http://www.wthr.com/story/17456502/ball-st...-kansas-tornado

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WICHITA, Kan. -

Storm chasers from Indiana were dangerously close to Saturday's tornado outbreak in Kansas.

When the storms hit Wichita Saturday night, a group of Ball State students on a storm-tracking trip were caught in the middle. Brad Maushart, a senior, said the experience was one of the "scariest, but most exciting, things that's ever happened to me."

Maushart tracked the storms' path, then he and others were caught in the middle when their radar went black.

"It really came up behind us. Really just intense. At one point, the whole vehicle was picked up off the ground. I figured I can't drive anymore, so I stopped where I was," he said.

Brandon Redmond, a trained meteorologist from Ball State, was by his side.

"At that point, worst case scenario, we had no choice but to ride it out, put our hands over our heads, got down low, in case rear car windows broke. Basically, were picked up, basically hoping for the best," Redmond said.

Even at the height of the storm, they were on the radio, reporting their sightings to the National Weather Service to warn others.

"We didn't know whether we were going to come out of that tornado alive or not," said Redmond.

Ball State and WTHR Severe Weather Expert Dr. David Call says the close call for those nighttime spotters points up why all official weather spotting by Ball State is done in the daytime.

"Storms follow rules. They are part of the physical world, so most of the time we can track safely. But when you get severe storms, the rules fall apart," Call said.

Call says the Saturday storms were a classic Plains states outbreak. The death toll, thankfully, was low.

"The good news is, when these tornados hit out there, it's usually less-populated places. But if this had occurred in Indiana or Alabama, we would have been talking about dozens or hundreds of deaths, simply because there are just a lot more things for those tornados to hit," Call said.