Storm Chasers

The season begins with the TIV team and their Doghouse support vehicle, the TVN team in their SRV Dominator, and the Twistex Team. Reed and the TVN team have early success, nearly driving their new vehicle directly into an EF-1 tornado in Oklahoma. The TIV team, still chasing in TIV1, while waiting for the repairs/modifications on TIV2 to be completed, has a bad first day when communications and navigation problems cause them to miss a potential intercept.
 

Sean and Reed have a tense and awkward meeting at the New Mexico border. Sean, who was already annoyed at Reed's early success and general attitude, was further annoyed by Reed's new vehicle, the SRV Dominator, which he felt was a blatant attempt to copy his TIV idea. The Twistex team has a successful day, coming within a few hundred feet of an EF2 tornado. The TVN team enjoys slightly less success without their usual driver, Joel Taylor. The TIV team has another bad day, as communication problems once again cause them to miss a valuable intercept, and taking a muddy road causes both TIV1 and Doghouse to get stuck.
 

Reed steps up his science to take on Dr. Josh Wurman's massive research project. However, when his decision to mount a small radar on his vehicle threatens to interfere with Dr. Wurman's project, tensions between the two rise. TVN's driver Joel Taylor has second thoughts about chasing with the team, when his and Reed's relationship becomes strained. With his much improved TIV2 finally out of the shop, Sean is feeling confident and happy to rejoin his old chasing partner, Dr. Wurman and his new VORTEX2 project. However, when Dr. Wurman seem less than thrilled to see Sean, and makes it clear that getting TIV2 inside a tornado is no longer high on his list of priorities, Sean is somewhat offended, and decides to resume chasing alone with Doghouse, at least temporarily.
 

TIV2 suffers another mechanical failure, leaving Sean Casey on the sidelines. Joel Taylor decides not to chase with Reed and instead joins the SCOUT team of Danny Cheresnick and Aaron Ruppert on a chase in Oklahoma. However, on the same day, Reed and the TVN team become the first to record ground-level radar data from inside a tornado when their SRV Dominator is engulfed by a vortex near Kirksville, Missouri. Nearby, the TWISTEX team has close encounters with the same storm system.Also joining the TVN team is a guy named Hank Reinhardt.
 

Reed, Tim, and Sean encounter the strongest tornado conditions of the season. Two strong risk areas have developed over Colorado and in Northeast Kansas. All three teams decide to pursue the eastern event as it crosses from Kansas into Missouri. Each team's efforts to keep up with a developing supercell are hampered by road-clogging scores of amateur chase vehicles all trying to get a glimpse of the same storm but the storm did not form a tornado. Adding insult to injury, Tony is stunned to learn that a strong tornado has struck his and Tim's hometown of Bennett, Colorado (a result of the western storm system they had chosen to ignore that day). Frustrated and exhausted, TWISTEX decides to chase a low-risk event in Western Kansas the following day, and manages a successful intercept.
 

Reed and Sean chase in central Kansas, and successfully encounter a developing supercell. Sean is in perfect position to intercept, but both he and the Doghouse have difficulty finding the tornado as it becomes cloaked in precipitation. Reed relishes the opportunity to launch his $30,000 remote-control airplane, which successfully deploys three parachute probes into the tornado inflow, gathering vital data. However, Reed quickly finds himself in a vulnerable position when the tornado begins to take an erratic path and doubles back on itself (and the Dominator).
 

Sean returns chasing with his old chase partner, Dr. Josh Wurman and his new giant project, VORTEX2 and DOW7. In Wyoming, TIV2 intercepts an EF3 tornado, and Sean gets the shot of the tornado coming directly in his direction and impacting the TIV, the shot he chased by ten years. Meanwhile, Reed follows the same storm. He drives into hail storms and the Dominator temporarily gets stuck in the mud.
 

As the season comes to a close, Reed is left bloodied when a violent tornado shatters one of the Dominator's windows. Meanwhile, Tim's team has their own close encounter as they deploy probes in the last chase of the year. Having ended their chasing season in the previous episode, Sean Casey and his team are absent from this episode.