It’s been a terribly busy summer for me so even though I came home from my chasecation with Tornadic Expeditions in late May it is not until now where I have had time to sit down and write the story about it. I apologize for the lack of details and possibly some mixups!
It was hectic even before the trip so for once I wasn’t very prepared for the trip. Usually I read up, work on my StormCenter.app, follow social media etc to get excited before going but I just never had the time this year. I did however plan to come one day ahead so I could, for once, participate in the welcome dinner. This proved to be a very good idea.
First of all, there was a strike at the airport so I almost missed my connection but made it OKC. Storms over the Midwest however delayed my last flight so I arrived at the hotel at 2.30 AM. Dead tired, and without my luggage.
I was expecting a slow day to catch up but at 4 pm, Erik Burns (the tour director) messaged me: “Head down to the lobby, there’s a storm nearby and we are going to chase it!”. I was one of the few that were able to go so I went with the “Finger of God”-tour van. The FOG tour is an extreme version of the regular tours, they have hail protection and aim to get close, really close, to the tornadoes.
Day 0 Chase
The storms were already 1.5 hours south of OKC, so we started off trying to catch up. At one point we ended up in a 10 minute traffic jam, and when we arrived 5 minutes to late to the site that had just dropped a tornado, it was frustrating but since it was just a bonus chase it was quite easy to shake off. We also got to experience some ping pong sized hail in the hail protected car, so that was cool.
The storm got disorganized soon thereafter and we headed back home. Ironically, I had by then missed the welcoming dinner – but I would make this choice 100 times out of 100 anyway.
Since my last tour I had some PTSD since we missed so many significant tornadoes and I tried hard not to get any negative thoughts in my head. This year would be different!
Day 1 Chase. May 18th. Arnett, OK. 5 tornadoes.
It should be mentioned that last time I was chasing with Erik and Tornadic Expeditions was during the Leoti, Dodge City, Chapman week of 2016. We saw somewhat over 15 tornadoes that year, which is almost half of all the tornadoes I have ever seen! This tour would prove to be almost equally lucky.
Our first chase day would end up being a day with 67 tornado reports, and a Moderate/15% tornado risk day. Our target of the day was western Oklahoma, just by the border of Texas. We had a perfect view of the incoming storm and was soon treated with a pretty rope tornado at a distance. It was actually a twin tornado at the time, we could see the funnel of the second one but not the rotation (which was reported by other chasers).
As the storm got closer it was rotating hard and would pass just next to us. I don’t think I have seen such strong rotation at such close distance (about 100 yards) ever before. It was incredibly thrilling. It did actually put down a very brief tornado, only noticed by some rotation on the ground, which was cool – but there was potential for so much more!
The bet of staying by the base also caused us to get a bit behind the next tornado. We could see it but were not in a great position any longer, this also turned out to be the prettiest and most spectacular tornado of the day in this area. It was a bit of a pity, but we still saw it and managed to get the rare view of a tornado and a rainbow at the same time instead!
Just to prove the idea of “When it rains, it pours” in storm chasing we finished off with yet another tornado on the ground soon thereafter and some of the largest hail I had seen so far.
What a start of the tour!
I was happy not only to have seen 5 tornadoes, but after some 40 tornadoes in my career. These were actually the first ones I had ever seen in Oklahoma!
Day 2-4 May 19th to May 21st. Rattlesnakes and national parks.
Day 2 did in fact have potential for great severe weather with another Moderate / 15% tornado risk day, but the day didn’t perform for us except for some supercells.
We knew Day 3 and Day 4 would be down days (the only play was in east Arkansas and Mississippi) so we went to visit national parks instead. After chasing for 12 seasons I finally go to see something I have quite eager to see: a rattle snake (at a safe distance). While driving away from the national park we saw not only this young rattle snake but also a Kansas brown snake (if I recall correctly). I was almost as happy as seeing a tornado that day.
