Designing the real, wild, storm-chasing trucks behind Twisters

In 2019, Elizabeth Smith was sitting with her team in the middle of Nebraska watching a tornado roll in. As the giant twister—wider than a football field, with winds reaching 120 mph—approached from across the field, her truck suddenly died.   A research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma, Smith deployed in the field alongside an armada of more than 50 scientists for this highly coordinated study of natural chaos....