people could ever say.
02:28 Can you share some of your favorite Gizmo-ments?
02:31 Yeah, and Gizmo's trying to tell you herself right now too. She's fighting it out, just even talking about the storm chasing.
02:38 But definitely one of the biggest moments we had when we were storm chasing was in McCook, Nebraska in 2019.
02:44 It was about May 17 and that was a really active tornado year as well.
02:48 Gizmo had a little pink cast, she had a peg-leg cast because she happened to broke a bone in one of her paws.
02:54 And we were chasing that tornado and it developed right on top of us.
02:57 And we were actually in the Dominator 3, our armored storm chasing vehicle.
03:01 We were just outside of it looking up at the storm and the beautiful structure.
03:05 And then it touched down right in a plowed field just to our south.
03:09 And manure was lofted up, there was a big dirt cloud coming right at us.
03:12 And the dirt cloud, the tornado, ended up hitting us directly when we were outside of the vehicle.
03:17 My AccuWeather hat went flying off to the north.
03:19 And I ended up protecting Gizmo in my bread basket, just holding her like that as the rear inflow jet came in.
03:25 Big winds, probably 80 to 100 miles an hour right behind us.
03:28 Gizmo was totally, totally fine from that situation.
03:32 And I was covered from head to toe in manure on that day.
03:36 So that was probably one of our most intense storm chases.
03:39 And the second one was a big hail producer in the Pecos Valley of Texas.
03:43 That was in 2020, toward the beginning of the pandemic.
03:46 And that one, a big wall of baseball-sized hail came in.
03:49 We call it "guerrilla hail."
03:51 And it blew out most of my windows, cracked every single window.
03:54 The back windows were all blown out.
03:56 And Gizmo was actually pretty upset with me after that storm chase.
03:59 She doesn't like the hail, the noise that the hail makes.
04:02 And it does seem like we're seeing hail a lot more in recent years.
04:06 But probably the biggest chase Gizmo has ever been on was Category 5 Hurricane Michael.
04:12 And she rode through the high wall with me.
04:14 We were providing that coverage for AccuWeather in Panama City Beach, right on the eastern tip there.
04:19 And we probably had winds gusting over 150 miles an hour.
04:23 Gizmo enjoyed the whole thing.
04:25 We had the sunroof open because the wind was so strong, none of the rain would fall into the vehicle.
04:29 And Gizmo loved every moment of it.
04:32 I think she just likes to be along for the ride.
04:34 Well, it sounds like you've had at least three close calls.
04:37 Any other close calls with Gizmo?
04:40 Well, they may seem like close calls, but we had it completely under control the entire time.
04:46 One time she jumped out of the vehicle when a tornado was trying to come down.
04:50 She was so excited that a tornado was about to happen.
04:52 I think she had to pee in that situation because we were in the car for a long time.
04:56 And a tornado was about to touch down in Montana.
04:59 That came relatively close.
05:01 Gizmo's chased for about 13 years.
05:04 I started her storm chasing at about 2 years old, so she's seen it all.
05:08 And what may seem like close calls, Gizmo and I had the situation totally under control.
05:14 You're just talking about how long Gizmo's been doing this with you.
05:17 Did you have to do any training?
05:18 How do you get a dog ready to go chase a tornado?
05:22 Well, Gizmo was one of the first dogs to really storm chase, too, so we were kind of winging it.
05:27 We had a playbook to really learn how to take your dog storm chasing safely.
05:31 But she was born in Enid, Oklahoma, right in the heart of Tornado Alley.
05:34 We got her, and she was just a little nugget, just a really tiny little dog.
05:38 And initially we didn't take her storm chasing because we didn't think it was very safe.
05:42 And one time I brought her to McDonald's, and there was a jogger running by.
05:45 And she ended up jumping out of the car, did a Superman dive, did a little roll, and started running after the jogger.
05:51 So I was worried about taking her storm chasing that she might try to jump out of the vehicle at times.
05:55 But a couple years later, when she was about two years old, she was always so upset when we'd go storm chasing
06:00 and wanted to go along with us.
06:02 She'd make a big deal every time we'd go out of the door to get in the Dominators and to do a storm chase.
06:07 So we knew that Gizmo wanted to be with us.
06:09 The desire was there.
06:11 And when we started taking her along for the ride, she just loved every second of it.
06:15 She loves meeting other storm chasers on the road.
06:17 She has a great memory.
06:19 She'll meet a storm chaser like five years prior and then see that storm chaser for the first time.
06:23 And you can tell that she remembers the person, too.
06:27 So there's camaraderie out there.
06:29 All the storm chasers like to visit with Gizmo, too, because she's such a legend in the storm chasing world.
06:34 And over the last 15 years, Gizmo has actually intercepted over 200 tornadoes, a handful of hurricanes,
06:40 including a Category 5, and even some flash floods and debris flows in the Mountain West.
06:45 And she's been through 48 states and three Canadian provinces.
06:48 So she does a lot of traveling and likes to hike, too.
06:52 She does a lot of nature trails.
06:54 She's walked around Lake Louise.
06:56 She's seen all kinds of crazy natural phenomena.
06:58 We actually got kicked out of the Mount Rushmore National Monument four years ago.
07:04 Can't even bring small little dogs like Gizmo in there.
07:07 But we've just had a great time over the last 15 years.
07:10 And even though Gizmo is in pseudo-retirement now, I still think there are more tornado intercepts on her horizon.
07:15 Who's the better meteorologist, you or Gizmo?
07:19 Gizmo, definitely.
07:21 - Gizmo's got that natural instinct.
07:22 She was born with it.