During the off season
the most dedicated storm chasers spend months preparing for springtime's severe weather.
Testing out new camera gear & packing up and preparing for weeks on the road.
Here's Daniel Shaw installing another communications antenna.
Here's Skip Talbot assembling his prototype for the tornado
observation analysis and detection project or TOAD.
and here's me, testing my new drone in the big city signal interference.
Oh look who we got here all the way from Minnesota.
Yeah I made it here i left at 2pm yesterday.
There it is.
For most storm chasers the primary objective is witnessing and documenting a photogenic burrito.
My first burrito of the year was this rainy snake slithering through the mist.
By seeking a rain-free view and dangerously positioning in a burrito's path
Some storm chasers seem hell-bent on raising the steaks.
You're ruining my shot guys.
Really?
On April 23rd storm chasers were treated to one of the most photogenic spectacles of the year.
nice
Still on the ground.
I think it's time to roll.
Let's pull over here next to Daniel for a second.
There she is.
On the other side of this tornado
Blake Brown had a more chromatic view.
Right in front of a rainbow. That's the first for me.
This EF-2 was the strongest tornado of the family.
It destroyed small barns and threw a pickup truck 100 meters.
In all, this storm's five or six highly visible tornadoes
grazed mostly upon open country.
No fatalities were reported.
Let's go down there.
All right we gotta go.
Right up in there.
We don't want to drive under that that's gonna be the next tornado.
That is wild!
Storm chasers often stumble upon fantastic colors in the sky
like this circumhorizontal arc also called a fire rainbow.
Other times the vibrant colors are forecast and anticipated
Like this lightning storm at golden hour.
Some chasers pause to appreciate other interesting storm features
like this distant storm's overshooting top.
Because i paused to appreciate this overshooting top
I missed the storm's wild rope tornado.
I just saw the funnel cloud.
oh really?
I can see it from here and i'm still 20 miles away.
Ok bye.
oh it's on the ground. On the ground!
Fortunately Mike Olbinski was on location...
To pick up the slack.
That's unbelievable!
That's tornado spin-up.
Eventually i arrived at the scene to marvel this low precipitation supercell
For two hours chasers gawked at a UFO like mesocyclone twisting into changing light.
Some chase for science
aiming to collect data that will help them untangle the burrito's mysteries.
Gas station quick stop. No way!
Headed by Dr. Anton Seimon, our field operations team assembled again
to gather our scientific a contributions
We're having a tumbleweed race.
1...2....3!
Near Lubbock Texas another low precipitation supercell
was ingesting and coughing up copious amounts of orange dust.
The storm just got a tornado warning.
Strong winds circulating around the storm's base veiled a developing tornado.
In order to see the tornado we attempted to
punch through the dust storm hoping for a clear view on the other side.
Obviously very low visibility and there's storm chasers parked on the side of the road.
Copy that. We're going 35 here.
Inside the surging belts of dust the atmosphere felt less like Texas and more like Jupiter.
wow
The one yesterday... were you there for that, that tornado?
No i missed the tornado. i'm shooting video... Oh.
I missed the tornado but i got the structure.
Unearthly scenes and vivid spectra dazzled onlookers through the sunset
and far into the am hours
red sprites and green ghosts blossomed into the stars.
they just keep coming. oh my goodness!
BIG GHOST! Holy moly!
This is the craziest sprites i've ever gotten and there's a falling star just to add some awesomeness to it.
Last night one of the most amazing evenings of sprites. today i woke up late but wanted
to share a little treat with you guys that we just now found crossing the road. Look at that.
You guys know what that is right? He's a big old male bull snake
look at that beautiful banded tail
that he vibrates in the weeds. People think he's a rattlesnake because they're dumb.
this guy was hanging out in an area that had been completely tilled up.
It was just dirt as far as you could see and he was just laying in the road
somebody was gonna hit him. I was thinking to myself you can do better than that.
So we're gonna move you to some park where they don't till up the earth
bet there's lots of ladies out there.
Now there's a fly in here. Say goodbye to the beautiful bull snake
and hopefully i will have you guys some more goodies...
is that fly on my face now?
see what one fly can do your whole game plan.
We've got a funnel cloud, High base. Of course the hail's coming.
Storm chasers are no strangers to danger but most of this danger arrives in the strangest of ways.
A rogue bolt from the blue leaping miles away from a storm can strike with no warning.
The army of other drivers out there can strike with no warning. Nice good job dude.
Or a random microburst suddenly tearing down the towering trees above.
In thunderstorms, microbursts are powerful downdrafts
slamming into the ground and spreading out in all directions.
Driving into one can be as scary as driving into a hurricane... But much more brief.
Arf arf arf
Rather than abandon their pets at home for weeks, some storm chasers
bring their furry companions along for the ride.
This is our lead pheasant chaser Jody
and her energized sidekick Chase!
Jody was adopted in 2007 and became a devoted storm chaser soon after.
This is Jody's 13th year chasing. Probably 50 tornadoes. Wow!
You guys were at Campo in 2010...
Pretty storm?
Yeah... You know... Shrug.
But the Campo tornado was one of those tornadoes that actually captured our dog Jody for
more than a few seconds. When she looked up and that big white funnel coming down her eyes
just gazed on it and she was just following it across the landscape.
and then she went back to chewing her bone.
Oh there's Jody back there. Not you!
hey i'm trying to film Jody here.
Jody, you saw Campo and I didn't.
13 years of chasing storms, 50 tornadoes, countless priceless adventures and gray hairs.
In her lifetime Jody got to experience more tornado alley majesty
than most storm chasers ever.
Will we sure will miss her
There's a nice wide shot guys, anvil towering cumulus and possible funnel cloud in there.
