Paul is chasing storms across the USA

Imagine the adrenaline rush of following tornados across America every summer just for fun! Not many would have the courage nor the gumption to do such a thing, but student meteorologist Paul Downes is doing just that and assures us that it's nothing like the film 'Twister'.A native Mullingar man, Paul grew up on Russellstown Stud and while he is still very much involved in the family business, he is now following his dream of becoming a meteorologist, studying that very subject at the College of duPage in Chicago.As you can see from some of the accompanying photos, Paul is an avid photographer but perhaps this is because his fascination lies in the unpredictable nature of the storm."There's still a huge question mark over what causes a tornado. We can forecast the weather that generally might produce a tornado and some days you might get big outbreaks out of nothing, so it's important to find out what that little key ingredient is that causes them," explains Paul.This fascination was first borne, he tells us, when his old primary school teacher in Curraghmore, Mr. Egan, taught his students how to forecast the day's weather.In 2003, Paul spotted an online ad to go storm chasing in the US and immediately jumped at the chance. He has been hooked on the subject ever since."It was always a dream of mine to do this. When you're a kid, you're scared by thunder and lightning, then that grows into a mixture of awe and respect for what mother nature can do," says Paul."That first week storm chasing was probably the best week of severe weather ever recorded. I think there was about 406 tornados in the space of seven days. It was the biggest outbreak of tornados in one week in the US, but looking back we didn't have a clue what we were doing!" he adds.However, that trip yielded a chance meeting with a professor from the College of duPage, where he is now studying meteorology and he still holds fond memories of that first trip: "Everything was frightening but exciting at the same time. We saw one tornado at night time go through Oaklahoma City on May 10. We chased that in the night time which was not a good idea."The following year Paul travelled from South Dakota to Nebraska, way up into Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada on a ten-day storm chasing trip, which he says was the real clincher: "I learned an awful more on that trip regarding what was going on with the weather as opposed to being a yahoo chaser, which is a lot of what's going on in America at the moment. It really stoked my interest to learn more and from then on I wanted to study meteorology."Monster TornadoIn fact Paul was storm chasing the time a monstrous tornado ripped through Greensburg in Kansas in 2007. It destroyed over 1000 homes and businesses and killed eleven people.With wind speeds of roughly 205 mph, the storm was an incredible 1.7 miles wide and destroyed 95% of the town of Greensburg with significant damage in the remaining 5%. The tornado was on the ground for 28.8 miles. This particular tornado was an eye opener for Paul:"Greensberg was one of those tornados that made you stand back and go, you know - we might enjoy this as a hobby but that town was destroyed. It also brings out the scientist part of you that asks what went on, what caused that particular tornado to be so destructive. That day was a 'moderate risk day' . It came out of nothing really, suddenly the storm just changed," he remembers.Twisters in Kilbeggan and Global WarmingPaul, who is home for the summer, is researching the story that the first ever recorded tornado is reported to have occurred in Rosanella, Kilbeggan on April 23, 1054."It's interesting that it could have occurred so close, but then we get them here from time to time, they're not that big but they do happen."So how does Paul feel about the whole idea of global warming?"People look at the weather a lot more now and I think this is the problem with the global warming idea. People see something different and attribute it straight away to global warming," he says."I won't say I don't believe in global warming but we don't have enough evidence to say that it is actually global warming or that's just a trend in natural variability of the weather," he explains."For global warming, they look at the High/Low temperatures around the world. In Ireland for instance, we have a lot of local rural stations closing down over the last number of years, like for example Birr, which has always been the coldest station in the country but is now closed down."So now what are the Irish temperatures going to say only that Mullingar is the coldest probably, yet it's going to be slightly warmer than it was before so it's got to be global warming!"This is happening all over the world, rural stations are closing down. The stations that were built in the cities, or slightly outside the cities, have now been built up around so you get what they call a heat island - the temperature picks up a little bit. So everywhere is starting to get a temperature just a little bit higher, so how you can say the world is heating up when you don't have a really good way of monitoring it."The weather is changing, there is no doubt about that, but then weather always goes through different phases and patterns, I'm not saying that there isn't global warming. There may well be but for scientists to come out and say there is global warming I just think it's somewhat politically driven," Paul concludes.For more information on the above, you can contact Paul at vortex.p@hotmail.com or check out more of his photos online at http://s870.photobucket.com/albums/ab262/vortexpaul/