Hargrove wrote early on of how the elder Samaras a self-taught electronics whiz kid who then became fascinated by extreme weather and especially tornadoes. Samaras was married with three young kids at home when he started out as a volunteer storm spotter after enrolling in a 40 hour meteorology course.He got started on his eventual path when someone who had sensors for measuring seismic pressure on the ground in a tornado wanted his help getting the sensors in front of a twister. Samaras then began building his own probes to measure conditions like temperature, pressure, and humidity as a tornado would pass over as the idea was to understand the conditions to predict better when one would form so more advance warning could be given to the public.
As Samaras built his probes and chased tornadoes for the purpose of placing them in front of their path, he became a main character featured on Storm Chasers, which ran for three seasons on The Discovery Channel. It was dangerous work that Samaras did, but interesting reading about someone completely into something that served a greater purpose, and Hargrove wrote a thorough account of Samaras and his life.
