The 24 students and two faculty members have tracked several major storm systems and recently were able to get within a few city blocks of a 300-yard wide twister about 12 miles south of Pratt, Kan.

"Some years the students get sort of bored because of a lack of storms, but that hasn't been the case this time," said David Arnold, geography professor and faculty advisor for Ball State's Storm Chase Team.

The group has been driving up to 600 miles daily to be in the right position to encounter severe weather.

"We were able to find the tornado and get right behind it," he said. "It was a great big black twister. I estimated the wind speeds between 150 and 200 miles per hour. Luckily, it was out in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn't much damage."

Arnold and Robert Schwartz, also a geography professor, are leading 24 students across the Plains to study storm development. The students are enrolled in the Field Observation of Severe Local Storms, a geology course for seniors and graduate students.

The three-week field trip to the Great Plains allows students to understand how tornadoes are created.  "We've tracked storms by using a laptop computer and logging into weather radars," Arnold said. "The latest tornado was spawned from a weather system that developed in southern Kansas. We picked a storm cloud and watched it develop into a large system.

"We've been lucky so far. In 1999, we didn't see a thing for the first few weeks and the kids got pretty bored," he said. "Things are different this year because of all of the recent storms. After that tornado, they understand what we are here for."

Driving in a group of five vans, each with a large magnet panel with the words "Ball State Storm Chase Team," has attracted attention.

KOCO, an ABC television network affiliate in Oklahoma City, Okla., spent several days with the Ball State storm chasers and caught the students' reactions on tape.

Arnold said some people in small, rural communities were frightened when they saw the vans. Others greeted the students with open arms.

"I guess some of the locals see the storm chase sign on the vans and immediately think something pretty bad is coming their way," he said. "On the other hand, not too much happens in these rural areas and we are often treated like celebrities. Everyone has a story to share with our students."

The storm chasing students might have a few stories of their own in the coming weeks. The forecast calls for the potential of turbulent weather in the next two to three weeks.