Happiest of them all I think was Erik when he was able to make us all have lunch in Hutchins BBQ in the northern parts of Dallas. It was probably the best BBQ I have ever had in my life. The brisket was amaaaazing! I wanted to try the rib as well but when I saw the price tag of $47, I backed out 🙂
Day 5. May 22nd. North Central Texas.
As I mentioned, I don’t quite recall exactly each separated day very well but Day 5 was a chase day once again (Slight/ 2%), and it was one that would surprise us as our expectations were not high. Outside of Holliday, TX, our supercell suddenly ramped up to such an extent that Erik was sure we would see another tornado, when we got hit by warm RFD. Everything was in place, but no tornado this day. The feeling of the intense warm RFD was however the great highlight of the day!
Day 6. May 23rd. Akron, CO, tornado.
Everyone was quite excited to go chasing in Colorado the next day. We positioned near Burlington, Co, a flat area where I had seen quite a few tornadoes before. Having a storm setup here, if there would be tornadoes would be excellent. It would not disappoint us this time either!
After seeing a few possible tornadoes and funnels that we could not confirm, we ended up having to take a big detour to regroup in front of the storm due to the bad road network. It was frustrating at the time, especially since there was a tornado reported while we did our regroup. This however turned out to be our good fortune.
When we finally arrived back at the storm we stopped to look at it while many was driving away from it, to a possibly better storm to our south. Suddenly Erik shouted “Tornado”, pointing to rotation on the ground I could barely see myself. This rotation eventually strengthend and cleared out into an incredibly picturesque and pretty white tornado that we could witness from birth to the very end in about 20 minutes. It was spectacular, and we were in great position to see it!
Day 7 – Day 8. May 24th and May 25th.
We headed back down to Oklahoma and later on Texas again for the last days of chasing. Day 7 was a difficult night time chase and Day 8 was a nice relaxed structured supercells chase, but nothing really spectacular or something I hadn’t seen before.
Interestingly though, this was probably the first tour/chasecation in my life where we did not have a single chase day in Kansas (as far as I remember). The state where I am always the luckiest.
Day 9. May 26th. Menard, TX. 2 tornadoes.
Although Day 9 was not officially our last day we knew that Day 10 would not have anything for us, so it was our last chase day – and we would finish off with a nice dessert in this three course meal.
This day would prove to be a contest between a great storm, many chasers and quite horrible chase terrain and road network. We were constantly struggling with getting into good position with the timing to see something from the storm – and eventually we did.
While observing the base there was a sudden, but very clear and somewhat violent spinup quite near us, just where there was a clearing in a field next to us. It felt like we wouldn’t have seen that tornado anywhere else in the entire region, except for the place we actually was standing at.
Soon thereafter, the storm ramped up even more and we had to get away as the rotation was coming in over us. We made a few, extremely brief stops without getting out and at one of the stops Erik saw tornado number two, and reported it over our intercom. I looked out and took a video at the back of the car but to be honest, I couldn’t really see where it was. It turned out, however, that the rotating cloud I had seen was in fact a broad but very brief tornado.
The storm turned more and more violent and the doppler radar rotation markers were off the charts, but at that point the storm was racing into no mans land, while turning very HP. We tried to keep up with it to catch a glimpse but had to give up.
Day 10 was just a nice and slow trip back to our hotel in OKC with a happy crowd that had managed to see 9 tornadoes in one tour!
Summary
This tour turned out to be the top 3 tornado tours I had been on (with my Dodge City week with Tornadic Expeditions as a strong #1). We were not only lucky with the weather but also with the distribution of the days. Starting off with a great first day makes everyone happy and content, since you already have been given what you came to see! Then an amazing tornado to keep things exciting, and two tornadoes to finish the tour off and give you a nice icing on the cake! As mentioned, I even enjoyed the two down days we had!
I am very happy not only with how the weather played out but also with how Erik Burns and his team handled the tour, but I will write more about that in a separate blog post.
