TODAY's Al Roker only saw a tornado once, far in the distance. But it was the aftermath he saw close up — and the aftermath he remembers. Al and a TODAY crew visited Moore, Oklahoma, after an EF-5 tornado hit in 2013.
A camera can't capture the scale of destruction, Al says. "You see this devastation on television but the television provides a frame. while you look at it and go, 'That's terrible,' when you are on the ground and literally, as far as your eye can see, there is nothing.
There is not a building standing," he says. That scene plays out, again and again, in "Twisters," the follow-up to the 1999 movie "Twister." Both follow people chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma for the thrill, and for the chance of studying — and even stopping — the storms.
The movies show how tornadoes — or any extreme weather pattern — can be fatal and devastating. While covering the weather, Al says he keeps the storms' human impact front and center. "Every time I've been to something like this, whether it's a tornado aftermath or living through a hurricane, the thing that's uppermost, that always is uppermost in my mind is that this isn't just a story.
These are people's lives and livelihoods. When you see it in person, that just is really heavier." Given the danger, he's not interested in tornado chasing like Glen Powell's meteorology student-turned-daring YouTuber who tracks down tornadoes.
Al says he's had close calls while covering the weather for TODAY. His "most frightening" momen.