Biography
Tim Samaras was born on November 12. 1957 in Lakewood, Colorado. Where he lived for all of his life. He was married to a woman named Kathy Videtich when he was twenty-four and had three children named Amy, Jennifer, and Paul. Tim's obsession for severe weather when he saw the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz with his brother Jim and it electrified him. He didn't care about anything else in the movie except for that one and only scene.
When Tim was six or seven years old, he would sit in his room and take apart record players and radios to see how they worked. He took apart televisions, telephones, toasters, you name it, he's taken it apart to see how it worked. He father put a newspaper ad saying, "Boy wants old radios and TV's." Immediately old radios and TV's poured into the house as Tim ripped the electronic guts out of them to see how they worked. He loved nothing better than to sit in his room all alone and take apart anything to see how they worked. At night, when there was a thunderstorm, his parents closed the curtains because they thought that Tim would be afraid. But Tim asked them to open the shades so he could watch the lightning.
In second grade, he noticed a horrendous rainstorm moving outside of the classroom; it got so dark that the streetlights came on. He stood up and told the class that there might be a tornado coming, but his teacher told him to shut up and sit down. He wasn't his teacher's favorite student. It did turn into a violent storm, but no tornado. His meteorological prophecies were ignored and unrewarded.
At nine years old he saw his very first funnel cloud near his house in Denver and chased it into a neighbor's backyard, climbing up on a swing set for a better look. It was all perfect. No one was telling him to shut up or sit down, he was all alone watching a tornado develop in peace.
At twelve, he found his dad's old ham radio manuals, studied up and aced the test. In his room he had high- voltage wires crisscrossing the room like crime scene tape.
At thirteen or fourteen he built a ham radio transmitter out of an old World War II transmitter with giant vacuum tubes.
At fifteen , he started sending out Morse code, but the system was so basic it caused the neighbor's TV to go haywire.
At nineteen to twenty, he finally started coming out of his shell, making a fearlessness attempt to become more of a social being. The most amazing thing with Tim is that he never went to college and he didn't need to. He self taught himself to engineer and research weather.
When Tim was six or seven years old, he would sit in his room and take apart record players and radios to see how they worked. He took apart televisions, telephones, toasters, you name it, he's taken it apart to see how it worked. He father put a newspaper ad saying, "Boy wants old radios and TV's." Immediately old radios and TV's poured into the house as Tim ripped the electronic guts out of them to see how they worked. He loved nothing better than to sit in his room all alone and take apart anything to see how they worked. At night, when there was a thunderstorm, his parents closed the curtains because they thought that Tim would be afraid. But Tim asked them to open the shades so he could watch the lightning.
In second grade, he noticed a horrendous rainstorm moving outside of the classroom; it got so dark that the streetlights came on. He stood up and told the class that there might be a tornado coming, but his teacher told him to shut up and sit down. He wasn't his teacher's favorite student. It did turn into a violent storm, but no tornado. His meteorological prophecies were ignored and unrewarded.
At nine years old he saw his very first funnel cloud near his house in Denver and chased it into a neighbor's backyard, climbing up on a swing set for a better look. It was all perfect. No one was telling him to shut up or sit down, he was all alone watching a tornado develop in peace.
At twelve, he found his dad's old ham radio manuals, studied up and aced the test. In his room he had high- voltage wires crisscrossing the room like crime scene tape.
At thirteen or fourteen he built a ham radio transmitter out of an old World War II transmitter with giant vacuum tubes.
At fifteen , he started sending out Morse code, but the system was so basic it caused the neighbor's TV to go haywire.
At nineteen to twenty, he finally started coming out of his shell, making a fearlessness attempt to become more of a social being. The most amazing thing with Tim is that he never went to college and he didn't need to. He self taught himself to engineer and research weather.
At sixteen, he split the cost with his father for his first car.A 1967 Ford Fairlane four-door. the first thing he did was put a ham radio in it so he could talk around the world while he drove to school.He got a job working part-time in a two-way repair shop fixing CB radios, ham radios and business band equipment for taxi companies. By the time he graduated high school, he already had three people working for him.
When he was twenty-four, he finally met the woman he wanted to marry. Her name was Kathy Videtich, and had three children with her named Amy; 25, Jennifer; 24 , and Paul; 20 which like his father also had an interest in severe weather.
Tim's wife Kathy speaking at Tim,Carl,
and Paul's funeral.
and Paul's funeral.
Tim has a weather team called TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes EXperiment .) This project is mostly in full strength from May until June where there are four vehicles equipped with mesonet weather stations. Tim's vehicle has six "orange hats" or video probes with cameras inside to record the tornado moving over the probe, and another to measure wind speed, temperature, moisture, and air pressure inside the tornado.
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. On May 31st, 2013 in El Reno, Oklahoma, Tim along with his son Paul, and his storm chasing colleague Carl Young, were hit directly by a EF-3 tornado, and were killed. The picture on the left shows a tribute where all of the storm chasers in the U.S. alone lined up to spell their initials across three states. These storm chasers spread across South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska.
This is a tribute to Tim Samaras from the Weather Channel when he died.