Episode Transcript
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>> Announcer (00:01):
This is beyond the green screen, an Arizona's family
originals podcast.
>> April Warnecke (00:08):
Welcome to beyond the green screen, the
podcast of our Arizona's family first Alert
weather team. I'm meteorologist April Warneke,
and today my guest is, to my knowledge, the
first person on this podcast to be a
repeat visitor. We have a repeat guest here.
We have Arizona based store storm chaser and
photographer Mike Olbinski. Not only are you our first,
(00:30):
I think, repeat guest, but you were the very first guest
interviewed last year by chief meteorologist
Royal Nerman. Welcome back.
>> Mike Olbinski (00:37):
Thank you. That's an honor. I can't believe it.
>> April Warnecke (00:39):
It's a big deal. To have you here.
>> Mike Olbinski (00:40):
It is a very big deal.
>> April Warnecke (00:42):
Well, I invited you here today to, talk about the
new blockbuster movie Twisters. And I'm just going to say right
now to our listeners that if you have not seen twisters
yet, go see the movie, bookmark this
podcast, then go see the movie, then come back, because I do not think
that there's a way that we can talk about this movie without a
bajillion spoilers.
>> Mike Olbinski (01:00):
Oh, good. I was actually wondering how I was gonna get by without
ruining the movie.
>> April Warnecke (01:04):
There's no way. There's no way. There's so
much to see, to talk about with this movie. I saw it
last Friday night, and I just
loved the movie. How about you?
>> Mike Olbinski (01:14):
Yeah, I absolutely loved it. And I saw the
trailer when it first came out, and I said, that's gonna
be so bad.
>> April Warnecke (01:21):
Oh, really?
>> Mike Olbinski (01:22):
Yeah. I just. I don't. I haven't seen a weather
movie since Twister that has
really blown my socks off or anything. They've all
been pretty bad.
>> April Warnecke (01:32):
So we have, like, sharknado, and what else do we have out there?
>> Mike Olbinski (01:35):
And at least Sharknado is supposed to be bad,
you know? But there was, like, into the storm and all these other
ones, and.
>> April Warnecke (01:42):
Perfect storm was good.
>> Mike Olbinski (01:43):
Perfect storm was fine. Yeah, I don't remember if I saw that
one.
>> April Warnecke (01:46):
Okay.
>> Mike Olbinski (01:47):
But, yeah, I was just a little bit hesitant, but I. Seeing
it, I loved it. I thought it was fantastic
summer flick and great,
action and a lot of fun.
>> April Warnecke (01:57):
Yeah.
So one of my favorite things about the movie was the scenery.
Just these epic shots, not just of the storms, but just
that part of the country. Now, you chase in both
Arizona, and in portions of the midwest and the plains. And
what was going through your mind watching that?
>> Mike Olbinski (02:10):
Well, I thought it captured it perfectly. I
mean, I remember seeing the original
twister and thinking the
weather was ridiculously unrealistic,
but they got a little bit of the culture. Correct.
>> April Warnecke (02:24):
Okay.
>> Mike Olbinski (02:24):
And this one felt kind of the same. I mean, they all have
this big. My favorite part almost was the big
gas station convergence with all the
chasers at the gas station. That happens all
the time when it's a big chase day and there's one gas station
nearby, the target area, you see everybody,
there's people like doing selfies with. And so that
really captured it. But all
(02:47):
the, land, I mean, I know from listening to interviews, a guy, they
drove around Oklahoma and Kansas and were filming actually. I mean, a
lot of it just looked like what I see when I'm out there. It's crazy.
>> April Warnecke (02:56):
How did your chases go this year?
>> Mike Olbinski (02:57):
Oh, it was great. I mean, I saw a bunch of tornadoes. We were, I
think I chased about 30 plus days.
got probably my best tornado
time lapse. Really closest. I was a quarter of a mile
away watching a tornado cross the road in front of me.
Standing in the road with hail, falling, trying to
get the perfect photo down the middle of the road. And,
it was fantastic.
