On anticipated big days
a storm chaser might drive all the way to Iowa
and only see some rain.
Then turn around and drive all night back to Texas
and only see some rain.
A storm chaser might drive all the way to Montana
only to get a sunburn.
Sometimes a Storm Chaser isn't expecting to see anything
and they find...
a monster.
On April 11th my rear security camera captured a developing burrito over the mountains in Oklahoma.
By the time I found a clearing and got the good cameras rolling
it was gone.
Nice little whirl right there.
The following day
my front security camera captured this burrito.
By the time I got the good cameras rolling,
It was gone.
Over the trees in Mississippi
Anvil crawler lighting scampered like spiders.
Over the storms later that night
falling stars seemed to cue the red Sprites,
and the red Sprites always seem to cue the coyotes.
(Coyotes yelping) Dancing sprites.
Nice!
Bam! Big sprite.
Got our first Towers going up for the day.
Those white clouds right there along the dry line are these right here.
Time is 3:48.
On April 29th an incredible EF-3 would torment Andover Kansas.
6:31 beautiful funnel cloud.
But I got to document this EF-0 tormenting prairie dogs and flinging grasshoppers near Hope Kansas.
Boom!
Here comes the conga line.
Morning.
Here's the plan for today.
It's kind of like plugging in a USB cable. It's 50-50 you're going to get it right
and I'm thinking I'm going to go with the northern Target because it's a lot less driving and tomorrow I have to be right back up here in
Oklahoma for the big day.
Days with low risk of tornadoes can still offer beautiful storm scenery
and without as many Chasers crowding the best vantage points.
Hahahaha!
Hey dude?
What?
How you doing?
I'm good...
You're my shot.
Can you can you move back a bit?
Oh oh you want that? I'm sorry, sorry. Hahaha!
There it is.
We're here.
Should cross the road right in front of us.
Suction vortices are gonna whip by.
As this weak tornado passed overhead
a carousel of suction vortices was on the ground
terrorizing prairie dogs and flinging grasshoppers
Though it wasn't active March and April
I wasn't able to wrangle any photogenic tornadoes.
On May the 4th my luck changed.
Don't back up.
Extreme drought conditions in West Texas fed this highly visible storm red dust
as it fostered multiple photogenic tornadoes over open country.
Oh that's wild!
Its coming right for us.
Tumbleweed.
This is the inflow jet
Incredible.
Alright here we go again.
Later that evening as the storm tapped into more moisture
conditions became much more dangerous.
A large rain-wrapped ef-3 would impact the town of Locket Texas
and several Chasers
Hey old dog.
Hello.
Well, don't you think about it. Don't you think about it!
Some animals haven't learned the highway is a dangerous place.
Some people haven't learned this either.
Sometimes you try to teach them a helpful lesson. [Honk]
Sometimes that just ends up in road rage.
6:27 and it's a super dusty atmosphere.
Can't see much so we're going to be relying heavily on radar.
The ongoing severe drought in Texas offered a unique look into tornadogenesis.
There's a funnel cloud in there.
Yep, there's the tornado warning.
The easily lofted dirt and dust
reveals multiple weak vortices under the base prior to the large main tornado developing
and the slow storm motion enabled me to shoot long stable time lapses of the process.
Creepy ass storm.
Ooo! That scared me. Hahaha.
That's a tornado.
Oh man that is creepy deepy.
It's coming right for us.
Here again in the path of a tornado. What's the hail situation?
Alright we gotta go or...
That's what I hate about getting too close.
Nasty scary storm!
We're gonna get caught in the hail In the path of this tornado.
In the creepy shadow of this tornado
radar revealed a second tornado that was likely developing behind me.
It's doing a little U-turn. It's kind of stationary out there.
Concerned about the approaching large destructive hail and potentially being in a tornado sandwich
I made the daring call to slip south
at least out of this thing's path.
Oh I'm shaking.
Here comes the hail.
Yeah we gotta go this way
otherwise the hail's gonna destroy us in the path of this thing.
Had to be done.
With this tornado retreating deeper into the hail core
I decided to bail and make a run for the new tornado
but it didn't take long for the storm to dump on those plans.
This is all inflow. This is all the storm pulling in all this dust so that means
it could tornado again.
Not going to be easy to see when you can only see 30 yards in front of you.
Scary.
There's a tornado in there.
Tumbleweeds! Hahaha!
Now they're going the other way. Great.
Man what a mean, mean,
mean storm today.
There was jets of dust streaming in and you couldn't see
and there was hail crashing out you couldn't see
and there was tumbleweed stampedes and there was lightning
and I was able to get right in that sweet spot and see a nasty,
big old brown burrito.
To celebrate we're having
Sriracha tuna on saltine crackers with half the sodium
and for dessert we're going all out and having a big old can of pineapple.
I almost didn't even come out today I woke up at 5am and I did a forecast and I thought
ain't nothing gonna happen. Then I thought
what the heck. It's May.
and out here in May
magic happens.
Nasty, brown tornado magic.
By the end of May
extensive road wear, isolation and mental exhaustion can start to set in.
Don't fall over. Don't fall over. Gotta show you the awesome sound my bed makes. Ready? Watch this.
[Music] Papa gonna build a good home. Papa gonna make it sound
[Music] Papa gonna build a fence around
Mother Nature gonna blow the whole thing down [Music]
What are you filming hank?
You know I charge for appearances.
You got a nickel coming to you.
From Texas to Montana, Florida to Arizona...
For the rest of the year I trailed beautiful lightning storms over the endless miles.
In 2022, 1240 confirmed tornadoes have been tallied.
I was only able to track down a dozen of those
my third consecutive year with below average scores
Though 2022 wasn't as epic as 2016 or 2019 for many of us
We'd be foolish to complain.
'Til next time friends, happy trails.