2019 Chase Season Epilogue: How was yours?

[Dan Robinson]

We probably could have started this thread 3 weeks ago, but that's the 2019 chase season for you: ever giving you hope, then failing to deliver.

This season was one of my worst ever, despite having one very good tornado day. 2019 ranks #2 all-time (27 years) for me in both chase mileage and chasing expenses, but ranks near the bottom in terms of quality/usable imagery and video captures. I logged a total of 18 chase days in the Plains over the course of 3 separate trips, the longest being a 12-day run in late May. Again, that's 2nd only to 2005 in which I logged 22 Plains days. I'd rather have a 2006 or 2009 death ridge season than one like this - the end result would be the same, and I'd still have those thousands of dollars in my pocket.

This season was exhausting and maddening both in the Plains and here at home. I was Charlie Brown, the weather was Lucy and the football. I made a substantial investment in a new camera to capture lightning footage, and this was my main goal all season long. And I went into the season motivated and ready to work hard for it! But storms failed to produce and were extremely uncooperative. Storms died as they approached or as I approached them. I spent hours at a time recording countless storms that failed to produce even one quality bolt. Great lightning repeated in an area of sky, then refused to strike again once I had the camera on it. Going into June, it just kept happening over and over and over. Yet I kept on, expecting that this bad streak couldn't last forever. But it just kept going.

So here I am, with maybe 5 or 6 quality lightning captures on my new camera - I had expected to have 40 or 50, enough for a really nice video highlight reel. That will have to wait probably until next year, unless this summer can break my trend.

The bright spot in the season was May 17 in Nebraska, a quality tornado day. I have to look at that and be very thankful I was there - I only got it because I left one day early for my third trip than I'd been planning.

My stats:

Tornadoes: 8
- Plains: 6
- Midwest: 2
Miles: no clue yet, easily 15,000
States chased: 9

Firsts:
- First March tornado (Vega, Texas on the 22nd)
- First time getting stuck on a dirt road (Kirkland, TX on May 20)

 

[Bob Schafer]

So it's not just me? I just arrived home this afternoon, and with a bad attitude. I had 6 hours of drive time today to mull over what a crappy year it was. I did see 7 tornadoes, but not one of them was memorable or worth showing the vid to other people. Last year was worse, but similar to what Dan said, at least last year you didn't EXPECT anything. I just cannot get over the fact that we just had a big, honkin' trough cross the plains for nothing.

 

[Mark Blue]

Seems like the supercells were mostly HP so any tornadoes that happened were obscured by curtains of rain surrounding them. Nothing beats a classic supercell so things are visible and easy to identify.

 

[TimMaynard]

This year was my fourth trip for a weeks chasecation.
I’ve chasecationed previously in 2015, 16 & 17.
This year we got to see five tornadoes, second best for me after 2016 when we got somewhere around 18 for the week I think...depending on how many we counted at Dodge.
Overall it was a good week...maybe would have liked a bit more visibility on a couple of the storms we saw but it is what it is.
We saw Mangum, OK. Got one in Kansas then popped over to Missouri at Carl’s Junction which went on to cause fatalities in Golden City...that was sad to see.
Caught Booker to finish off the week

 

[John Farley]

I had very low expectations for this season, since numerous competing commitments kept my chasing to the fewest days in many years, and I knew that would be the case. I only managed to get in three chase days, and even that was more than I thought I might get given all the other things going on this year. Sometimes, life just gets in the way of chasing. So, it was a big surprise that this turned out to be my best chase season since 2016, with photogenic tornadoes on two of the three days I chased and some non-tornadic eye candy on the other day. A combination of good forecasts and good luck offered me up photogenic tornadoes near McCook, NE on May 17 and southwest of Clayton, NM on May 26. I saw probably three tornadoes on the 17th, so a likely ratio of four tornadoes to three chase days, the first time that ratio has ever exceeded one for me.

