Mother Nature will eventually catch up with you, as it did in this case. I think storm chasers do good service for science, but to make it a living invokes the law of diminishing returns — in this instance the diminishing chase of surviving such storms.
Just ask Steve Irwin.
You’re right. I follow a few of the more famous storm chasers on Facebook, and they keep pushing the envelope further and further in terms of how close than can get to the big monster storms without getting hurt. This time, the risk taking finally caught up to them.