The SRV Dominator is a vehicle used for storm chasing

Storm chasing

Storm chasing is broadly defined as the pursuit of any severe weather condition, regardless of motive, which can be curiosity, adventure, scientific exploration or for news professions/media coverage....

 as featured on the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers

Storm Chasers (TV series)

Storm Chasers is a weekly American documentary reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2007 on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Original Media, the program follows several teams of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept tornadoes in Tornado Alley in the United States...

.

The Dominator

The Dominator was modified from a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe

Chevrolet Tahoe

The Chevrolet Tahoe are full-size SUVs from General Motors. Chevrolet and GMC sold two different-sized SUVs under their Blazer/Jimmy model names through the early 1990s. This situation changed when GMC rebadged the full-size Jimmy as the Yukon in 1992...

 that was used during the 2008 storm chasing season and debuted in the 2009 chase season. It was upgraded for the 2010 season with improved armor featuring Rhino Linings

Rhino Linings

Rhino Linings is a privately-held corporation founded in 1988 that manufactures protective polyurea and polyurethane coatings. The company is primarily known as the consumer favorite and brand name leader in truck bed liners. The company is based in San Diego, California...

. The SRV is not designed to intercept (due mainly to a lack of an anchoring system as employed on the TIV 2) but is able to get as close as humanly possible to tornado

Tornado

A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

s. The vehicle originally had standard windows, but these were replaced with ballistic glass for the 2010 storm season after an incident the previous year where a tornado in Aurora, Nebraska

Aurora, Nebraska

Aurora is a city in Hamilton County, Nebraska in the United States of America. The population was 4,225 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Hamilton County.-Geography:...

 unexpectedly strengthened right over the Dominator and blew out the driver's window. Designer Reed Timmer and one of his passengers suffered lacerations to the face from flying glass. Further upgrades added mid-season include a vertically-scanning radar

Weather radar

Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, estimate its type . Modern weather radars are mostly pulse-Doppler radars, capable of detecting the motion of rain droplets in addition to the...

 intended to profile the winds at different heights within a tornado, as well as compressed-air launchers intended to launch wireless parachute probes to gather and transmit data on tornadoes to a chase vehicle. During the 2011 storm season, the Dominator suffered various mechanical issues, including brake and hydraulic system failures, and the lexan protecting the driver's side window not fully closing.

Dominator 2

In early 2011, Timmer and other members of TVN purchased a 2011 GMC Yukon XL which would be the base vehicle for a second Dominator vehicle christened Dominator 2. Changes over the first Dominator are said to include a flex fuel engine, improved aerodynamic streamlining, swiveling rear passenger seats, improved hydraulics, and upgraded armor protection as well as anchoring spikes which could allow it to engage tornadoes stronger than those the original Dominator could safely face. Timmer also stated that both vehicles would be used with one going into tornadoes to gather data from inside the funnel while the other would collect data from just outside the tornado, with the intention of comparing the two sets of data. Features shared with the first Dominator are said to include rubber Rhino Lining, onboard radar, compressed air cannons for deploying wireless parachute probes, and a mast-mounted anemometer (the first Dominator being equipped with an anemometer for the 2011 storm chasing season).

Dominator 2 first saw action during the May 21–26, 2011 tornado outbreak sequence in central Oklahoma

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, which was shown on the fifth season of Storm Chasers.