From our far perspective an SLC lowered right where a tornado should be.
Public reports tornado.
SLCs are often mistakenly reported as tornadoes. so what do you think? Is this a tornado or just an SLC?
How's your 2021 season dude?
uh it's going okay. what about you? it's been great.
yeah yeah, hanging in there.
wow
Some tornadoes are so weak and brief it's difficult to tally them as tornadoes.
Man it wants to do it.
Burrito on the ground guys... Or not
Yeah to me it looked like a brief tornado um and then it just got blasted by RFD.
It's crazy to see a discreet cell like this in Kansas in May not going tornado nuts.
And then we've got these little tiny cells to the north that have been burrito warned the whole time.
Another long day of storm chasing. It started off early and went all day long that's been the case
for the last eight days straight. Got some good storm structures, some okay lighting, some beautiful
sprites but all the tornadoes have been weak tiny dusty nipples and again today i think that's what
we got is a weak tiny dusty nipple.
To celebrate we're gonna have a half a taco and some pop tarts.
DUDE! How's your 2021 been?
Ah not too bad. It could be better but
hopefully we'll change that today.
Charles how was your 2021 season?
It's been going decent we've seen quite a few tornadoes
Aaron! How was your 2021
It's honestly been not too bad now. Now that i'm actually seeing cool stuff.
2021 season was very very challenging we drove around in circles a lot
and we continuing to drive around the circles.
where are we again? I don't know
With peak tornado season winding down and future targets becoming less and less apparent
dedicated storm chasers dispersed around the country in their search for more amazing weather.
I returned to my hometown to check on the lightning and the lizards in my backyard.
This is Dino, King of the garage.
He got the scar on his face fighting with Rival.
This is Dino's sweetheart Katie.
Hey Dino, you want another bug? Come get it.
The only thing Dino and Katie like better than big free juicy roaches
Is snuggling. <3
In June while I was documenting lightning storms in southeast Texas
Daniel Shaw was documenting more gorgeous supercell structure in North Dakota.
Here's the plan for today... uh today has all the promise of coffee and a styrofoam cup
with powdered creamer.
it's not the best parameters in the world but it's enough to
get you out the door and on your way.
That was what was just about to drive over you. This is a horny toad... Not me
I'm just a person. This is the horny toad. This is actually a horned lizard and I bet if you have a big
TV screen at home right now my face is scaring your kids. When i was a kid I saw my first
horny toad and i ran inside and said "there's a dinosaur out there" and it was the neatest thing
i'd ever seen. I mean look at how prehistoric this guy is. All right, we gotta go to work.
On June 26, two storms smashing into each other cooked up a dusty vortex sandwich.
That wasn't me.
Only the local horny toads dared get close enough to decipher
if these vortices were big gustnados or small tornadoes.
Hello! Jesus Greg. Watch your ass dude!
What are you guys doing?
Causing a bunch of mischief aren't ya?
OH get out of here kitty.
Kitty just wants to be part of the group don't you?
It's definitely the coolest place in town to be hanging out isn't it?
In july most of the tornado only targeting chasers are done running around for the year
but a handful of transient luminous event photographers are just hitting their stride.
We're having a yard sale today if you'd like to come by and purchase anything.
We got stuff everywhere you name it we got it. It looks like Circuit City came over here and threw up.
I mean if we can't get it with all this... I'm feeling good i think we're in a wicked spot.
We have a lot of opportunity from two different areas so we can't ask for better than that right?
How do you like that flashlight in your eyes?
it's like yeah... it's like an interrogation.
We're hearing all sorts of strange wild animal sounds out there so if somebody finds this footage...
(animal yelping). Is he laughing? Is that a laugh?
In august some chasers head for the Sonoran Desert
to try their hand with the scenic North American monsoon.
While chasers in Arizona and New Mexico were striking the lightning jackpot
Melanie Metz was in Illinois bagging a rare 2021 photogenic burrito.
By the end of November, 2021 had tallied about average annual tornado reports
and only 14 fatalities... But it wasn't over yet.
On the evening of December 10th in the dark am hours of the 11th
a deadly tornado outbreak devastated portions of the Ohio and mid-Mississippi river valleys.
In horrifying darkness multiple strong to violent long-tracking tornadoes destroyed thousands
of homes and businesses, some of which were completely leveled or swept from their foundations.
One long-lived supercell produced two EF-4 tornadoes where Arkansas, Missouri
Tennessee and Kentucky borders are in close proximity.
Several media outlets prematurely hyped these tornadoes as one "quad state tornado" inaccurately
claiming the longest tornado ever recorded. The first EF-4 from the storm tracked 81 miles
killing seven people. With top wind speeds estimated at 190 miles per hour, the second tracked
165 miles killing over 50 people. By sunrise on December 11th, 88 people had lost their lives.
Four days later a long-lived and fast-moving destructive windstorm called a derecho
spawned a swarm of burritos in the upper midwest. The highest rated were only EF2s and no
tornado-related fatalities were reported. A freak December finished off 2021 with an additional 200
tornadoes. More than April and June combined.
In 2021, 1376 tornadoes were confirmed causing over a hundred fatalities
the most tornado-related deaths we've seen in the U.S. since 2011.
Though it turned out to be an above average year in touchdowns a continuing deficit of photogenic
tornadoes seemed to inflate the reverence for nebulous weak and rain wrapped funnels
Day five... Still going. Are you vaccinated? Yeah I'm good. That's the right answer.
For most of the storm chasers the surplus of incredible storm structures
lightning and atmospheric colors made chasing in 2021 well worth all the challenges.
'Til next time friends, happy trails!