About twenty vehicles have been built to go after tornadoes on purpose since 1995. They fall into two groups. Armored vehicles are built to sit in or next to the tornado and survive it. Mobile radar trucks are built to park a few miles away and scan it. Below is every one we could document, in the order it was built, with where each one is today.

What counts as a tornado interceptor?

A tornado interceptor is any vehicle built to get closer to a tornado than a normal chase car can safely go. The armored ones carry steel or composite plating, polycarbonate windows and some way of holding the vehicle down, usually hydraulic spikes driven into the ground. The radar trucks carry no armor at all. They get close because a radar beam spreads out with distance, and the national radar network is often too far away to see the bottom few hundred feet of a tornado.

The list leaves out ordinary chase cars with hail guards and roof racks, and the instrument probes that chasers drop in a tornado's path.

The Doppler on Wheels fleet

The Doppler on Wheels, or DOW, is the longest running interceptor program there is. Joshua Wurman built the first truck in 1995, and the fleet has been rebuilt several times since. It is run today by FARM, the Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets, a nonprofit led by Wurman and Karen Kosiba and affiliated with the University of Alabama in Huntsville. FARM was called the Center for Severe Weather Research from 2003 to 2020. Our Doppler on Wheels explainer covers how the radar works. Here is every truck.

  • DOW 1 (1995). A modified Chevrolet G30 flatbed. In May 1995 it made the first radar scan of a tornado from a truck, near Hanston, Kansas. It was decommissioned in 1997 and spent the next five years at the National Severe Storms Laboratory as a vertical profiler.
  • DOW 2 and DOW 3 (1997). Both built on 1995 Ford F700 trucks. A DOW scanned the Bridge Creek-Moore tornado on May 3, 1999, and estimated winds of about 301 mph roughly 100 feet above the ground. Both were in use until about 2007, when DOW 6 arrived.
  • DOW 4, or XPOL (2000). A 1999 Chevrolet 3500HD and the first DOW with dual polarization, which lets a radar tell rain from hail and debris. After a 2002 project it was transferred to the National Observatory of Athens. It is still in service in Greece, at the Penteli observatory.
  • DOW 5, Rapid-Scan (2003). The first mobile weather radar with a phased array, which steers its beam electronically and scans several elevations at once. Its radar was later moved onto DOW 8.
  • DOW 6 (2008) and DOW 7 (2009). International 7500 WorkStar trucks, and the main trucks in VORTEX2, the 2009 and 2010 tornado field project. DOW 7 was retired at the end of 2024 and DOW 6 in 2025, after 17 years. They were replaced by two new trucks, DOW A and DOW B.
  • DOW 8 (2012). Also an International 7500. It swaps payloads: the Rapid-Scan array, a single polarization X-band radar, and since late 2024 a C-band radar known as the mini-COW, used in the 2025 ICECHIP hail project.
  • COW (2018). The C-band on Wheels. It carries a 3.8 meter dish, which sees farther into heavy rain than the smaller X-band trucks, and takes about four hours to set up and pack away.

Other mobile radar trucks

The DOW has company. The University of Oklahoma runs RaXPol, an X-band dual polarization radar built by ProSensing and led by Howard Bluestein. RaXPol spins a full circle every two seconds. On May 31, 2013, it scanned the El Reno tornado from 4.5 to 11 km away and measured Doppler velocities above 135 meters per second near the surface, about 302 mph. That rivals the Bridge Creek-Moore figure. The National Weather Service gave the tornado an EF5 rating partly on that data, and later revised it to EF3 because the damage survey found nothing to support a higher rating. Why El Reno was never an EF5 covers that decision.

Sean Casey's interceptors

IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey built the first armored vehicle meant to film from inside a tornado.

  • TIV 1 (2003). A 1997 Ford Super Duty with a 7.3 liter diesel, about 14,000 pounds loaded and topping out at 80 mph. It cost around $81,000 to build. Once Casey stopped using it, he left it on a farm in central Kansas as the prize in a scavenger hunt: whoever found it could keep it. Wichita storm chaser Robert Clayton found it in 2020 by searching Google Earth. In April 2025 he moved it out of a tow yard in Hays, Kansas, and has been stripping weight off it and painting it black. The full TIV 1 story has the details.
  • Subanator. A 2010 Subaru Outback 3.6R that Casey later modified for filming near tornadoes. It was never meant to enter one. He sold it to Chad Crilley in February 2025.

