Here’s the “elevator pitch” for it (an “elevator pitch” means the author’s got only the duration of an elevator ride to pitch his/her book to an agent or publisher):

Chuck Rittenburg, a former professional storm chaser, has lost it all: his business, his home, his family. But he’s offered a chance at redemption—-and a million bucks—-by a Hollywood film company if he can lead its cinematographers to a violent EF-4 or -5 tornado.

The catch: he has only two weeks in which to do it. And given the extreme rarity of his quarry, he knows the odds are overwhelmingly against him.

He quickly discovers, however, the short time frame and elusiveness of his prey are perhaps the least of his adversaries. He’s hurled headlong into a maelstrom of self-doubt, familial conflict, a deadly manhunt, love and betrayal.

He finds himself plagued by a bitter, estranged son; an old friend who remains haunted by the Vietnam War; a female FBI agent working undercover; a rebellious film-crew manager; a pair of murderous brothers; and a mysterious and dangerous guardian of what may or may not be a mythical fortune hidden away on the Oklahoma prairie.

The hunt culminates with a storm encounter so unique it’s virtually the stuff of legend.

All-in-all, Chuck’s two-week quest is filled with dark twists and turns that lead to surprises no one, not even a veteran storm chaser, could ever have imagined.

Supercell sweeps onto bookshelves in November.

PHOTO: courtesy Roger Hill.

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 went on the chase knowing there was no guarantee of seeing a tornado. And I didn’t. But I learned how chasers operate, which was the real purpose of going, and I learned more than I thought I would about the monster thunderstorms that prowl middle America. My work-in-progress, Supercell, will be a better novel for it.

PHOTO: A Nebraska supercell, May 2, 2012.

To ease the pain of long hours sitting on my butt, the chasers I traveled with were a good group: two doctors, a retired dentist (our driver), a lawyer, an arborist from Australia and a grocery store manager from London. Two of them, it turned out, were at least casual writers, so beyond big honkin’ storms, we a had another mutual interest.

Roger Hill, our tour leader, was an absolute joy to be around. Personable and articulate, he harbors the knowledge of a college professor and the enthusiasm of a college cheerleader.

Thanks, Roger, for a trunkful of indelible memories: witnessing the birth of a monster West Texas supercell; listening to coyotes chant in tandem with rumbling thunder; dogging a supercell through a lightning-filled Nebraska night; and chasing a hail beast along the Red River.

Ya know, I think I’ll be back. Still gotta notch a tornado on my belt.

-May 8, 2012-

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 position for today’s target area near the Red River in northern Texas. (There was a tornado watch issued for northern Missouri/southern Iowa yesterday, but the only twister reported was near the Mississippi River, a couple of hundred miles from where we were.)

We won’t catch a tornado today, the conditions just aren’t right, but we might be able to lasso a high-based supercell or two spinning off the dry line. More importantly, it will put us close to Oklahoma City where we’ll bed down tonight and then say our goodbyes tomorrow morning.

So, I got skunked, but I knew going in that was a possibility. As I said earlier, this was all in the name of making the backdrop of Supercell as real as possible.

Yeah, there were long days, a couple of crummy motels and waaay too much fast food, but the bottom line is IT WAS WORTH IT. To witness the birth of a monster supercell on the high plains of West Texas. To pursue a cell through a lightning-flecked Nebraska night and watch it spit out a funnel. To listen to a chorus of coyotes singing counterpoint to a rumbling storm near the Red River.

Priceless.

-May 4, 2012-

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 rookie on the chase. Roger Hill, the chief guide for Silver Lining Tours, is the grizzled veteran. I think he said he’s seen something on the order of 400 twisters. Tom Howley, our driver (from Pennsylvania) is on his 49th pursuit. Too bad I’ll miss his Silver Anniversary tour.

My frequent seat mate, Gawain from Chicago, is on his seventh safari with SLT. Andy and Jeff, anesthesiologists from Dallas, are returnees, too. Chris, from Sydney, Australia, is sticking around after this chase for the one that departs immediately after. And Tim, from London (yes, the big one), will be coming back in June.

PHOTO: Departure day for SLT in Oklahoma City. In the center, facing the camera, Tom Howley (L) and Roger Hill (R). WIth backs to the camera are Tim (L) from London and Chris (R) from Sydney.

Today we’re hoping we don’t have to venture far from Yankton. The area from northeast Nebraska into northwest Iowa appears prime. So I’ve donned my talisman, a Silver Lining Tours tee shirt; I’m sure that’ll work. Gawain’s lucky charm, a Junk Yard Dog (a pro wrestler of yore) action doll, failed yesterday, so he’s going back into the suitcase.

Tom said that whenever he runs over a snake (he doesn’t do it deliberately, he emphasized), the tour sees a tornado. It’s worked seven of eight times.

