Are you thinking about starting to do some storm chasing? Before you go you should be fully educated to the danger's you will face, the time and money that could be involved, and the probability of success and failure.


Storm chasing is not easy. If you have seen movies (i.e. Twister) or documentaries about storm chasing you might think you just go out and boom you see a tornado. In reality it is much more complicated than that. For the most part your day will consist of driving around in the middle of nowhere, seeing nothing more than small puffy white cumulus clouds. You may drive 500 miles or more in one day for what you think may be a excellent shot at seeing a storm only to find beautiful blue sky as far as you can see.

To the contrary of what you might have heard - STORM CHASING IS DANGEROUS! If you think otherwise then you may be rudely awakened to that truth sooner rather than later. There are so many potential dangers but i will mention a few.

Driving - Just the fact you are driving around all day is dangerous. The more you are on the road the more likely you will die on the road. From drunk drivers to tire blow outs, just being on the road for that long of time is dangerous.

Driving near or in the storm - If you are lucky enough to get to the storm dont let your guard down. Hydroplaning off the road will end your trip real quick. Most roads in the plains are on pretty flat lands and arent conducive to water flowing off them. Even strong winds at times can put you right into a ditch. And of course there is hail. It can bust out your window and severely dent your vehicle.

Storm Dangers - Of course the storm itself it adequately built to kill on its own. If you like to venture out of the relative safety of your vehicle then you immediately become a possible conduit for 50 or more million volts of electricity - a little something we like to call lightning. As you probably can imagine this is not good and while you may be remembering all of those lightning survivors from storm stories, most people who are struck will feel it the rest of their lives and consistantly have minor to major health issues because of it. Besides lightning, being outside can also also allow the storm to send a baseball size (or larger) piece of ice your way at 100 miles per hour (or faster) . If you have any doubts about what that could do.... just imagine a baseball player without wearing his batting helmet bending over and having the top of their head pointed squarely at Randy Johnson....i bet it'll hurt! When nearing the part of the storm which might would contain the tornado there are still more dangers to face. If there has been or currently is a tornado then there will be debris either already on the road, or possibly even still flying around. Be very alert to downed power lines. Always assume any power line is on... there is really no way to tell if it is or not so just assume it is on and turn around. You also dont have to have a tornado to produce damage. Strong winds can knock down miles of power lines. Most storms drop copious ammounts of rain. As that rain runs off quickly into stream and creeks it can cause major dangers. Dont drive throught running or even standing water. I like to follow this simple rule: If you cant see the road then how do you really know it is there. And by knowing its there....i mean clearly, no doubts about it still being there undamaged. If you do decide to chance it: please call someone you know who loves you so they can talk you out of it and if not: so they will know what river to find your vehicle in. Another danger that you may not be prepared for is people. This is mainly problematic in central oklahoma but can occur anywhere, mainly on high risk days. You may be rounding a sharp curve at 65mph in oklahoma and before you can adjust at all you just plowed through 15 locals trying to get video of the tornado from the middle of the road. You may be thinking thats crazy but i personally have seen this nearly happen several times... and not just on backroads...sometimes its in the middle of a busy interstate!

Experience - One of the major dangers in starting to storm chase is the lack of experience. This is a bit of a conundrum. How can you get storm chasing experience without storm chasing? The answer is simple: EDUCATE YOURSELF. And by educate i dont mean you running off to a storm spotting class and you thinking you know everything you need to know... this is folly. What you can do is first go to a bookstore or library and read every book they have about weather...and not just books about storms. You need a broad understanding of all aspects of weather to be a successfull storm chaser - but more importantly to be safe doing it. After you have read books, get on the internet. If you just google a few words like: storm chasing, beginning storm chaser, so on and so on, you will eventually go through hundreds of sites that all at least have some bit of helpful information. After you feel you know enough (which you surely dont) the best course of action would be to either try to find an already experienced chaser to ride along with. If you cant find one you might even go ahead and pay money to go on one of the storm chase tours, which are run by experienced and highly trained and for the most part highly educated storm chasers.



If you are still wanting to go storm chasing.....

Success - This is a relative term i think. Some storm chasers think its a success to just see a storm period (me included). For others its only the tornado, or only the wall cloud, or lightning, or rain...for them to consider their day a success. Some consider the day a success regardless if they see any storm activity whatsoever. They are simply happy to just get out and drive around the countryside and enjoy being away from home, job, wife, husband, etc.etc. . For many storm chasers the ultimate goal is the tornado. So how often can you expect to see one? Starting out: if you see one tornado per every 25-50 storm chases you are doing good. For even the most experienced/successful storm chasers seeing one tornado per every 10 storm chases is great. What does all of this mean? It means for the majority of your chases you WILL NOT see a tornado. So what i recommend is not to just focus soley on a tornado. Set your sights lower and you will be even happier when you do see a tornado.

SPC Outlook Chasing/Warning Chasing - If you do either of those then good luck! To be in the right place at the right time is very difficult. But to get it right it is best to also learn to forecast storms yourself. Some people wait for the latest Day 1 outlook and they are out the door...soley relying on the SPC for whether they will see anything today or not. While doing this you may see something sometimes you will probably see nothing most of the time. This also applies for waiting till a warning is on the storm to go. Tornadoes are rare and may only be on the ground for a few moments near the beginning of the storms life. If you are waiting on a warning for the most part you will be chasing ghosts because most always the tornado (if there was one anyway) will be long gone by the time you are even halfway there. You simply must educate yourself into the how, when, and where of storm development!

Storm Chasing/Storm Spotting - So what is the difference? A storm chaser will go where ever and when ever to see a storm. They are not bound to any one area though may stick to a particular region. Storm Spotting is different - it is mainly to protect a local area in terms of life and property by watching a storm move in from a fixed preselected location or a series of fixed preselected locations and relaying that storm information to their local nws office. Storm spotting is much less dangerous than storm chasing although many storm chasers also relay storm information and some storm spotters will continue to follow the storm. If you are wanting to start storm chasing you might first join a local storm spotting group to gain experience. All in all both groups (spotters and chasers) need to be better trained/educated to avoid relaying incorrect, un-needed, or exaggerated information.