A star of the Discovery Channel show “Storm Chasers,” his son and a colleague have been identified as victims in the deadly outbreak of tornadoes that swept through the Oklahoma City area on Friday.
Tim Samaras, 55, died with his son Paul, 24, and friend Carl Young, 45, in Canadian County chasing down a tornado that wreaked havoc along Interstate 40, Fox 25 reports.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tim Samaras his son Paul and their colleague Carl Young,” the Discovery Channel said in a statement to FOX411. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their families.”
The channel added that it would be dedicating Sunday night’s show on the tornadoes in their memory.
Tim Samaras is a 20-year veteran of storm chasing and founded the project TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes Experiment), which gathers weather information by placing devices in the way of tornadoes, Fox 17 reports.
In 2004, Tim Samaras dropped a probe into the path of an EF-4 tornado, where it measured a 100 millibar pressure drop — a record that still stands today, the Discovery Channel’s website says.
Since 2003, Tim Samaras, meteorologist Carl Young and their team have tracked down more than 125 tornadoes, according to Young’s biography on Discovery Channel’s website.
Samaras appeared for three seasons on the Discovery Channel show, Fox 17 reports.
Five tornadoes swept through the Oklahoma City area on Friday, killing at least 10 and injuring 115, according to authorities who spoke to the Associated Press.
