AFTER THE CHASE, INDELIBLE MEMORIES

Was it fun? people ask, knowing I’ve just returned from a tornado chase on the Great Plains. Sure it was fun. If your idea of fun is sitting in a van for 10 hours a day, reeling in the miles (3500 of them in seven days); or waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen (thank God for Walmarts, great places to hang out); or falling in a ditch in the dark (next time I’ll bring a flashlight); or clogging your arteries with fast food (I had to double my statin drug dosage). Oh, don’t take me seriously. It wasn’t fun in the sense of an Alaskan cruise or Caribbean vacation, but it was a memorable adventure. One I wouldn’t have missed for the world. I...

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HUNTING UNICORNS

Yesterday, Silver Lining Tours and I might as well have been hunting unicorns as tornadoes. Tornadoes? We didn’t even see a towering cumulus! For awhile, we thought we might have chance at a big storm far to our west just north of the Kansas border in Nebraska, but, like legislation in the U.S. Congress, it went nowhere. So, we ran up the white flag and boogied for Salina, Kansas, where we caught up on our sleep. We saw a lot of these yesterday… But none of these… We might have had a shot at some action in Missouri yesterday, but the SLT guys don’t like chasing there: too many trees and too many hills, and it would have put us way out of...

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HERE SNAKEY, SNAKEY, SNAKEY

After pushing northward yesterday from Wichita, Kansas, to Yankton, South Dakota, we got a shutout tossed at our tornado chase team. Thunderstorms did bubble up along a cold front sliding across the northern Plains, but for the most part—-at least where we were in far southeastern South Dakota—-they were run-of-the-mill. So we packed it in early and bunked down in Yankton. After a marathon run the previous night from Amarillo to Wichita, the decision was welcomed by most of us. It certainly was by this old dog. It was great to actually saw logs for eight hours. Yeah, I’m the old dog on the tour, probably by 10 or 15 years. But I’m also the only...

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BIRTH OF A HIGH PLAINS MONSTER

With other members of my chase group, I’m standing on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, west of Lubbock. A stiff wind, inflow to a supercell aborning, slams into my back as I snap pictures of the strengthening storm. I struggle to stay upright; to hold the camera steady. Daggers of lightning lance into the field in front of us. Our tour guide, Roger Hill, raising his voice to be heard over the galloping wind, says, “This thing could turn into a real monster.” Minutes later, a wisp of dark scud appears beneath the underbelly of the storm. “Watch,” Roger says, “this may be the beginning of a wall cloud.” What? That dinky little misty thing? ...

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