in memoriam
Electronic notifications in regards to the passage of friends, associates, colleagues and individuals who have had great impact upon my 44 years of existence, large and small, tend to be the norm in this over connected era we all find ourselves in. On Saturday, January 18, 2025, one such message from a friend and fellow meteorologist in Florida, Randy Zipser, made me take great pause and reflect.
Dr. Charles A. Doswell III passed away on Saturday, January 18. Chuck, a world renowned atmospheric scientist, seasoned photographer, music aficionado, husband to Vicki, father, friend and an individual who had given the “tip of the ol’ cowboy hat’ as he would oft say when we formally met at the University of Oklahoma in Norman in May 2002 during the Project IHOP era and the first year I was a part-time paid tour guide, driver and forecaster with Tempest Tours Storm Chasing Expeditions. Chuck was exactly my parents age, a generation I far more connect with than even the “Gen X” or “Xennial” brand I was cast into actually, alas why the news of his death was quite impactful.
Our first connection we shared was fittingly at the dawn of the modern internet in 1995/1996 via email by way of his website, a CompuServe newsgroup and the defunct WX-CHASE, WX-TALK listservs. The sad news about Chuck broke to me just after I had concluded the first writers meeting at The Second City for THE WEATHER CREW ™ comedy show I am developing with a sketch troupe. Just before learning the news while I walked back to my present apartment on North Wells in Old Town, the bright Saturday afternoon sunlight illuminated angelic picturesque cirrus floating gracefully through the atmosphere from the southwest to northeast. I immediately recalled one, if not the first in person discussion or “debate” ,,, Chuck loved a good argument, that we had in 2002 about the quality of SLIK vs. Bogen tripod brands. He said that I should “highly reconsider” the aluminum SLIK and go with a Bogen 3021. Years later Roy Britt gave me that very tripod, for free, during our interview for The Storm Chasing Anthology project. Chuck was right, it was a great pod, and I used it to record his interview for that documentary! Alas on learning of his passing, I immediately set up my Canon XA40 4K video camcorder on that very Bogen tripod and began time lapsing the scene for some future use.
Another memory that was quite blunt between us occurred in mid April 1999, about a month after I along with two other storm chasers from Michigan/Indiana had a close encounter with a tornado south of Monmouth, Illinois on 8 April 1999. Running on limited visual cloud cues and sporadic analog cell phone + WSR 88D radar nowcasts from the late George Wetzel, a friend/forecaster from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids, Michigan, our group chose to abandon my 1989 Ford Taurus wagon and seek shelter, with permission, inside a farmhouse with a mother and daughter as a rapidly rotating wall cloud passed over the house. Fortunately the tornado was not strong at that point, but I do recall watching a welcome mat plus other debris rotate and fly off into the sky before diving back into the basement.
Much like I am recounting those moments here online again nearly 25 years later, all of which were recorded on SVHS and 8mm videotape at the time, a friend forwarded my journal post on my former website, MSIT: aka the Michigan Storm Intercept Team to Chuck while in Arizona at my Grandfather’s memorial service. Is that irony in 2025? I think so. While I lack a copy of his reply, Chuck was highly disapproving of our antics, directly told me how stupid we all had acted and to take that experience as a lesson to learn from. I took mild offense to the advice, being only 18 at the time, but soon realized he was spot on and was pulling from his own storm trek misadventures 25 years prior at Union City, Oklahoma on 24 May 1973. I was thankful that someone such as Chuck took the time to write, rightfully criticize, critique and call to action our panic driven choices, of which I indeed took to heart. Never again would I attempt to place myself “in” the vortex.
A few years later in early June 2003 we were both on the Plains atmospheric floor observing storms north of Lubbock, Texas along with the Tour 3 group with Tempest Tours. I had taken unpaid leave during May sweeps from WWMT Channel 3, the CBS affiliate in West Michigan, in between spring/summer semesters at Western Michigan University for a month long storm trek of a lifetime. Some of those moments are preserved in my 2003 video documentary IDEAS FOR WALL CLOUDS released on S/VHS videotape in 2004, with Chuck in a cameo or two.
Ten years later while I was producing the STORM CHASING ANTHOLOGY Volume 1 documentary project, Chuck graciously invited me over to his home in Norman, Oklahoma for a four hour on camera recorded interview, all on the record, about his personal history involving meteorology, storm chasing and life. Portions of that interview were included in the documentary, while the remainder is permanently archived at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. He also provided original hand drafted prints for the original NOAA and National Weather Service SPOTTERS GUIDE slide, booklet and film series; a batch of original 16mm color films of tornadoes, an original 16mm sound print of TORNADO! from 1956, cloud time lapses, slides, photographs, negatives and other documents from his time at the National Severe Storms Laboratory/NSSL at OUN. For some reason that was never disclosed to me, Chuck wanted none of his materials archived at the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology. I respected his wishes and hence the reason his former materials are archived at Texas Tech University.
Chuck also had a fantastic LP record collection, of which he personally introduced me to artists such as Mose Allison, Curved Air, Spooky Tooth, and numerous other musicians from the 1960’s and 1970’s, many of which had atmospheric themes juxtaposed with the albums themselves. While living in Norman for a stint in 2014/16, Chuck loaned me a batch of his albums to transfer over to digital WAV files. It was a fun distraction between the rigorous interview and production schedule I had ahead of me while house sitting for friends Roger and Elke Edwards.
One major aspect to share is that Chuck was always first and foremost a great teacher! Math was not my strong suit during the K-12 or undergraduate era at WMU, yet somehow in 2015, within the course of an hour at his kitchen table, Chuck was able to easily explain, present and help me understand the basics of fluid dynamics unlike any other meteorology or geoscience professor I had previously. It was great! It all clicked right there and then. It’s a memory that will always remain with me, even if I have since gravitated into comedy writing as a profession.
On Saturday night, I recorded this unedited video memory about Chuck, of which is publicly available to share.
While Chuck was a highly opinionated individual who had friends and foes alike, at his core he was a very interesting human who gave it his all. He will be greatly missed by many and his impact forever present upon those who had the joy to share some moments together.
My most sincere condolences to the entire Doswell family.
Blake
