Bill Paxton: Storm chasers form GPS tribute for dead Twister actor
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Nearly 200 storm chasers paid tribute to late actor Bill Paxton by spelling out his initials using GPS coordinates on a map depicting the heart of Tornado Alley.
The effort — coordinated by Spotter Network — spelled out BP to honour the leading man in 1996 disaster movie Twister, which inspired a generation of storm chasers.
Storm chasers and storm spotters have spelled out the initials of fellow chasers in the tight-knit community four or five times before, but never for a non-chaser, said the John Wetter, the president of the not-for-profit that tracks the positions of tornado chasers and works with the National Weather Service to update weather forecasts.
"There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of meteorologists today, myself included, who were impacted by the movie Twister and the role Bill played in that," Mr Wetter said.
"Twister was kind of the first time in a mass media place the meteorologist became cool, if only for a little while."
In the 1996 blockbuster, Paxton plays a storm chaser who is researching tornados during a twister outbreak in Oklahoma.
The storm chasers spelled the initials on a map that was centred on Wakita, Oklahoma, a real town in the heart of Tornado Alley that served as the set for almost all of the movie, Mr Wetter said.
Most people participating did not travel to log their dot on the map, but they instead entered GPS coordinates manually to spell the letters after the Spotter Network posted a rough outline of the project on its Facebook page and asked for help, Mr Wetter said.
AP
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Topics: arts-and-entertainment, united-states