>> April Warnecke (03:19):
So let's talk about that with the movie. You talked about being that far
away from it. You are, to clarify, you are never driving
into a tornado.
>> Mike Olbinski (03:26):
No one should drive into a tornado.
>> April Warnecke (03:28):
Let's make that clear. I think people know that, but let's just put that out there and we'll
add to that.
>> Mike Olbinski (03:32):
Don't you?
>> April Warnecke (03:32):
Fireworks into a tornado either.
>> Mike Olbinski (03:34):
Yeah, I don't know how that. Some,
definitely some unrealistic things in the
movie, especially driving in the tornado. I don't think you have to warn
too many people to not drive in the tornado unless
they've watched this movie and they're like, well, that looks
safe. I guess I'll do that. No, don't do that. But most people run
away from tornadoes, so I don't worry about it too much.
>> April Warnecke (03:54):
And it's probably better for your purposes, getting
those perfect shots to be a little distanced.
>> Mike Olbinski (03:59):
Yeah. I mean, for me, going in there doesn't
serve me any purpose. Even the great
time lapse I got, I was about a half mile to three
quarters of a mile away from it. Even then it's raining, and then sometimes there's
hail falling and it gets on your camera lens and even that's almost too
close. But sometimes the wind cooperates and it's at your
back or whatever. But, sometimes in the moment, especially for
(04:20):
that tornado, this was holly, Texas,
which is north of Abilene. And for that one,
it was slow moving, not, I mean,
you knew where it was. So it wasn't dangerous. And it's like I just wanted to kind of
just creep closer. I wanted to get a little. Get one of those shots people
get. but that, like quarter mile or so was about close
enough for me.
>> April Warnecke (04:38):
And you get a sense for where this tornado is
going. Typically not just that, but any tornado. And so you
don't typically feel too much danger, correct?
>> Mike Olbinski (04:46):
No. It's funny because you feel less danger
once it's on the ground than before. M because if you're
not quite sure, maybe where it's gonna drop.
>> April Warnecke (04:55):
Huh?
>> Mike Olbinski (04:55):
I don't know. I'm not just always sitting underneath a wall cloud, watching
it swirl above me, hoping it doesn't drop on top of me like other people
do. So I don't worry about that too much. But once it's on the
ground and if it's a day where it's
not gonna be like there's two of them dropping or it's gonna be a three
mile wedge, like, it's not that scary.
They can do some deviant motions, which we've
(05:16):
seen a lot of lately, where they're moving southeast and suddenly
they, swirl to the
northeast and kind of catch people off guard.
And that part's a little scary. And I think it's a little
worse, probably more at night. So for me, I'm not. I don't
usually get in that bears cage area where that can happen to me.
I'm generally like, a little bit in a safer spot.
>> April Warnecke (05:34):
Well, that's good to hear.
>> Mike Olbinski (05:36):
Other people in the movie, though.
>> April Warnecke (05:37):
No, no, no. And I was gonna ask you what's the most endanger you've
ever felt? But I'm guessing it might be related to lightning and
not a tornado.
>> Mike Olbinski (05:44):
Yes, for sure. Lightning. Even this year
and last year in south Texas, a
bunch of us shooting, we had a tornado that
was practically in Mexico on the south Texas border.
We're watching over a barbed wire fence. There's no roads out there. It's just,
you know, border wall at some point. And
we had a monster tornado spinning.
(06:04):
And all around us was lightning dropping
within 50ft a mile, like in all
directions all around us. And just storm chasers lined
up on barbed wire fence shooting this thing. And I'm sitting in the back of,
my forerunner, like, y'all crazy. And
I had, I had, some Nat geo cannon guys following me and my
own tour guests. And I'm like, this is incredibly
(06:25):
dangerous. So that's when I have definitely
felt scared.
>> April Warnecke (06:29):
Interesting. So you've mentioned the number of storm
chasers out there. That is certainly something that has changed
since, not just the last couple of years, but since the original
twister movie came out. You had storm chasers? I
wasn't in the time. I was going into college, but anyway, I was
in. Yeah, but from my understanding,
you had weather researchers and some weather, you
(06:49):
know, people who are just passionate about weather out there. but
now it's, it is a scene.