Here snakey, snakey, snakey.

-May 2, 2012-

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? (See photo below.)

More and more scud appears, dipping, darting, circling. It happens fast. Within minutes the base of the storm is seething with rotating black clouds almost touching the ground

To our right, a plume of dust streams across the road, riding the inflow. The storm is even stronger now, advancing on us. It’s not more than a couple of hundred yards away. Then it’s over us.

“To the left,” Roger yells. “Look. That blowing dust is the downdraft.” It’s dust whipping out of the storm now, not into it. (See photo below.)

The dust expands rapidly, spurred on by 60- or 70-mph winds. Dirt and grit fill the air as we scramble back into the van. We flee south and watch the flat landscape to our rear disappear in wind-driven blackness as Roger’s monster crosses the road. Cars and trucks heading toward it pull off to the side and stop, giving the now-classic supercell due respect as it barrels toward Lubbock.

We monitor the storm from a safe distance, paralleling it as it churns eastward. Radar indicates it harbors a rotating mesocyclone, a precursor to a tornado. But it doesn’t drop one. Lucky for Lubbock.

So, no tornado. But I don’t care. How many weather geeks get to witness in real life, up close and personal, what most only read about in textbooks—-the birth of a High Plains monster, a classic supercell thunderstorm?

-April 30, 2012-

My wife is absolutely convinced I’m a dead man walking; certain I’ll get swept up like Dorothy and end up as road kill on the Yellow Brick Freeway.

More likely, if conditions ripe for twisters go into hibernation, I’ll die of boredom.

But no matter. My primary goal, believe it or not, is not to get up close and personal with a Great Plains’ monster—-though I’m not averse to that—-but to learn how tornado chasers operate. To see what their daily routine is, what meteorological parameters they examine, what monitoring equipment they employ, and how they communicate with each other during a pursuit.

I also want to get a sense of the “atmosphere” surrounding a chase: the tension, the excitement, the apprehension should we actually corner our quarry.

All of this, of course, is in the name of literature, making sure the backdrop of Supercell, my work-in-progress, is authentic. I don’t write science-fiction. I do science-fact. Well, to an extent. As a novelist, I’m always stretching and molding the facts to create a story with a lot more of an edge than would be found in real life.

My goal is to write something that will keep my readers turning pages. But I’m hoping, too, they’ll come away with just a bit more knowledge about something: hurricanes (as in Eyewall), the Ebola virus (as in my next novel), or tornadoes (Supercell).

I’ll keep you posted during my chase on how things go.

Well, time to make a packing list. I don’t suppose my wife would find it humorous if I slapped a “Yellow Brick Roadkill” sticker on my suitcase.

-April 25, 2012-

IMAGE: Kansas tornado, 2008, NOAA photo. (Hope to have my own photos posted within the next few days.)

The Storm Prediction Center warns that numerous fast-moving supercell storms as well as a few exceptionally violent tornadoes are likely on Friday. The area at greatest risk extends from the mid-Ohio Valley southward into northeast Mississippi and northern Alabama.

Tomorrow night the threat is expected to do some saber rattling where I live, in metro Atlanta. (Why do the big storms here always seem to rumble in when it’s dark?)

So, perhaps I won’t have to travel far to gather some storm chasing insights for my novel-in-progress, Supercell.

Still, waiting for storms to attack isn’t quite the same thing as stalking them. Which is why I’m still planning on going on a Great Plains tornado chase in a couple of months. Much as my flight into the eye of a hurricane with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters provided a realistic background for Eyewall, I expect my journey with Silver Lining Tours will do that same thing for Supercell.

I’ll be blogging–frequently, I hope–about my chase come the end of April and early May. So, as you may see on billboards occasionally: WATCH THIS SPACE!

-March 1, 2012-

IMAGE: Severe storm/tornado threat for Friday/Friday night (Storm Prediction Center)

Well, to be blunt, there is no such thing as “between” books. “Among” books maybe, or “all done” with books perhaps, but no “between.”

At the moment, I’m still dealing with Eyewall; plotting strategy for the release of ______ (yes, sad to report, there’s still no official title for novel number two); and working on Supercell, novel number three.

I’m currently QCing the audio version of Eyewall. Marshall Seese, the narrator, shoots me several chapters each week and I listen to and critique each one. He’s about halfway through the book and thinks he’ll be done by early April. I can’t wait. Marshall is doing an absolutely super job.

I’m also preparing to give a talk to a writers group, the Northeast Georgia Writers, in early March about my journey to becoming a commercially published novelist.

Right now, there isn’t much I can do for unnamed novel number two except gather my thoughts relative to a general approach for publicity. The book is due out later this year. I’ve thought about people I might strong-arm for jacket blurbs, am investigating various avenues of generating a buzz (no pun intended) for the book, and figuring out what I’ll need to do in terms of Website and Facebook updates.

