After Friday's chaotic tornadoes tore apart Oklahoma, only two weeks after what happened in Moore, Oklahoma, the storm chasing community is mourning the loss of one of their own. Well-respected storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and his chasing partner Carl Young died during Friday's storms.

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The exact details of the trio's deaths are not known. They are being counted among the nine deaths reported after Friday's storms. Samaras' brother Jim broke the news about Tim on his Facebook page:

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Tim, the 55-year-old storm chaser, was one of the most respected veterans in his field. He founded TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling inTornadoes EXperiment) to measure the strength of tornadoes. Samaras became known for his tornado probes, ground-breaking technology in tornado research, that he would place them directly in front of the tornado's path to measure the strength of the tornado and the pressure drops at the tornado's center. Samaras' work earned him work with National Geographic and he was a contributor to the Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers program, too.

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Friday's storm ended up putting many storm chasing lives in danger, and caused a few chasers to question the practice amid so many disasters and close calls. The Weather Channel's tornado-chasing mobile was tossed 200 yards when it got too close to one of the Oklahoma tornadoes. Thankfully no one was hurt there.

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