Tornado Chasing Vehicle in West Salem - WXOW News 19 La Crosse, WI – News, Weather and Sports |

West Salem, WI (WXOW)-- The Dominator, a tornado chasing vehicle featured on The Discovery Channel show, "Storm Chasers" made a stop in West Salem Friday.

The Dominator is a 2008 Chevy Tahoe but you'd never know by looking at it. It is covered entirely by 16-gage steel and military-grade Line-X, which is a protective coating. The windows are also double layered for protection.

The tank-like vehicle weighs about 8500 lbs and costs about a quarter of a million dollars. When The Dominator is chasing a storm, it gets between four and six miles to the gallon.

In the middle of a storm, The Dominator can lower to the ground and a suction system is activated so it doesn't slide.

"It's actually been involved in over 200 chases and intercepted 50 tornados directly in its path," said Scott Schulz, the sales manager at Line-X of Southwestern Wisconsin. "It has been hit with 250 mile per hour debris and came out unscathed at this point."

On the side of The Dominator is an instrument shoot that injects probes into the tornado. The probes then provide instrument readings about that storm, and then the storm chasers can access that information on their computers.