>> Mike Olbinski (06:53):
Yeah.
>> April Warnecke (06:54):
You think they kind of got that right in the movie?
>> Mike Olbinski (06:55):
Yes, they for sure did. It is, I mean, you know, when
the guy pulls up, Glenn Powell pulls up in his like
cowboy kind of thing and he's like throwing shirts
around. Some of that might be a little far fetched, but, but
there are, you know, there's the, Stormfront freaks
podcast guys that are amazing.
>> April Warnecke (07:12):
Uh-huh.
>> Mike Olbinski (07:12):
And they'll pull up and they, and they're not like
rockstar kind of thing, but they'll hand out like swag,
like sunglasses. I've seen him do that, so that's fun.
But like when Reed Timmer, Reed Timmer's the biggest storm chaser
out there. He has the dominator vehicle. When he pulls
up to a gas station and there's a bunch of
chasers around, it is very, very similar to that.
People want to go up to him and get a selfie. They want to get a selfie with the
(07:34):
car. It's just like that.
>> April Warnecke (07:37):
Yeah. And social media has changed that as well.
>> Mike Olbinski (07:39):
Social media has changed it. I would say probably also the
advances in the modeling, for being able to
predict where storms are going to be because, I
mean, I mean, I was waiting around just last night for maybe 01:00
a.m. storms and they popped up because the models kept
showing storms at 01:00 a.m. and sure enough, they happened. So sometimes
it's almost too easy to go, hey, there's going
(07:59):
to be a storm firing in Garden City,
Kansas.
At 02:00 and you show up at two and a storm fires.
And so it's like if you learn how to look at that, it can be easy. So
there's a lot of advancements in technology
and model data that has made it easier for people
to learn it and go out and end up in the same place as
people who have been doing it for like two decades.
>> April Warnecke (08:20):
Absolutely.
So you were, up all last night storm chasing right here in
Arizona. We don't have as many supercell
thunderstorms here in Arizona. But how does storm chasing compare
here in Arizona to the other areas, I.
>> Mike Olbinski (08:31):
Mean, you know, storm chasing here you can find a
supercell every now and then if you know what to look for and get
lucky. But it's more about
landscapes and mountains and lightning here. I mean,
there's actually a guy, from France with his girlfriend out
here for like three or four weeks just to shoot lightning
for the company that they work for. So
people come out here
(08:53):
mostly for beautiful skies,
the monsoon sunsets. We get the color, but getting
that, with great lightning
strikes and cactus and all that, that makes
it, that makes it. It's a different thing. And it's weird because
I chased for 30 plus days in the,
chasing supercells and tornadoes in big hail and big
color and like, all this stuff. And I
(09:15):
drive right home from Denver and there's already
storms going on, like, around flagstaff. And
I'm just as excited to watch a downburst come down over
the, like, high plains east of
Flagg. And I'm just excited for that. So
for me, it's just kind of like all of it's exciting, but it's,
but it's very, it's very different. Less dangerous out here other
(09:35):
than the flash flooding and the lightning out there.
I mean, you're worried about big hail, you're worried about lightning,
you're worried about road network, fast moving storms getting caught and
stuff. It's, it's definitely like a higher level
of, adrenaline and wanting to be
prepared for anything dangerous.
>> April Warnecke (09:51):
I'm sure we have had several deaths in the last couple of years in the storm
chasing community. Not in Arizona, in the plains days.
>> Mike Olbinski (09:57):
Yeah, for sure.
>> April Warnecke (09:57):
Yeah. So you can see how it's getting a little more
congested.
let's talk about some of the, I guess, other
unrealistic things you mentioned how,
the modeling is getting better. And so we have a pretty good
idea of days that are going to be particularly active
in this rodeo scene. They're sitting there and this
tornado just seems to form and no one is prepared
(10:17):
enough. So you have the fact that they're
rushing to help people in Oklahoma figure out what to do in a tornado.