Chase days: 3
Tornadoes: 4
Tornado days: 2
Largest hail: 2.5 inches, Culbertson, NE. (On the ground when I drove through afterwards).
Total chase distance: 2177 miles.
States chased: NM, KS, NE (and through TX and CO)

 

[Quincy Vagell]

This is a good time for me to update, as after chasing a lot over the past five weeks or so, I'll mainly just chase sporadically the rest of the year. For that result, these results are not final.

Note that this is my 6th season in a row chasing with consistency.

• Total chase days: 35 (tied for most YTD)
• Tornadoes: 7 (2nd most YTD*)
• State chased the most: Texas - 20 out of 35
• Chase mileage: 22,286
• Mileage per chase day: 637**

*Almost every tornado I've seen this year was either brief, low/no contrast or not even a classic supercell tornado.
**This seems like a lot, but it's pretty close to my average. Being based out of Oklahoma City, if I'm within 3-4 hours from home after a chase, I'll almost always come home, unless the chase target the next day is in the opposite direction.

Overall, it's been a very tough year. Like @Dan Robinson, I purchased a new camera and it was a major investment. I do think that I have stepped up my photography game, but I only had two chase days with photogenic tornado(es) all year. On the first day, April 30th, I was new to my camera and a mix-up with the settings prevented me from getting quality photos. At least I was running video at the time. For the second day, May 22nd, I had trees blocking my view most of the time and I was trying to navigate with bad, locally flooded roads in eastern Oklahoma. Once again, at least I was running video at the time, but even then, the trees obscure view for most of the chase.

While I think I did fairly well with the storms I've had, I botched or missed almost all of the big days. I was not able to chase on May 17th. I missed the tail-end Charlie tornado in New Mexico (as most did). I was just a few minutes late for Mangum. On May 28th, I would argue I picked the wrong target and although I was on the long-track EF-4 tornado in northeastern Kansas, I could not clearly see it. I made strong arguments against the north-central Kansas target, but after the fact it was very clear why it was the right target. Today I came to an acceptance that I can't keep favoring the HP/messy target, just because I feel like it has the best parameter space to produce a tornado. I would much rather chase upslope/photogenic storms/LP supercells/etc. for just a few minutes, than spend hours wandering around with low contrast views.

I would say that I have learned a lot this year. It's probably the most I've learned in a single season since either 2016 or 2014. I've learned to be more critical and objective about setups. Going forward, I am going to more heavily lean upon the more photogenic target, versus the tornado target. Early in my career, I always favored the tornado target. Over the past three years or so, I was about 50/50 split on days that had multiple targets, meaning roughly half the time, I'd pick the target that would favor a tornado, while the other half of the time I would go for the photogenic and/or sleeper target. The approach of being more focused on tornadoes is really not working and now I'm in a slump of 16 straight chases with no tornado. As bad as that sounds, I've done worse...

Chases per month:
February - 1
March - 2
April - 4 (2nd least in my career)
May - 15
June - 13 so far

I had a career best 13 straight days of chasing between May 20th and June 1st. I just finished another long streak of 8 straight days, ending on June 23rd). That means that the bulk of my chasing this year has come over the past five weeks without a lot of early season chasing.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Only one chase in the Northern Plains and that was only a few towns over the South Dakota border last week.
• Only chased in Colorado three times.
• Only chased Nebraska twice and one of those times was a "cold core" day in March that I almost erased from my chase stats.
• Only chased outside of the Plains twice. Once was a quality chase day in Illinois and the other started in Kansas, but ended in Missouri. In most years, I'll venture into the Midwest a few times and occasionally even the Mid-South. The latter of which I'm not unhappy about avoiding, these days.
• I have chased Texas very frequently this year with several chases in the panhandle and/or NW Texas vicinity. I chased in Southwest Texas a few times, but easily could have chased there even more if I had been more daring.
• I decided that the Texas panhandle is my favorite place to chase, as it has bumped western Kansas down the list.

My chase style favors slower-moving, photogenic storms and I prefer the High Plains over the "traditional" tornado alley. This year has been limited in those areas. The one exception is probably the number of quality chases I had in the Southern High Plains.

I'm not sure what I would give this year for a grade, but it's either near or below average for me. Yes, I've chased a lot and I've taken better photographs, but I've struggled to find tornadoes and I've continued to make mistakes that I should know better about.