For Supercell, I’ve written the first seven chapters, have completed an outline for the book, and am now scratching out dialogue that will appear later in the novel. At the moment, I don’t want to write any more complete chapters–which will be centered on tornado chasing–until after I go on my own chase in a couple of months.

After the chase, with Silver Lining Tours, I’ll be able to write those chapters with the same authenticity that made Eyewall so believable. As you probably know, I took a little jaunt through the eye of a hurricane with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters. (Ironically, at the time of my flight, I had no intention of writing a novel. That came much later. I just wanted to understand how the Hurricane Hunters went about their business.)

I’ve also spent time talking with Dr. Greg Forbes, The Weather Channel’s severe weather expert, and one of the foremost tornado gurus in the world. It’s insights from people like Greg that help me infuse my stories with credibility.

So, to reiterate, there really is no such thing as “between” books. The bottom line for me is that’s it’s not looking good for golf over the next few months.

That sound you hear is folks all over north Atlanta with homes along fairways expelling a collective sigh of relief.

-February 15, 2012-

IMAGE: The author hard at work listening to Marshall Seese hard at work.

And yet, as always, we were torn between the dichotomy of being awestruck voyeurs of nature’s power and distressed witnesses to human tragedy. On the one hand, we were sucked in, wooed, by the remarkable manifestation of atmospheric thermodynamics and kinematics at their extreme: violent tornadoes. It was a display we, as scientists, viewed rather clinically, as an ER doctor might a wounded patient. On the other hand, at the same time, we understood people were dying and that homes and businesses were being swept away. Our hearts and prayers went out to those affected.

Two characters–two meteorologists–in my novel, Eyewall, struggled with the same disparate emotions as they vicariously watched a cat 5 hurricane, Janet, level St. Simons Island, Georgia. Below is a brief clip of their dialogue. Obermeyer is a veteran hurricane forecaster, Sherrie, a young on-camera meteorologist.

Obermeyer, Sherrie seated next to him, couldn’t tear his eyes from the radar imagery on his monitor as Janet made landfall. The hurricane’s tight, violent eyewall, its torrential rain color-coded in angry reds and magentas, swirled over St. Simons in a furious ballet; a dance of death choreographed in tornadic violence, spectacular atmospheric beauty, and cruel death for those unlucky enough to have front row seats.

“I know. We view it too clinically, too objectively. We think, ‘Wow, this is the strongest hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin, the greatest storm in recorded history to hit the United States.’ And yet in reality we’re witnessing a tragedy. The destruction of an entire city, the death of hundreds.” He turned to look at Sherrie. “Thousands if the evacuation got screwed up.”

As weather geeks we will always struggle with those bipolar feelings. We realize the consequences of what we are witnessing, yet simultaneously experience an intellectual adrenaline rush. It is similar, I suspect, to what firemen advancing into a blazing building feel, or policemen in hot pursuit of bad guys.

Yet in the end, though drawn to our profession by the excitement of major weather events, we do our job for the same reason as do firemen or policemen: to help get people out of harm’s way.

Photo: Sequential Imagery of a Deadly Supercell Thunderstorm
Sequential images of the supercell thunderstorm (mesocyclone) that spawned deadly tornadoes in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Ala., on April 27. The cell swept across 450 miles of the Deep South in about 8 hours. (Imagery compiled by Brian Tang of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.)

The question that comes to me then is why, in this day and age with all of its tools and technology, should so many have perished?

In 1974 there were no Doppler radars, no Weather Channel, no Facebook, no Twitter, no cell phones.  There was nothing close to the detection, analysis and communication capabilities that today’s storm warning community has.  It’s tragically understandable that over 300 lives were loss in the Super Outbreak.  But in 2011?

Certainly the Storm Prediction Center and Dr. Greg Forbes at The Weather Channel (my former employer) did their jobs in issuing alerts well before the dangerous days of this week unfolded.

And yet… so many lives.

Maybe it was just the nature of the event.  Some of the twisters spun up to EF-5 intensity.  So in those instances there was no place to run, no place to hide.  Virtually nothing will survive an EF-5 monster above ground.

So that’s one option: this was an extreme weather event that was just a flat-out killer.

But I wonder, were there cases where the warnings were late, where sirens failed, or where people were just oblivious to the threat (hard to believe in this day and age of instant communications)?  Were there individuals who didn’t know what to do once a warning was issued?  Did some panic?

I’m not pointing fingers.  I don’t know.  But we ought to find out.  So I’m posing some questions.  Again, maybe the extreme death toll was unavoidable. Yet as I said, I’m appalled at the loss of life in this Doppler- and instant communications-age.  My gut tells me that the number of fatalities shouldn’t have been close to those of over 35 years ago.

What do you think?