And I'm seeing this movie with our producer, Hunter, who's from
Oklahoma. And I'm like, this kid. No, everybody knows what
to do in Oklahoma.
>> Mike Olbinski (10:30):
Yes.
>> April Warnecke (10:31):
And then there would have been a watch if not a
warning.
>> Mike Olbinski (10:34):
Well, and honestly, like, that
was, I mean, I guess there's a couple parts
that you kind of were like, oh, gosh, yeah. But that was one of
them in terms of, I'm sitting there watching these two people going,
they're storm chasers. They would have been on their phone the whole
time and seen the storm coming. Exactly. That part. In their form,
their storm, their phone would have alerted it. and the first thing
(10:55):
they would have done is they, like, that's weird. And
all they did was stand up and look around instead of.
Anybody else would have pulled up their phone to look at. They'll go, oh, my gosh.
There's, like, a couplet coming at us. Like. So that part
definitely. They dramaticized that to turn it into, like,
a kind of chaotic scene. I mean, I know that there
are places, you know, I think this year, the high,
(11:15):
the high risk day in Oklahoma
was kind of a bus until at night and there was this tornado
went through. They get warnings.
we know that they do that a lot of people out there, social media,
would ever want to be like, we had no warning and stuff. And it's like, well, you had a warning
all day. Yeah. You knew to be prepared.
>> April Warnecke (11:31):
You knew.
>> Mike Olbinski (11:32):
But there are times when something does happen at night and people
are, you know, they're at a rodeo.
They're not. I mean, there was that, that
concert hailstorm in, boulder.
>> April Warnecke (11:43):
Yeah. Red rocks.
>> Mike Olbinski (11:44):
Red rocks.
>> April Warnecke (11:45):
Yeah.
>> Mike Olbinski (11:45):
That they really didn't have much warning. People were running for their lives
from, like, big hail falling. So. M so
we know that some of that stuff can happen.
>> April Warnecke (11:53):
True. But probably not during. What they
kept saying in the movie was a tornado outbreak. They kept having news
clips and meteorologists saying, our outbreak continues. So why are you
sitting? Yeah.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:02):
The only thing I could think about was that those
two characters were googly eyeing each other, and we're just not paying
attention. Their phone. Because it was almost like a little bit pseudo first date
kind of thing. And so that's the only excuse I can give,
because I don't that part. I'm like, ugh, they're just. They
should look at their phones. That's what I would.
>> April Warnecke (12:19):
They were distracted by love. Yes, I get it. I actually
appreciate it. Again, spoiler. I appreciate that they never really got
together in the movie.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:25):
Yeah.
>> April Warnecke (12:26):
Because it just was kind of nice. I mean, you have this great action movie
that isn't terribly violent.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:30):
No.
>> April Warnecke (12:31):
You have this love story kind of going along, but it's not about
them ever making out or getting together.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:37):
They don't even kiss it. Gina was like,
my wife Gina, we watched together. She's like, I can't believe
they didn't have kiss at the end.
>> April Warnecke (12:44):
yeah, I thought so, too.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:44):
And I don't know. I saw something on
instagram, like a behind the scenes video where they were kissing. And so I
don't know if that people are like, are they together
in real life and that's what they were doing, or do they just think, no, let's not
do that.
>> April Warnecke (12:56):
They need a sequel. They need a sequel, probably.
>> Mike Olbinski (12:59):
No, but I actually really liked it. It was funny because I went
into the movie, I had seen one weird
article, like, three weeks before that said something
about twisters is under fire for being
sexist. Kind of out of nowhere. And I was like,
saw some quotes about, oh, you know, it's another movie where
the female lead is scared
and the man has to. Oh, yeah, it was just
(13:21):
interesting out of nowhere. And so then I kind of went in there going like, okay, what are they going
to do? And then I watch it and I'm like, wow, this is like,
so much the opposite that it's actually amazing
because I love that aspect of it, especially
because I have a daughter and she's almost 16. Just
that this woman in
this movie didn't. She had, like, a
real fear. It wasn't like, I'm afraid of storms. It was like she had
(13:43):
people die. She had PTSD.
