Resurfaced Video Shows You Exactly What It’s Like to Be Inside a Tornado

Today, redditors were blown away by a resurfaced video showing the inside of a tornado. About four years ago, meteorologist Reed Timmer was chasing after the violent storm while in Colorado.

Over on the subreddit, r/Videos, r/tysonvpi couldn’t believe how much destruction the tornado in its path. The reddit user said, “That’s terrifying. In less than a minute, everything is completely destroyed and your life is turned upside down.”

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The extreme footage was taken while the vehicle drove towards the tornado. The corner of the video is labelled with Timmer’s Twitter account, @reedtimmertvn and AccuWeather.com

In the YouTube caption of the video, AccuWeather wrote “Extreme up-close footage of tornado just north of Wray, CO by storm chaser and meteorologist, Reed Timmer. This footage was filmed on May 7, 2016.”

Timmer previously starred in Discovery Channel’s reality series, Storm Chasers. About a decade ago, Penguin Random House published his memoir, Into the Storm. Timmer wrote about the many experiences he had chasing after tornados.

In a recent interview with Men’s Journal, Timmer talked about the physical damage to the body that can happen. He described in gory detail what happened to his crew member when they were inside the storm.

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He said, “When you’re inside it, it’s pure chaos. It’s debris and dirt and pressure. It gets really dark and your ears pop—our radar engineer, who was in the back seat when we were inside a tornado, actually ruptured his eardrums.”

“Our camera guy looked at him and said, ‘Your ears are bleeding!’ and he had a stream of blood coming out his ear from the intense pressure of the tornado. It’s not a pleasant experience,” added Timmer.

According to National Geographic, large tornadoes typically last approximately 30 minutes. At their most powerful, twisters kick up their wind speeds up to 300 miles per hour. The most intense tornadoes are known as supercell thunderstorms. The supercell increases in strength and changes direction as its height grows.

Scientists are still gathering information on how, exactly, a tornado forms. They also have difficulty with predicting which way the tornado will take.

Research Meteorologist Harold Brooks said, “We don’t understand how tornadoes die: Eventually the air gets too cold and it chokes off the inflow of new air into the storm, but we don’t know the details.”

“It’s kind of like walking a dog. You get down the block, but in the middle the dog goes back and forth,” he added.

Newsweek reached out to Timmer for comment but did not hear back before publication.