It's not Jim Cantore or Helen Hunt or a young Judy Garland whom you could soon be seeing in the same frame with the most violent storm on Earth.

It's young people from Western Virginia — people not unlike your son or daughter, your classmate, or the college kids upstairs — who will be hunting that ferocious but elusive beast known as the tornado.

Sunday, May 15, nine New River Valley high school and college students, two older trip leaders and a weather columnist for The Roanoke Times plan to set off in two vans, becoming High Plains drifters on a field trip with a field as big as the heart of America, an adventure that's part "Twister" and part "Road Rules."

Pulaski County High School meteorology teacher Dave Carroll has led such a group into the heart of Tornado Alley during the brunt of tornado season each of the last four years, and intermittently since 1992. Beginning Monday (Sunday is a travel day) and continuing through at least May 24, the chasers will stalk a region from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, from the Rockies to the Mississippi River.

In all of that vastness, Carroll's storm chase team hopes to put itself in the right place to see a funnel that may only be a few hundred yards wide and last maybe no more than 10 minutes.

Such a sighting would be a first for about half of the 12 chase team members — aside from Weather Channel documentaries narrated by Cantore or movie special effects like those for Hunt in "Twister" (1996) or Garland in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).

Each member will be involved in helping the team position itself to intercept thunderstorms. They will meet each morning to review the latest weather data via the Internet, then reconsider data throughout the day, adjusting their position accordingly.

The two vans will closely follow one another, staying in contact with each other via two-way radio and with other chasers and the National Weather Service by ham radio. Should they spot a tornado or other notable severe weather, they will report it to authorities, who may issue warnings based on the information.

They may travel hundreds of miles each day, zigzagging across the Great Plains, never knowing for sure where they'll end up staying the next night — or whether there will be anything to see other than cattle, wheat, scrub brush and windmills.

Trip of a lifetime

"There's a good chance you won't see a tornado," Carroll cautioned a recent gathering of the young chasers.

That's why it's called "storm chasing," not "tornado chasing." Over 10 days in the Midwest in May, it's nearly certain that the storm chase team will have thunderstorms to pursue — some of which probably will be the mighty, hail-chunking, rotating monsters known as "supercells."

"One of the rewarding aspects of chasing is just going out there to see storm structures you read about in a textbook," said Stephen Keighton, who chased storms and researched severe weather in Oklahoma before becoming science and operations officer at the National Weather Service in Blacksburg. "Seeing a tornado is just icing on the cake."

The nine young people give a variety of reasons why they are on board for this adventure.

"I've been fascinated by weather since I was little," said Beth Owens?, 21, a Pulaski County High School graduate now at New River Community College?. "I've seen 'Twister' I don't know how many times. . . . Since I was little, I wanted to go storm chasing, now I'm going to get to."

"I think this would be a really cool profession. I want to see if this is what I want to do," said Amanda Worrell.

"I've never been out West, so I thought this would be a golden opportunity," said Jeremy Swink, who takes Carroll's meteorology class via the Internet.

Erich Dalton, one of three students chasing for a second straight year, just wants to have as much fun as he did a year ago.

"It was the best two weeks I actually ever spent," said Dalton. "It was good fun."

Seth Price is on board for the third straight year as the team's radio expert and as a co-leader.

"I graduate one day, then I leave to go chasing the next day," Price said. "That's the peak of my life, it can't get much better than this."

Horror and beauty

Chasers want to see tornadoes. But somewhere inside, they have to reconcile their desire to observe nature's furious splendor with the horrible death and destruction wrought on scores of American communities each year.

"We far and away hope for open-country tornadoes that don't even damage farm crops," Carroll said. "Last year was a classic example. We witnessed a destructive tornado. It tempers the excitement when you see homes ripped apart."

But seeing the power and beauty of just one is unforgettable.

"It makes you feel more alive when you experience these things," Carroll said.

"I know that students after seeing a tornado for the first time, they may be exhausted, but most of them don't sleep that night. They just want to stay up talking about it."