I am very happy right now. I have just finalized my registration and bought a plane ticket to OKC in order to chase with Extreme Tornado Tours this season. For a long while it seemed like it would not be possible as I have a two year old son and a 3 month old daughter back home that are a handful to take care of. Thankfully, my lovely fiancée agreed to let me go chasing again (and take care of them while I am gone). I know a lot of chasers are having the same issue and many just don’t chase during the years the kids are this small. It is also likely my last chase for a while so I am really glad I am able to go.
In addition, I am excited to go with Extreme Tornado Tours who I have been very much in contact with since I started StormChasingUSA.com in 2009 and is considered one of the largest storm chasing tour companies in the business. I was on the same path and storms as Nick several times last year and we had a long chat. The photo in this blog post was take while ETT were standing just in front of us near Goodland, KS, so I assume Nick has a similar shot of it.
By chasing with ETT I will have covered a great deal of the storm chasing tour companies in the business and I will continue to have a very good understanding of the storm chasing tour business as a whole, and to be able to compare the tour companies against each other.
This tour (Tour 4) between May 9th and May 15th will also be my first chase in mid May. I have chased early May once (2013) and once between May 20th and May 25h if I remember correctly (2012). Both were pretty much failures weather wise so I started chasing later in May/early June after that. This also came natural when I started to chase with David, who starts later in the season.
Although the dates in which one chases is subjected to chance one thing is a bit more certain: it is more likely I will be chasing further south than in previous years. I have seen some 30+ tornadoes in my 9 years of chasing but I have still never seen a tornado in Oklahoma, which at least is a bit more likely in mid May than in mid June so I am keeping my fingers crossed about that.
Nonetheless, I am so happy to have a chasecation to look forward to and I am just happy to have the chance to chase one more year.