And she got over it herself and overcame it. And.
Yeah, the Glen Powell says something like, if you fear it,
ride it. You know, so he's got his
little.
>> April Warnecke (13:54):
If you feel it, chase it. I think it.
>> Mike Olbinski (13:56):
There's two of them. There's like, if you feel it, chase it. But remember
at the rodeo, he was like, if you fear it, ride it. Cause he said he
used to ride bulls.
Cause he's like, if you're afraid, got two great quotes. I'm
pretty sure that someone named their fantasy football
team, if you feel it, trade it or
something. Anyway, he's going everywhere, but might be royal.
>> April Warnecke (14:13):
Norman texted me that quote many times that he loved
it, too.
>> Mike Olbinski (14:17):
It's a great quote. I mean, and that kind of stuff actually
makes a movie like that more of a cult
movie because, you know, the original Twister, it's always like, it's going
green. That's what Bill Paxton said. That's a famous quote. So if you
feel it, chase it, you know? But I love that
storyline because she kind of overcame it. She was like the
hero of it, where the guys were kind of like, back while she
(14:38):
drove into the, tornado with the, unrealistic
polymer solution. But
I did read an article not too long ago about that part.
>> April Warnecke (14:46):
Yeah, I did, too. And it seems to be. The consensus is that could work in a
much larger scale, but this is too small of something. I
had several people asking me, like, could that actually work?
>> Mike Olbinski (14:55):
I think if it could work, they would have figured out how to do that by now.
I mean, if they would
have had a smaller tornado and done it, it could have been a
little more realistic. But this was obviously a
monster tornado. that little amount of anything
is going to do nothing.
>> April Warnecke (15:12):
Well, I mean, that brings up. There is a need for more
weather research. We don't know everything there is to know about
cloud physics and weather and meteorology in general. And
so I think people are always surprised to know that we can't
tell you exactly where a thunderstorm is going to pop up in the valley. We can tell
you today is an active day, and we're likely to see them.
You can't say where. And same with tornadoes. You need to.
There's so much room to grow in this field,
(15:35):
and so there's, I'm sure you've heard of this. after
the movie in the nineties in 1996, the Twister
effect, where they had double to triple
enrollment at meteorology schools from people who
had seen the movie and then had an interest, and not just right after,
but in the years, and I think many of them were actually women.
>> Mike Olbinski (15:52):
That's awesome.
>> April Warnecke (15:53):
Inspired by the Helen Hunt character.
>> Mike Olbinski (15:55):
Well, they're gonna be even more inspired now, I would think of this
movie, and that's great. I mean, we need more. We need more
people in there learning, researching,
and figuring out how to at least predict them. I don't
know that we can stop it. I don't know how you stop that
stuff. But to be, to predict, I
mean, that day I mentioned the high
risk day in Oklahoma. Like, it's the National Weather
(16:17):
Service, the storm prediction center. Everybody's like, today could be
really bad. And we all get out there, and there were just
like a couple of, maybe like, tornadoes
that kind of didn't do much and didn't last very long in a day. Turned out to
be kind of a bust. And it's like m in terms of,
it was supposed to be like a tornado outbreak. It was high risk. That happens once or
twice a year, maybe, that you get the high risk,
(16:38):
but it wasn't. It was more like a slight
risk, enhanced risk. And so even
the experts get confused by
certain things, and so there's so much more we can learn.
>> April Warnecke (16:49):
In the movie, Kate sometimes gets a little cue from Mother Nature
where she notices the wind changing direction. Do you ever have anything
happen to you out there like that or you get some kind of gut feeling and change
your course?
>> Mike Olbinski (16:59):
yeah, I mean, I think sometimes there is a little bit of, I think this
storm is done. We need to drop to this other one. There's stuff like that,
but there's not.
>> April Warnecke (17:06):
A lot of go blow this.