 

[Devin Pitts]

While I don't consider my chase season over just yet, it does look like my runs to the plains are about over for the year and I'll likely be sticking with the standard midwest summer setups locally.

Early season chasing in Illinois this year was pretty sparse, yielding only 3 local chases for me and one very short lived tornado. I opted for a 2 week chasecation this year, which ended up being both a blessing and a curse. Opening day was 5/17 with the McCook, NE tornado which was one of the best of my career, but I missed the rest of the tornadoes associated with this cyclic supercell due to stopping to assist at an impacted farm. Getting such a jump start on the chasecation and then managing to get the Mangum, OK tornado against the odds gave me false hope though for what would end up being the single most frustrating chasecation I've ever taken. 3 Tornado days total out of the 14 days I was on the road, and two additional tornado days that were botched either because of smoke or car trouble. The rest was just a complete mess trying to avoid floods until the final day with the Waldo/Tipton, Kansas tornadoes on 5/28.

2019 Stats as of 6/24/19:
Miles driven: 7,000 Miles
States chased: Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Nebraska
Tornado days: 4
Total Tornadoes: 8

My number one rule to not call it quits early was reinforced this year, especially seeing as I had seriously contemplated just driving back to Illinois on 5/28.

 

[Brett Nickeson]

Despite the ridiculously active pattern in May, this year still resulted in the lowest total of chase days in my career. Virtually everything was in the TX panhandle or thereabouts which, living in Omaha, is outside my radius unless I'm on an extended trip. Also looking back on it, the "dream pattern" largely ended up a huge bust. Day after day after day of southwest flow in the same area brought flooding rains, little to no cap, and grungy garbage on most occasions. The most disappointing thing so far is that there has not been a single chase-worthy setup north of I-80 this year. Not one. Every year seems to go by without a decent one and it gets more and more frustrating each year.

I "ended" the year with only six chase days, with two of those days being significant tornado days. I caught the McCook tornado on May 17 and the Tipton, KS tornado on May 28. I only took the camera out on three of the six total days and missed any structure this year. I got stuck behind the epic structure near Imperial on May 27 because an SUV on the highway was insistent on driving 35 mph and refused to drive through the rain for over half an hour. Probably my most frustrating moment all year.

Overall, a very disappointing year given the potential.

 

[Ethan Schisler]

While not my *worst* season to date, it was certainly my most frustrating to date. The two days I really wanted to chase and couldn't ended up producing big time in the plains. The one that stung the most was May 17th. I had a wedding to attend early the next day and knew I'd never make it back in time and I don't like skipping out on prior engagements. My target for the day was McCook, NE (ouch). May 28th, I probably would have ended up in Northeast KS/Northwest MO, but alas, couldn't chase, can't do much about it. My best day of the year, came as a surprise on the drive home from the May 20th event in Oklahoma. I intercepted a large multi-vortex tornado as I was coming out of the rain near the town of Marshfield, MO. The storm cycled up and produced a couple more smaller satellite tornadoes as it crossed the interstate, which was secondary to a large wall cloud to the north. The next day I also managed to score a small tornado well after-dark near Rushville, IL making it my first time seeing 3 consecutive tornado days back-to back to back....although none of which were top notch or even close to it. May 24th, I managed to see a tornado near the town of Table Grove/Industry, IL shortly after noon. My last tornado of the season was a spin-up near the town of Dahinda, IL on May 27th. The only day I really regret as far as choices go is May 20th. While I still managed a couple tornadoes and should be thankful I saw anything, I sat in the town of Mangum, OK for almost an hour prior to initiation and got antsy and went after the storm SW and ended up missing the main show by 10 minutes tops. I have images that show *potentially* the Mangum tornado from several miles away, but they are crap and not even worth posting. Overall a very disappointing season for me, hoping July in Illinois can somehow make it up as I've had good luck in July. Oh and I shouldn't forget I did see a small tornado in Southern IL back on April 30th,, so I'll add that to my highlights: Here are a few images I shot this season:


April 30, 2019 near Donnelson, IL


May 20, 2019 near Hollis, OK


May 21, 2019 near Marshfield, MO


May 21, 2019 near Northview, MO


May 24, 2019 near Industry, IL


June 15, 2019 near Little York, IL

I made 2 trips to the plains this season and both yielded less than stellar images/video for myself. In fact, I actually shot more video of snow and flooding this year than I did severe storms. I give the season about a 4/10 for myself. While I'm thankful to see what I did, it could have went a whole lot better. Thankfully I live in Illinois, so who knows what the rest of the season brings. Last year I had one of my best chases on the first day of December. I will say, this year leaves me wanting redemption and I think that's a good thing, the hunger is always there for more

 

[Warren Faidley]

Six tornadoes this year -- one unconfirmed in New Mexico. Did not photograph a single one because I was either driving to get a better perspective or the contrast / haze was unacceptable. Really a sub-par photography season. Avoided all convergence. Lots of lingering cold / modified air in addition to haze from Mexico really hurled a monkey wrench into the best set-ups. Season really came down to one, late set of highly-dynamic systems where the atmosphere never recovered. The usual late May / early June Colorado season never developed. New Mexico had some really nice set-ups late, but the lack of low-level inflow killed the show. Banking on an active monsoon and hurricane set-up with the current weak flow, upper-level pattern.

 

[Todd Lemery]

So, the Southern plains left chasers feeling a little short changed. That’s why God made the Northern plains, to give people who want a little bit more the chance to get it. Good roads and not much for chaser convergence are calling everyone in the Southern plains North for a chasecation. If you are from the South and never headed up North for chasing, give it a try.
The Southern plains were a slice of heaven this year compared to the complete crap fest I had down there last year. The most intense thing I got last year on the Southern plains was sunburn!

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I don't keep stats but overall I wouldn't consider this year successful even though I captured some decent tornadoes along the way. I was out for most setups, but 98% of them were grunge fests and I spent more time chasing rain wrapped circulation this season than all other seasons combined.

Winning days for me:

Vega, TX tornado on March 22nd.
Memphis, TX photogenic storm on April 3rd
Aspermont, TX tornado (2% day) on April 27th
McCook, NE tornadoes on May 17th
Putnam, OK nighttime tornado (2% day) on June 15th.

Days I wish I could have back:

Imperial, NE (took the day off to rest after being on the road non-stop)
Tipton, KS (same as above)
Mangum, OK (Missed it by a few minutes, caught in traffic)
Canadian, TX wedge (Was in the right spot, went to get snack and gas, wedge happened in the 20 minutes I was gone)
Tahoka, TX tornado (Was 30 minutes north, didn't want to drive through Lubbock to reach southern cell)

Misplayed:

Sulphur, OK (Started in Shawnee, met the storm in Ada and it died)
Henryetta, OK tornadoes (Chose to go after SW OK cell that died, then drove back and forth between Lindsay and Chickasha five times just to bust)
Chose Eads, CO storm over New Mexico photogenic tornado. (Actually didn't consider NM that day so that was just bad judgement in hindsight)

Summary: A high quantity of messy storms and lots of chases, which is the opposite of about the last 8 years for me which was much fewer storms/chases but higher quality photogenic tornadoes and structure.

 

[Dave C]

It was pretty bad, the worst ending feeling of any of them so far. Only two photogenic days in CO and one great lightning night in NM. May 17 in NE was ruined by wasting time on the wrong storm and then one of the people I was chasing with getting sick, calling the chase early when we easily could have seen the last two tornadoes just minutes away. The Imperial NE amazing structured cell was just missed stopping for fuel.

I tried the Panhandle when the trough setup for most of a week, and every single day seemed to be the same mess of crapvection or messy hodos. As with the last few years, seems there is almost never perfect timing of ingredients, and there is never enough cap either, leading to low contrast, tightly packed crap cells with ugly rain wrapped junk I could care less about.

