Jarny. Jordan Schmidt reveals the behind-the-scenes of his tornado chase

Your documentary, Second Approach in Tornado Alley , follows your journey through the American Midwest. You already visited in 2019, why go back?

Jordan Schmidt, storm chaser: " The first time, we had already documented our journey , but in a much more simplistic way, with equipment that doesn't produce very good image quality. I enjoyed the adventure so much that I planned to return the following year. But in 2020, there was Covid and I couldn't leave again until 2024. Why Tornado Alley? It's simply the ideal place in the world to capture tornadoes."

When did this passion begin?

“I was afraid of thunderstorms for a long time. When I was little, in the 1990s, it was the heyday of disaster movies. I had a turning point with the film Twister , which I didn't see until 2000. I became a fan of all natural disasters, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. In the end, the most accessible is thunderstorms. Describing this passion is impossible without going into slightly crazy metaphors: I am attached to them, like others to horses or art. It is both a question of beauty, but also a fascination for its operating principle: how a thunderstorm is born, lives and dies. I have reached a point where I cannot imagine moving one day to a land that is not stormy, like the north of France or Normandy.”

What is the goal of your documentaries?

“I like to explain what we see, how we can “predict” that a simple storm will form a tornado, etc. You can see it with the eye, you can read the lines following the rotation of the entire storm, and we cross-reference it with data transmitted by radars. In the United States, they are everywhere. Meteorological phenomena are much more developed… We don’t realize, from here, how these people live in the midst of so many uncontrollable phenomena! My friends and I have a YouTube channel, Topoclimat, where we show what we have seen. Our first documentary reached 64,000 views .”

Are the returns good?

"Yes, even though we're seeing a huge rise in conspiracy theories. With the slightest video today, we see tons of comments from people claiming that 'it's done on purpose,' that people are controlling the climate with waves. Since Trump's election, it's even more palpable."

Hence the idea of ​​also passing on your knowledge of meteorology...

"I like to democratize what I know. Following the screening, we will devote thirty minutes to questions and answers."

Finally, an anecdote about your trip, which we might hear about during the screening?

“The same day, in Iowa, I witnessed the formation of five tornadoes. It was a red alert day (the penultimate most critical, before the purple alert which does not exist in France, Editor's note), but at first, it wasn't necessarily promising: there was a drizzly sky, not very beautiful. We were in a wooded, agricultural region, whereas I prefer to capture images on very flat terrain. Arriving in a small town called Red Oak, the sirens began to sound. We left the town, at the top of a hill, a first tornado almost touched the town. Ten minutes later, another wall cloud was already starting to turn, it was heading towards us at 85 km/h and 1.2 km wide, then continued on its way. We hurried, we must not get caught in traffic. A third tornado formed in a field. We learned the next day that it had hit a town called Greenfield and that it was one of the most powerful tornadoes ever recorded, with winds of 512 km/h… Then a fourth one that we saw from further away.

"Second Approach in Tornado Alley," Saturday, June 7, starting at 5:30 p.m., at Espace Gérard-Philipe. Free admission.