| The History of Stormtrack |
| [b]Stormtrack magazine[/b]
Stormtrack was started in 1977 by David Hoadley as a way of connecting a handful of dedicated storm chasers. The number of readers grew into the hundreds during the 1980s. In 1986, David Hoadley elected to retire as editor and handed the reins to Tim Marshall, an engineer from the Dallas area. The magazine continued to grow in popularity and reached its peak in 1997 following the appearance of the film [i]Twister[/i]. Tim Marshall released the final issue of Stormtrack in 2002, bringing the magazine's 25-year run to a close. He cited the success of the Internet in bringing stormchasers together in real-time, which brought the magazine into obsolescence.
[b]Stormtrack online -- the early years[/b]
Stormtrack's official website was started in late 1996 by Tim Vasquez. In spring 1997, Stormtrack ran a huge number of chasing photos, chasing news, and chase logs on its website. We were originally found at telepath.com/stormtrack, but we quickly got our own domain name and shared hosting. Stormtrack continued to be popular during the remainder of the 1990s but it a hand-written HTML news site and had no community. In 2000 we officially merged with Gilbert Sebenste's famous Storm Chaser Homepage and moved to . In 2002 we began moving full-steam toward a community based model, starting a Yahoo Group (stormtrack) and running an IRC chat room with frequent distinguished guests appearing. Finally in late 2003 we implemented the current incarnation of Stormtrack, a phpBB discussion board that rapidly grew into what Stormtrack is today.
[b]Stormtrack online -- nowadays[/b]
Our current Stormtrack board numbers nearly 2,000 active users. In late 2005 Tim Marshall relegated Stormtrack ownership to Tim Vasquez, electing to serve as an advisor. In June 2009 we began charging a nominal fee for new accounts, grandfathering all existing users and allowing a waiver for NOAA employees. This allowed us to cease our dependence on donations. |
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