(WETH.ur toor.ist; TH as in the)
n.
A person whose vacation consists of tracking down and observing tornados, hurricanes, and other severe weather phenomena.
— weather tourism n.
Example Citation:
Tornado chasing, one form of weather tourism, has become particularly popular of late, no doubt owing in part to the 1996 film Twister. One tornado-chasing tour company, for example, offers two- week, $ 2,000 packages. The less adventurous can indulge in armchair storm watching, facilitated at one West Coast inn by the placement of microphones on a nearby stormy beach: speakers enable patrons to hear the crash of thirty-foot waves and the howl of 80 mph winds from the safety of the inn's dining room. Perhaps not surprisingly, weather tourists tend to be city dwellers.
— "Wordwatch," The Atlantic Monthly, August 1, 2000
Earliest Citation:
Frank Blau, a database designer from Issaquah, Wash., has never met a storm he didn't like, but hurricanes are definitely his favorite. "I don't want to use the word sexual, but there's something about the process of a hurricane that really appeals to me. You can see it coming; you feel it building; you can put yourself in as much danger as you want. Come late summer, if I can swing it, I'm heading to the Outer Banks to catch the peak of hurricane season."
Frank is a weather tourist, an odd but growing breed that plans its holidays around spectacularly awful weather. For the next five months, that means hurricanes.
— David Laskin, "Lovely Day for a Storm," The New York Times, July 11, 1999
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New words. 2013.