As you may have picked up from this website, I have been chasing with many different storm chasing tour companies in the USA. I think it is safe to say that I am the one person in the world who have chased with the most amount of different storm chasing tour companies! I have done this to compare and learn, and try to get a good overview of the storm chasing tour industry in the USA.
I chased with Tornadic Expeditions in 2016 and was at that time their 2nd customer ever. We were incredibly lucky with the weather in that week seeing over 15 tornadoes (the famous Dodge City-week). I have been in contact with Erik since and been wanting to chase with him again for several reasons. First of all, I like Erik. He is a genuinely nice and fun guy to be around. That goes with many tour guides, but I personally always got well along with him.
I have to admit that I was also affected by the fact that our first tour was so lucky. I am not supersticious, but storm chasing does bring that up with you. After having the Covid years of not chasing at all followed by unlucky tours I also felt like going with my “Lucky tour”. Having said that, I had also noticed that Erik had been constantly successful over the years, even on tours where I hadn’t seen anything myself.
Tornadic Expeditions runs a two van tour (one van on some tours in the beginning and end of the season, as far as I understand). At selected dates they also run the Finger of God (FOG) tour. This tour is a separate tour, being run and guided by Adam Lucio. FOG does, often, end up on the same storms and also hotels and restaurants but is essentially a different tour.
FOG is being run in a hail protected car and chases a lot more aggressively and get much closer to the tornadoes. During our 10 days they were very close to three of the tornadoes we saw, and caught some spectacular footage of them! FOG is also a bit pricier than the ordinary tours. I have to say, if I could have afford it, I would have loved to be on the FOG tour this tour. It was sometimes painful to see the footage of the same tornadoes we saw, because it was so extraordinary! I chased one day with them (bonus chase on Day 0) and all I can say is if I go chasing again, I would go with this tour!
Having said that though, the ordinary tour is safer and is run just like all other storm chasing tours in the USA. They keep a safe distance to tornadoes and don’t do dangerous core punches/hook slices etc unless necessary and is deemed safe.
Our week had a really great weather setup but that really doesn’t mean that you will see tornadoes, but we certainly did. We were almost always well positioned, and often perfectly positioned for the storms and tornadoes. I was actually quite impressed with how well Erik did in terms of forecasting and positioning ourselves for the storms!
In addition, the entire tour is run very professionally. Nothing is left to chance and things just run smooth, while the tour guests were constantly well informed. I get a feeling that he really is paying attention to the small things and try to constantly improve the details of the tour.
In addition, I really liked the drivers of the tour. Friendly, educative, talkative and was constantly trying to make sure everyone on the van understands what is going on, and are having a good time.
Lastly, I love the fact that the tour vans have actual seats. When I started chasing I didn’t pay much attention to it but getting closer to 50 my back is not what it used to be, and nice curved, comfortable seats means a lot to me over the 4300 miles we chased!
So, I can highly recommend Tornadic Expeditions. I think it manages to get the feeling of a small tour while actually being fairly large nowadays.
