weather

Lamb-Hale-Swisher County, Texas Tornadic Supercell

A classic, large negatively tilted upper-level trough was progged to move into West Texas by late in the day today.  I wanted to focus on the area just south of the Texas Panhandle where I expected better instability and more discrete, right-moving storms.  My morning target was Plainview, updated to Tulia by early afternoon.  A steady steam of information was delivered to me via cell phone by William Reid to keep me on track.

South Dakota Tornado Outbreak and Intercept

I never really thought that I would see a storm like I saw on Tuesday evening. Ever.  

On Tuesday, June 24, I watched the same storm produce tornado after tornado after tornado for more than an hour, with two or more tornadoes on the ground at the same time, THREE different times!  It was simply unbelievable. 

Happy, Texas Tornado Intercept

Dean Cosgrove and I caught the Happy, TX, tornado for the Tempest Tours folks on early Sunday evening, May 5. 

Like many other chasers, I was not exactly confident in my "target area" for Sunday, even into early afternoon. I liked the southeast Texas Panhandle, somewhere in the Amarillo-Childress-Shamrock vicinity.

Touching the Sky

Becoming a storm chaser was the natural course for someone fascinated by severe weather and tornadoes since childhood.  My interest in storms developed during that time as a result of many days spent viewing dark, ominous Texas skies, and nights spent awake watching vivid lightning from the window of my room while thunder, hail and howling winds combined in a cacophony of incredible noise that shook our home.

The Seward, Nebraska, Tornado

Dean Cosgrove and I caught the tornado near Seward, Nebraska, on Wednesday for the Tempest Tours gang. The tornado was large and slow moving, and we had great contrast and were able to set up camcorders on tripods and watch it from 3-4 miles away!

The Spencer Tornado Chase

Hey, why didn't someone tell me about Dakota magic before? I've been hanging out around the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles all these years, waiting for the Holy Grail of Tornados to unfold before me. Maybe I should trade in Amarillo for Aberdeen.

Needle in a Haystack, Spencer, South Dakota

It was Saturday evening, June 13, 1998. I was having dinner with some of the top storm chasers in the country at the Wagon Wheel Tavern in historic Marysville, Kansas. Fellow chasers Carson Eads, Tim Marshall, Alan Moller, Gene Rhoden and I sat down to a late meal after chasing a fast-moving, high-precipitation supercell along the Kansas-Nebraska border for several hours.

Colby, Kansas Chase

I awoke at about 3:00AM on the morning of July 21, 1996 at my home in Arlington, Texas. I had been watching the persistent northwesterly flow that had set up over the Central Plains for days. I had interviews scheduled the next day, on the 22nd, in Colorado for my newest documentary.

​​​​​​​Pampa - Hoover, Texas Chase

The Spring 1995 storm season had been a long and unusual one for me. I began chasing in March for fun and photography. Then, in mid-April I began shooting on the sequel to Chasing the Wind.