Reed Timmer's Dominators

Meteorologist Reed Timmer's Storm Research Vehicles have the longest active run of any armored interceptor. Our Dominator fleet history goes into each build. The short version, with the latest news:

  • Dominator 1 (2009). A 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe with bulletproof sheet metal and Lexan windows, and no anchoring. A tornado near Aurora, Nebraska, blew out the driver's window in 2009. It sat in a parking lot from 2018 and was revived in 2022, with faded windows and no keys, then did some limited chasing in 2023.
  • Dominator 2 (2011). A 2011 GMC Yukon XL, and the first with anchoring spikes. It hit a downed power line during the El Reno tornado on May 31, 2013, which ripped its hood off. It later had engine damage and stood in a Norman storage lot for about nine years. Team Dominator started repairing it in May 2026. Rodents had chewed through the wiring.
  • Dominator 3 (2013). A 2012 Ford F-350 Super Duty with gull-wing doors, airbag suspension and hydraulic spikes. In 2019 it launched the first "Dorothy" probe into an EF4 near Lawrence, Kansas. It was rebuilt as the Dominator 3.2 by Lewis Fabrications of Perkins, Oklahoma, and relaunched on February 13, 2026. Its engine failed on May 20, 2026, and a crate engine was in by June 9.
  • Dominator 5. Announced in July 2024, with Jake's Custom Diesel of Norman, Oklahoma, leading the build. No finished vehicle has been shown as of October 2026.

There is no Dominator 4. Timmer also chases in stock vehicles badged as Dominators: a run of Subaru Foresters called the Dominator Fore, one of which he nicknamed the Dominator 4.5, and a 2025 Ford F-150 bought in December 2025. None of them is armored.

The Tornado Attack TA-1

The TA-1 is the least known interceptor on the list. Former NASCAR driver Steve Green of Canton, Ohio, built it from a Baja trophy truck after he was caught near a tornado outside Mulvane, Kansas. The team put the truck at around $300,000, plus about $250,000 to redesign it with armor, military grade windows and a frame that drops toward the ground. A 2005 press release claimed it could take an F4. Tornado Attack auctioned a ride-along seat on eBay in 2005, and the truck itself went up on eBay in 2011. No footage or data has been published showing it inside a tornado.

Which interceptors are still chasing?

As of October 2026, the active fleet is FARM's radar trucks (DOW A, DOW B, DOW 8 and the COW), Oklahoma's RaXPol and the Dominator 3. On April 23, 2026, an EF1 near Braman, Oklahoma, slid the Dominator 3 into a field.

FAQ

Has anyone ever driven into a tornado on purpose?

Yes. The Dominators were built for it. The Dominator 3 intercepted an EF4 near Shawnee, Oklahoma, three times on May 19, 2013.

What happened to the original Doppler on Wheels?

DOW 1 was retired in 1997 and used as a vertical profiler at the National Severe Storms Laboratory until 2002. The best known trucks, DOW 6 and DOW 7, were retired in 2024 and 2025 and replaced by DOW A and DOW B.

Is there a Dominator 4?

No. The numbering goes from Dominator 3 to Dominator 5, which was announced in July 2024 and has not been shown finished. A stock Subaru Forester was nicknamed the Dominator 4.5.

What is the strongest tornado interceptor?

The Dominator 3 is armored for winds of about 200 mph. That figure describes the shell and the anchoring, and it does not mean the crew would survive an EF5.

What was the highest wind speed a radar truck has measured?

About 301 mph, recorded by a Doppler on Wheels in the Bridge Creek-Moore tornado on May 3, 1999. RaXPol measured about 302 mph at El Reno in 2013, though that figure is a Doppler velocity and the tornado was rated EF3.

Shopping for someone who knows these trucks on sight? Our gift list for storm chasers has picks they will use on the road.