>> Mike Olbinski (17:08):
Stand there and like stand there and blow it and let it go and go. Oh,
this is gonna be great. I will say that the last couple years I've
really honed a little bit more of
being able to look at maybe a developing
wall cloud and be able to
kind of see the rain curtain start spinning. And if I'm with people, I'll be
like, this is about to do it.
>> April Warnecke (17:26):
Yeah.
>> Mike Olbinski (17:27):
If it's about to do it, it's about to do it now. And then all of a sudden seeing
like a funnel form in a tornado drop after you've kind of
predicted it's going to happen, there is something a
little bit with that that's kind of fun, but. Yeah,
but I've also been around people who are like today's. I can
feel it, like feel that, feel the dew point and feel the
wind. Like this is a tornado day and then it doesn't happen. And so it's,
(17:47):
it's so hard.
>> April Warnecke (17:48):
Anything else you can think of that you think this movie got right
or wrong that we haven't talked about?
>> Mike Olbinski (17:53):
I, definitely want to, touch on
the special effects.
Because the tornado CGI, however
they did it was incredible. Like, I
have, no one has ever gotten the tornado to look
realistic to me in a movie. Like, they all look. I mean,
Twister was so long ago.
>> April Warnecke (18:10):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Mike Olbinski (18:10):
But even the other ones I've seen since then have not been good.
This one, it looks so real. I thought a lot
of them, except for maybe the last one, it did have some
aspects where it was so thick it looked volcanic at one
point. But all the other ones I thought were great. Like, I
really, I think they somehow merged it with
real footage on the ground where you could see dirt spinning and stuff. And
(18:31):
with the CGI, whatever they did, it was
fantastic. And that was kind of my favorite part because it didn't
feel like they're chasing
unrealistic CGI. It actually felt real.
>> April Warnecke (18:41):
Yeah, well, and that, you know, you're someone who would know that and who
would notice that some of your videos and
time lapses of supercell thunderstorms have been used in major
movies.
>> Mike Olbinski (18:50):
Yeah, probably, I think up to like six now, except
not twisters. So that's.
>> April Warnecke (18:54):
Yeah. How did you not get in this movie, Mike?
>> Mike Olbinski (18:56):
There was, there's actually the supercell movie that came
out with Alec Baldwin, who I actually, talked to the
director and writer of it, and he went with
my friend Pecos Hank, who I love. They went
with his footage more because it was more realistic,
and mine's time lapse. So I didn't get footage in Supercell, which I was like, come
on, it's called supercell. and then twisters. I didn't get anything,
(19:17):
but Pecos didn't either. So that's a little
ego thing where it's like, oh, I wanted something in twisters so
bad.
>> April Warnecke (19:23):
Okay, the sequel. Everyone, Michael Binsky needs to be in the
sequel here.
>> Mike Olbinski (19:27):
That would be great.
>> April Warnecke (19:27):
Did you see storm chasers you knew in this movie? Because they
used a few real.
>> Mike Olbinski (19:31):
Yes, my friend Jason Harris is in the scene at the gas
station. I didn't recognize him at first until he posted a still.
I'm like, oh, yeah, duh. That was you. So I think there were a few
people in there that I knew. but in the
middle of the movie, I was like, I'm just looking at Glenn Powell.
>> April Warnecke (19:46):
We all were just looking at Glenn Powell.
>> Mike Olbinski (19:47):
I know. He's just like, he's so, like, with the cowboy thing and
everything. He's just like, draw. Everybody's drawn to him
anyway in the movie. So I was not looking at the extras, really,
to see my friend Jason, but I felt badlandhouse.
>> April Warnecke (19:59):
He'll forgive you.
>> Mike Olbinski (20:00):
Yeah, probably.
>> April Warnecke (20:01):
Do you still take, tours out either in Arizona or in the plains?
