Storm Chasing.

I am a big fan of the YouTube (and PBS) series “Outside Beyond The Lens”. I recently watched their episodes about storm chasing, and it perfectly captures and shares the vibe and sentiment I feel when out on the Great Plains chasing storms. I hope you enjoy this beautiful piece of video art as much as I did.

Mother Nature seems to be in a feisty mood again this week. After some impressive monsoon rains this past weekend, it looks like she’s going to continue her fun for the next few days.

Tucson is under the “Heavy Rain/Flash Flooding Possible” red zone in today’s forecast from the NOAA WPC or Weather Prediction Center. Maybe I’ll get some good lightning shots after work tonight.

I’m still making my way through photos and video footage from my storm chasing trip in May. While I’m going through all these picturesque bits and bytes I sometimes feel a moment of disbelief realizing it’s been nearly a month since I trekked out onto the Great Plains. That is usually followed by a pang of boredom, because the weather in the month of June in Sonoran Desert is generally very boring, especially for a guy that loves wild weather.

We have been experiencing near record heat for the past couple of weeks and it looks like the trend is going to continue for the foreseeable future. This should come as a surprise to no one; the climate is changing and too many people don’t care about the climate enough to do anything about it.

I’m tired of selfish people.

I think I have isolated myself too much from storm chasers that are still out on the Great Plains chasing storms well into June.

When I came back from the trip and realized the car needed a few thousand dollars of repairs I began to wonder if chasing storms was worth it. Blazing thunderstorms, high winds, and impressive tornadoes a mile or two away? Sign me up. Dancing in ping-pong ball sized hail? I can probably pass on that opportunity.

But gosh, how I love visiting The Great Plains.

Here’s my video recap of my Storm Chasing adventure in Brush, Colorado. This was day 3 of my Storm Chasing trip 2024, which was Monday, May 20.

This 16 minute video recaps my recent storm chasing adventure in western Oklahoma. The tornado on Thursday, May 23 in Eldorado and Duke was the most impressive twister I’ve encountered; and the hail storm afterward was interesting as well.

This is going to be an abbreviated blog entry, as it has been quite a day. I will write more detail of today’s events in the coming days. Suffice it to say, I had my best tornado intercept thus far in my storm chasing career.

This is a large tornado that went through an unpopulated area near Eldorado, Oklahoma.

The twister pulled down a lot of power lines in the area, which made getting out of the storm a bit more tricky than anticipated.

I was in awe today. I also learned a lot today.

Today I drove from Liberty, Missouri to Durant, Oklahoma. I jumped off Interstate 35 at the very first opportunity, as I did not want today to be an “all interstate” day again. It’s not my jam. I ended up driving US Highway 75 for a considerable stretch. I passed through Independence, Kansas, which was one of my target locations on last year’s chase. I also drove through Tulsa. We’ll leave that at that.

Actually, after driving through Omaha and Des Moines yesterday, and then Tulsa today, I’m finding as I get older I’m really preferring the small town vibe that I grew up with versus the bit of hustle and bustle found in today’s U.S. cities.

Storms were moving through these parts in the early afternoon and I knew I had no chance of catching them, so I took my time getting down here and enjoyed the drive. There are more storms forecasted for the overnight. It’s my plan to enjoy them from the comfort of my hotel room.

For supper I drove across the state line to Sherman, Texas, where I tried some local brews at Cellarman’s Pub and Brewery. I don’t know the name of the bartender, but he was kind and talked beer with me. I continued my tradition of a side of local chili with my meal and it was very good.

I had a sample of the Banana Pudding Ale shown on the menu but it wasn’t really my thing. It was good, but I found it too sweet for the moment.

The National Weather Service is predicting a round of storms to go through the area tonight and then I’ll head to the northwest tomorrow to hit the next expected severe storm area.

I drove from Colby, Kansas to Des Moines, Iowa via Omaha, Nebraska to chase the storms that made the news this evening. I was very close to the tornado in Stuart, Iowa, but it was rain wrapped and hard to see spot with all the trees and erratic drivers on Interstate 80.

The drivers along Interstate 80 were frankly making exceedingly stupid choices in the inclement weather. It was very common for drivers to just randomly stop in the left hand lane of the freeway, even though there was at least a mile of visibility. This, coupled with the number of trucks driven by folks using their smartphones, made my frustration levels skyrocket and I just decided to get out of there.

There are a number of reasons I dislike chasing storms east of Interstate 35 and north of Interstate 70. There’s too many trees to get good photos, there’s too many hills to see what’s going on, and for some reason the drivers in those parts think they need to be in the left most lane at all times.

I ended up driving down to Osceola, Iowa, where there were several storm cells moving through, but they didn’t get their act together enough to get spinning or anything. The most I witnessed was pea sized hail.

I decided to start heading south for the next area forecasted for severe weather, and that’s the Texarkana area. I knew I was too tired to make it all the way to the next target zone, but Kansas City was manageable. I’m situated for the night in Liberty, Missouri.

I’m back in Colby, Kansas. Tomorrow’s forecast includes wild weather from Omaha, Nebraska, across Iowa, and well into Wisconsin and Illinois. I’ve set a personal maximum of Des Moines, Iowa. I shall not go further east than Des Moines.

Today I drove from Wichita, Kansas to Brush, Colorado. There were a BUNCH of storm chasers in Northeast Colorado, and this storm had the graciousness of allowing me to get set up and in position to record events.

I ended up chasing the storm along some dirt county roads near Brush, and spotted a small little funnel along the way.

I have plenty of video to put together from the day’s activities, including some nice lightning shots. When I get home on Monday I’m going to be very busy in the video editing bay. I’m concerned about running out of storage space on my external hard drive.

As mentioned earlier, I’m in Colby, Kansas tonight. I was planning on heading toward Omaha via Interstate 80. But most of the hotel options were booked, probably by other storm chasers, for a reasonable distance for tonight, so I opted to get back down to I-70 and grab a hotel along that corridor. There were several vans of storm chasing tours doing the same thing; they stopped in Goodland, Kansas. I went a little further and opted for Colby.