Storm chaser keeps a weather eye for Olney

Ethan Gonzalo, who recently moved to Olney to be closer to his girlfriend, has been storm chasing most of his life. After chasing storms with his dad, also an extreme weather aficionado, he wanted to take a more serious approach to the science of storm chasing so he purchased a storm chasing vehicle equipped with weather gathering and radio equipment that would better aid him in his field. The vehicle, wrapped in a weather radar image and sporting a thicket of antennae on its roof, is hard to miss as it drives around town.

Ethan’s storm chasing vehicle is a 2005 Ford Expedition.

The vehicle was originally owned by Chris Caldwell who chased storms and reported news from Ponca City for KOCO News in Oklahoma. Mr. Caldwell died in 2018 from causes unrelated to storm chasing.

“I can tap into mutual aid and anything around the region, I can tap into like some repeaters around Oklahoma, Texas, or anywhere I go,” Ethan said of the communications array on the vehicle. “And I communicate with various first responders, different storm chasers via Skywarn Net, the Skywarn network.” The vehicle is also equipped with multiple scanners, wind gauge, antenna array and many more tools to aid in storm chasing.

Ethan has centered his living and chasing activities on Tornado Alley, a swath of land stretching from Texas to South Dakota. The National Severe Storm Laboratory says the term, coined by the media, refers to an area that between 19211195 saw one-fourth of all significant tornadoes.

Ethan became involved in storm chasing as a way of creating memories with his father who also loves storm chasing. Ethan later began to hang around and learn from other storm chasers in his teens. When he was about 20 years old, he purchased his first storm chasing vehicle. Ethan said the vehicle has significant importance to him because it belonged to a longtime storm chaser who had retired. Ethan said watching other storm chasers and shows on the Discovery Channel also helped fuel his desire to become a storm chaser.

Storm Chaser Reed Timmer, a meteorologist who stars on the Discovery Channel show “Storm Chasers,” was a big influence on him, Ethan said.

Ethan said he has had some close calls. One time, he got a little closer than he should have to a tornado and lost his Mesonet, which is an array of equipment designed to observe mesoscale – or medium scale – meteorological phenomena and microclimates.