>> Mike Olbinski (20:04):
Yeah, in Arizona. I kind of do them a little different now where it's
more, kind of flex, where I tell
people, hey, come in. If you want to set aside some time,
come in town. And then they pick, like, four
or five days, and then I'll say, well, yeah, this day looks good, and this day
looks good, but it's not like we're going out when there's no storms
and they're paying money for that. but the ones on the planes, yeah, I
take this year, I did four or five
(20:26):
tours, and we took a film crew from China that has
a YouTube channel. We took them chasing for a week.
>> April Warnecke (20:32):
Awesome.
>> Mike Olbinski (20:32):
With, like, unbelievably expensive gear and sponsored
by Nike or something. And so that was, we got them on a
couple of. Not the tornadoes they wanted. They wanted to be
on tornadoes out of twisters, not kind of the
dusty stuff we got, but it was still fun. So,
yeah, keep doing all that.
>> April Warnecke (20:49):
That's awesome for people who have an interest in doing
this, either in weather or storm chasing. I mean, I usually tell people the first
step would be to take a. They're typically
free. They're from the National Weather Service. You, really get to
know whether it's a really good introduction
to weather, specifically Arizona weather, wherever you might need that.
But do you have any advice for people who might want to do what you do?
>> Mike Olbinski (21:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think the storm spotter class is a great
idea, in fact, that over the last, like, ten years,
they've taken photos and footage and time lapse
stuff from me and other chasers to put in those to
even better explain what people are looking at so you can
understand. But, so I think that's good to get a good knowledge
of weather, a base knowledge. But then if you want to do it, go take
especially tornado supercells. Go do, a tour.
(21:31):
Not, you don't have to go with me. but there is tons of companies
that go out there that especially, like, some of them excel at
getting closer to tornadoes. Some are more photography related, like
me, but it's a good way to go out and learn what
it's like. And then, and I've seen a few
friends of mine come do a tour with me one year, maybe
a second year, move to freaking Colorado. And
(21:52):
then they do it all on their own now. So that's interesting. The best,
safest way to kind of really learn how to do it, I, think. Cause it's
dangerous.
>> April Warnecke (21:58):
Don't start on your own.
>> Mike Olbinski (21:59):
No, I mean, if you think you know what you're doing. I mean, I started on my
own, so I can't, I don't want to tell people not to do that, but
it took me four years to really even understand
maybe what I was doing. going out three or four days a
year. If you do that on your own, it's going to take
longer than maybe if you go with someone who can really kind of explain
what's going on and show you the rope so you can
(22:19):
understand quicker. But, yeah, I don't
recommend it, but I know that's what I did. So it's one of those things
someone says, don't go to college. I didn't go to college. But you should go
to college.
>> April Warnecke (22:29):
Do as I say, not as I do.
>> Mike Olbinski (22:31):
Exactly. Exactly.
>> April Warnecke (22:32):
Well, how can people find out more information about your tours or follow
along? Because that's one of the benefits of social media
now, is that we all get to go along on your chases.
You know, even your just overnights that you're staying up all night in
Phoenix chasing the storms. We all can see that beauty.
>> Mike Olbinski (22:47):
Yeah. So you just look at my name, Michael Binsky,
on, Twitter threads.
I do, I have a Patreon page where, you know, it costs money
because it's one of these, like, I have some friends that do it and
it's kind of a way to support an artist. But I do a lot of, like, I almost use
it as a personal blog, posting targets where I
think I'm gonna chase and all this kind of stuff. Sneak peeks of
(23:07):
new time lapse films and things that other people haven't seen. And
then, you know, YouTube is where I post like a lot of the
videos and the chases. And that's been really fun. In
fact, it was really fun this year that Tucson got that bad
micro burst with the tornado warnings and I was
right underneath it. And so I got some great footage of just
hail smashing the car and stuff on the road. And
(23:28):
that post kind of blew up more than my regular ones because
people lived there and they were kind of excited to see what happened
from a storm chasers view. So, I think that's YouTube
is a good thing to look at too.
>> April Warnecke (23:37):
And that's another benefit too that storm chasers and photographers
can bring to scientists in the National Weather Service. They love
to get your eye there on the scene, on the storm and then
to use your work afterwards to kind of dissect those storms.
