Today, I’ll teach you about the 4 non-weather failure modes and 3 ways to avoid them.

Chasers invest thousands in gear, drive countless miles, and obsess over forecasts.  But like fumbling the ball on the one-yard line in football, a single mistake can ruin the game.  Understanding what can go wrong—and how to avoid it—can make all the difference.

Most chasers fail because of preventable errors, not the weather.  Failure is often caused by ignorance, and sometimes by a poor memory. Whatever the case, knowing why you messed up is key to improving.  After 25+ years of chasing, I’ve learned that 60-80% of success comes from knowing what not to do.

Here’s the antidote:

• Prepare thoroughly

• Make quick, thoughtful decisions

• Stay flexible

Here’s where things can go wrong.

It’s incredible that any chasers see tornadoes at all.  So much has to go right, and so much can go wrong. Failures in chasing typically fall into...

Today, I’ll show you how to tell when a lowering has a real chance of producing a tornado.

For new storm chasers, one of the biggest challenges is knowing what you’re seeing. At first glance, it might seem easy—just look for clouds that resemble textbook images. But real storms rarely match the textbooks. A wall cloud that could produce a tornado can look very similar to a harmless lowering.

Understanding which lowerings have real tornado potential helps you position yourself for the best intercept, and it may even prevent you from missing a tornado.

The challenge? Telling these lowerings apart—even experienced chasers sometimes get it wrong, sometimes leading to missed opportunities.

Non-tornadic lowerings usually form near a downdraft.  Tornadic lowerings often develop where updrafts and downdrafts meet.

I’ll never forget it.  It was one of the saddest things I’ve seen while chasing.

May 4, 2003.  Dozens of chasers had pulled over...

Storm chasing has its thrilling moments—when a storm explosively breaks the cap, when you see a stunning supercell, or when a tornado intensifies right in front of you.

But anyone who’s chased for more than a season knows the reality: these moments are rare. Most of the time, you end up busting. Sometimes it’s due to a bad decision, other times it’s a muddy road. But usually, it’s just that the weather in your target area didn’t cooperate.

Recognizing these failure modes is crucial to avoiding them. Doing so can save you a lot of frustration and lead to more successful chases.

Chase failures can be caused by many factors, but most are tied to weather conditions. Even during a major outbreak, just one or two variables can turn a promising target storm into a bust. That’s why it’s crucial to understand which meteorological factors can ruin a chase day.

It's not always easy to pinpoint which weather factor caused a setup to fail....

Hello, Friend. Hope your weekend is off to a good start.

August brought some incredible storms, including the stunning tornadoes near Mound City, South Dakota, on the 28th. The storm’s structure was amazing, making me rethink the need to get too close. Honestly, keeping a distance seems smarter now, though I didn’t always feel that way.

OVer a decade ago, I loved the thrill of getting up close—sometimes too close. One chase nearly ended in disaster, filled with mistakes I only fully understood years late.

INSIDE A FUJIWHARA TORNADO

On April 13, 2012, an aggressive storm chase maneuver I made nearly went wrong. We drove north through a high-precipitation supercell near Cooperton, OK, and encountered a low-visibility tornado.

It has taken me 11 years to post this.

On 4/13/12, an aggressive chase maneuver I made almost ended badly.

We punched north through a high-precip supercell near Cooperton, OK and saw this low visibility tornado. It didn't seem...

 Happy August, Friend!  Hope it's been a good one so far.

It's fitting that just as the severe weather slowed down, Twisters was released. Naturally, I saw it opening weekend—and it was great!

This blog covers:

•  What Twisters got right
• When to stop to take tornado pics
• Why the Moore EF5 storm was so powerful

TWISTERS: 10 THINGS THE MOVIE GOT RIGHT

The movie is the sequel to the 1996 cult classic Twister. Since its release on July 19th, it has already grossed over $170 million at the box office. Because of its popularity, I thought it would be fun to review the movie from a chaser's perspective.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Here are 10 things I believe the movie nailed:

1. Forecasting tools - in the opening scene, Praveen is shown looking at the Storm Prediction Center Mesoanalysis page for forecasting—a realistic touch! Throughout the movie, storm chasers are often seen using Gibson Ridge radar software, which many...

Scientists Confirm 300+ MPH Winds in Greenfield Tornado!

July 2024

Hello, Friend!  Hope you're enjoying the weekend.

