I have spent far too much time since April developing new features on StormCenter.app. I started off doing so before my own chasecation, then while on the tour. I was supposed to stop afterwards but used the app quite extensively during my own chase, and realized many new things that would be interesting as well as things that needed improvement. So here are a few new things on StormCenter since April: Proper mobile version When I started making StormCenter I saw it as a desktop only application. After a while I made some effort to not make it horrible on mobile. After using StormCenter exten ..read more

We woke up in Wichita and the forecast had shifted the area further south than anticipated so we had to cancel the restaurant breakfast to get into central Texas in time. Once again we found ourselves racing towards getting into position in time with the usual gas stop food and snacks for lunch. The last couple of days’ driving has been insane: from Colorado to Missouri and then down to central Texas. While we were getting close to our initial target of Abilene the storms had started firing up even further down south than the morning forecast. When you looked at it on the map, it seemed like w ..read more

I believe this Tuesday was marked down as a risk day already as a “Day 5” in SPC (I may be mistaken) but all parameters pointed early on as this was going to be a day of great potential for long-lived strong tornadoes. The main issue was however that the storms were likely to be Dixie-styled 50 mph northeast movers, which would give you a very brief window to watch any tornadoes in a possible risky position. It was also expected to be a QLCS system with embedded tornadoes soon after initiation, also difficult to chase. The other issue of the day was that we were chasing in Colorado until late ..read more

Once again we woke up to a 5% tornado risk, and in one of my favorite regions in Tornado Alley, northwest Kansas/east Colorado. I have been quite lucky in that general area before and it offers amazing visibility. The road network could sometimes be a hassle but considering how flat the landscape is, I once got a perfect shot of a tornado from over a mile away with my telescope lens. The day was by many considered the “day before the big day (in Iowa)” and a lot of discussion on Twitter was regarding when to be where. The initation and peak activity in Colorado was expected to be late, and Iow ..read more

Starting off in Pueblo, Colorado in the morning our target for the day was central Kansas. The SPC had put a Moderate risk for the area, but only 5% tornado risk as the general threat was wind. The initiation of storms were not supposed to be until later in the afternoon but the storms fired off earlier than expected so soon ended up in the dreaded game of catch up with the storm that was over I-40. Although we could see it from a distance, it was already rain wrapped when we got closer and we could not close in on it since going north would mean falling behind on it, so we had to follow it ea ..read more

This was our second down day but the possible chances of thunderstorms were in Colorado so that’s where we headed. The couple of days afterwards should be active in Kansas so we were mainly positioning for those days ahead. It feels good that we will have some active days ahead! A peculiar backyard in a town in Colorado The drive up on I-25 along the Rockies has got to be one of the most scenic highways to take while chasing. I have been up and down this road a few times and it is stunning to sit and watch the mountains while driving. I love it! The view from the car First I thought, and hoped ..read more

If I look at my chase trip as a football game, we just went into halftime break now, with two down days coming up. The first half has been pretty ok with supercells and rotating wall clouds but we have been far from a tornado (no storm we have been on has been tornado warned, despite heavy rotation). For the first day of this halftime break we decided to go to New Mexico to visit Carlsbad Caverns. I had been there once before but it was quite nice to get back there. The cave system is spectacular in its size and the types of rock formations within. It really stands out to be in semi-darkness i ..read more

My jetlag is not really letting go of me and I woke up at 4:30 AM. This was in fact a bit convenient because I had an interview scheduled with a UK based journalist from USA Today who are making an article about storm chasing. So, I started off the day with responding to questions about storm chasing in general and storm chasing tours in particular. We had to get up very early to make the long drive from Kansas. I spent the majority of the time in the backseat, catching up on some work. Today had some tornado opportunity but SPC shifted back and forth between a 2% and 5% tornado risk in our ar ..read more

I woke up early (why is jetlag always worst the second day?!) only to realize we had been having a 7th passenger in the vehicle yesterday! Buried between two toes I had a tic. This was just 24 hours after Peter’s morning briefing about safety and spraying your feet with bug spray to avoid…tics. Yuck. The first two days had been much about getting my cell phone data working. I used up $50 worth of data only in Dallas Airport in like two minutes (roaming costs are insaaaane!). It ended up being an extremely annoying task. I had a prepackaged sim-card from a previous trip that didn’t work and pu ..read more

As I mentioned, this week should start of slow but at least not inactive. Today was a meager looking day, SPC did have a 5% tornado risk…in Florida!…but in our reachable area we only had a Marginal risk and 0% tornado risk to play with, but there were at least prospects of thunderstorms. Considering that I only see about 2-3 thunderstorms a year back home, this was a good of a start as any! The target area was a bit dubious considering Texas panhandle vs Kansas. It looked slightly better up in Kansas, which I was quite happy about. I lived in Kansas for a year (Manhattan, KS) and have seen the ..read more