>> Mike Olbinski (23:49):
Yeah, I mean, I think all that stuff is great.
Being able to kind of see what happened. I've had meteorologists
go chasing with me that never storm chase and
just kind of did it from the office
or whatever, and then they go out and understand,
wow, this is what it actually looks like when I'm,
on tv saying there's a severe thunderstorm warning or something like
(24:09):
that. but yeah, I think that's all really
important. And then also real
time, ground reporting where a lot
of, obviously I've been doing this for a long time. National Weather Service
Phoenix knows me. I don't know how many times I've been like,
hey, there's low visibility here, dust is coming in. And then all
of a sudden my phone goes off with a dust storm warning. And I'm like, how do I
help that do that? But, but I do think that they
(24:32):
can't see that stuff. And there's a lot, you know, we all know, like central
Arizona around Eloy Casa Grande. It's a little bit of a
radar gap. I mean, there's one there that
apparently we still can't use, but that would be really nice.
>> April Warnecke (24:42):
But, I think it is now.
>> Mike Olbinski (24:45):
Is it?
>> April Warnecke (24:45):
But just recently.
>> Mike Olbinski (24:46):
Yeah, we need to be on radar scope, but. But there are
places where they can't necessarily see. So I think ground,
truth and reporting is great. And, and one
last thing has been great this year is how many, you know, some
people we ran across on the plains that were like,
hey, you're a storm chaser. Like, what's going on? Do I need to be worried? Like, our
local station in, Midland, we don't talk about
storms very much, so we don't always know for some reason. Yeah. And I
(25:09):
was kind of surprised. I'm like, you live in south Texas where there's,
like, big hail all the time. And she's like, we love
seeing you guys because we can, you guys, you know, warn us and stuff like that. And
that felt good because a lot of times, storm chasers, we got a bad rap
for clogging roads and all this stuff.
>> April Warnecke (25:23):
And shooting fireworks.
>> Mike Olbinski (25:24):
And shooting fireworks and I
almost. That was pretty funny, though.
>> April Warnecke (25:29):
See when that happened.
>> Mike Olbinski (25:30):
Yeah, I know.
>> April Warnecke (25:31):
What are you doing?
>> Mike Olbinski (25:32):
I know.
>> April Warnecke (25:32):
Please, nobody copy that. Do that.
>> Mike Olbinski (25:34):
Gosh, someone's gonna try.
>> April Warnecke (25:36):
Oh, gosh, I hope not. I hope not. how many times have
you seen the movie? Just once.
>> Mike Olbinski (25:40):
Oh, just once. You know, when you got three kids and
stuff, we had to go see Deadpool, so I don't, I'm not gonna go see a movie a
bunch of times. But it was, that was really, we saw an IMAX
and got invited to kind of see it. And so that was, that was
real exciting.
>> April Warnecke (25:53):
Yeah. I might have to go see it again.
>> Mike Olbinski (25:54):
Only see it in IMAX, though. I do think big
screen, big city really makes it. I mean, it's
definitely like a summer blockbuster movie where you kind
of do have to, toss out some of the
unrealism, kind of suspend your belief, suspend your
disbelief a little bit. I really
think a lot of it was real, but it felt real. But
you gotta just go in there going, man, this is like an action movie in a
(26:17):
way. And I don't know, it was really fun.
>> April Warnecke (26:19):
Yeah, I really loved it. Well, thanks so much for being here. Yeah. All right.
>> Mike Olbinski (26:22):
Thanks, for having me.
>> April Warnecke (26:23):
First ever, second time guest.
>> Mike Olbinski (26:24):
Yay.
>> April Warnecke (26:24):
Maybe we'll get you back for a third time sometime. And we're putting
it out there. Michael Binsky and the third
Twisters installment. When it comes out, that would be great.
Thanks. All right. Thanks for joining us here
on the beyond the Green Screen First Alert
podcast.
>> Mike Olbinski (26:40):
This is beyond the green screen, an Arizona's
family originals podcast.