After an amazing severe weather season, we're finally enjoying some quiet in the Plains. So there's no better time to look back at one of the most intense tornadoes of the year!

GREENFIELD TORNADO MAX WINDS

Recently, the Center for Severe Weather Research confirmed that the EF4 Greenfield, Iowa tornado had some of the most intense winds ever observed. Based on Doppler on Wheels (DOWs) data, they estimate that the tornado contained winds of 309-318 mph!

As the 2024 #BEST field season ends, a glimpse into the data collection during the Greenfield, IA tornado. Peak wind speeds as high as 309-318 mph were calculated in a narrow region 100-160 feet ARL. These are among the highest wind speeds ever determined using DOW data. https://t.co/CM09J3VSOB pic.twitter.com/fuxfdyoi9d

— Doppler on Wheels (DOW) (@DOWFacility) June 22, 2024

These winds...

2024 Tornado Bonanza Continues

June 2024

Happy June!  I hope your May was as good as mine.

I just returned from a highly successful storm chase vacation. Amazingly, we tracked 9 tornadoes in just three days.  And most of those came from the amazing Windthorst, Texas tornadic storm on May 25th.  It had one of the best combinations of tornado and supercell structure that I've ever witnessed:

And, as amazing as that storm was, there were even more stunning storms before we arrived.  And arguably, the most violent of these was the wedge tornado that hit Greenfield, Iowa on May 21st.

GREENFIELD, IOWA EF4

This storm truly was one for the ages. In progress for nearly an hour, this intense tornado hit the small town of Greenfield near the end of its path.  The Doppler on Wheels, which were collecting data during the tornado, measured winds of at least 250 mph in the funnel:

Very prelim analysis of DOW data show
>250 mph peak winds, possibly high as...

This has been an absolutely crazy week or so, hasn't it?  And it looks like we're just getting started!

Check out Tomer Burg's animation of the last week's storm reports!

A quick look at SPC storm reports from the highly active - and unfortunately devastating - stretch of severe weather over the last week that is still ongoing: pic.twitter.com/YuyQWctk34

— Tomer Burg (@burgwx) May 4, 2024

THE YEAR OF THE TORNADO

Over the last several months, meteorologists had been suggesting that 2024 would be a big tornado year.  A lot was made of the impact of high sea-surface temperatures in the Western Gulf of Mexico and the transition from El Nino to La Nina.

But as March rolled into April, below normal tornado activity continued. Several big events occurred, but photogenic tornadoes were few and far between.

One exception was a local outbreak of tornadoes that struck Iowa on April 16th. Paul Spomer caught this amazing, sinuous tornado just north of the surface...

Sometimes, it's hard to remember how you began.

And that's definitely true for long-time chasers. We sometimes forget how hard it was for us in the beginning. And when I started, I was really bad at it.  So I thought it might be helpful to tell how I became a chaser

For me, it all began in 1990. On May 15th, a powerful F3 tornado struck my hometown, Stillwater, OK.

After the tornado hit, I became fascinated with tornadoes. Trouble was, I didn't know where to find information about them. My mom suggested that I write the local weatherman, Gary England,  to see if he might be taking his tornado safety talk to town.

To my surprise, Gary wrote back. His letter arrived 3 weeks after I sent mine. He said that, sadly, he wouldn't be coming to Stillwater that year. But he gave me a copy of his book "Those Terrible Twisters and the Weather of Oklahoma"

That was when my obsession truly began. The book that Gary gave me had it all: tornado pics, dates, locations -- everything. I...

Introduction

Welcome to my new blog. Periodically, I will be posting about weather events I find interesting.  I'll also be adding chaser-relevant bits I learn from science articles.  Hope you enjoy!

Basic Meteorology for Storm Chasers

I recorded a new version of the beginner's meteorology presentation I gave at NSCS.  In it, I cover:

• Surface maps
• Upper air maps
• Skew-T Log-p charts
• Hodographs

You can find it on Youtube here.

And if you find it useful, please like and subscribe!  I'll be posting more content like this soon.

Storm Mergers

Also, I've been reading quite a bit of research on storm mergers and their relationship to tornadogenesis.  It turns out that mergers matter -- a lot.

Did you know that 50% of tornadoes form within a few minutes of a merger?  This is not an accident. It turns that mergers are important because they increase stretching. 

(Y'all remember the ice skater analogy, right?  Spin...