Another issue this year, it is plainly obvious there are WAY more people doing this than last year or two. Just as with national parks, 14ers, etc. instagram and facebook have destroyed something else. The unecessary drama and behavior out there is ridiculous- including from many veterans who are often revealed to be arrogant and unpleasant people. The amount of people out with zero knowledge or respect is very high. After this season I feel burned out just as I did with landscape photography when every lazy person imaginable bought a camera and started showing up to state and national parks in such numbers that there is really no experience left. All the constant posting of locations ensured those places died by crowd, and now all the social media personalities, the SPC colors, and even forums do the same to point every simple mind to every target area. From there they just follow the dots like a rolling circus.

Next season I will be shooting only timelapse from afar and will possibly never chase in TX and OK again since I have not once seen a photogenic tornado in either (out of 8 seasons), and only a bit of good structure. I plan to avoid anything enhanced or higher as well- it just brings out all the crowds and wrong. If the northern plains ever returns to having weather, I may like to shift up there.

I'm a data driven person, but anecdotally I have seen colorful sunsets here in CO dwindle massively in frequency, there is grey clouds almost every day against the mountains, tons of people have echoed memories to me of the now absent ebb and flow of afternoon storms in this area, winters are colder for longer. My (completely unsubstantiated by data other than experience) opinion is that the jet stream stagnates too often the last couple years for good dynamic weather and climate change of one variety or another is down trending what we consider quality severe weather over the plains.

Here were the "highlights" of a season I can mostly say good riddance to. Bring on monsoon lightning I guess.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Headline w/tagline:
2019: 2018 except for some cockteasing from 17 - 28 May, and without the photogenic WY/CO/MT stuff

I have seen one birdfart from 10 miles away near DIA this year and that's it. Hardly have seen any structure. Was in proximity to numerous tight couplets on 7 May but couldn't see a damn thing due to rain.

Best structure shot was from the backside of a newly formed storm over the CO-NE border that crapped out within 30 minutes on 17 May.

Best overall shot was stopping off of I-76 in CO after an elevated supercell had dropped golf-ball and larger hail on the road.

2019 - another shit year, IMO

 

[JamesCaruso]

Another terrible year for me. I am in a multi-year slump. Hard to read the posts above where chasers are unhappy yet have multiple tornados to my ZERO. My last tornados were 2016 Dodge City. Granted, a couple lean years in there, but still...

After several years with at least a little flexibility in when to schedule my chase vacation, this one was pretty much set in stone. I couldn’t start until after May 22, so planned to start my two weeks on Memorial Day Weekend. Initially it felt good to have the trip set for better or for worse and not have to agonize over the models and decide when to leave. But then when the hyped-up pattern and full 8-day SPC risk areas popped up, I was completely demoralized to have to miss most of it. McCook and Mangum were before I got out there. To try to catch as much of the favorable pattern as I could, I left home Wednesday night May 22, instead of waiting for the weekend. Having left work a couple days earlier than planned, it was left undiscussed whether I would need to be back exactly two weeks later, or could instead treat those first two days as “extra” and still be away the two full calendar weeks after Memorial Day Weekend. I figured I would play it by ear and try to stay longer if warranted; if it worked out, it would potentially be my longest or second longest trip in my 20+ years of chase vacations.

We chased six straight days from May 23 through May 28. Screwed up on each of the good days. Some bother me more than others. May 23, targeted dryline near Plainview and missed TX panhandle tornado - I can live with that one, but still frustrating that a cold front turned out to be the better target... May 26, ready to blow off the whole thing, missed early tornado in Lamar while jerking around, but don’t think we missed much there and at least got on the main storm of the day (Eads). May 27, took too long to switch from the northern storm to the storm that would become the Imperial storm, picked it up at Holyoke but had to follow from behind, inching behind the hail and stopping each time it got too big, then just when we were south of the storm the RFD kicked in and pulled hail back across the road; finally got into the SE quadrant at Imperial but a lot of effort for nothing, couldn’t safely go north from there to stay with the meso, no escape route. But at least the chase was somewhat exciting. May 28 hurt the most - blew off metro area chasing near KC, targeted Salina, thought initial development near Hays/Russell was too far west and didn’t take it seriously, went after it when it was too late to get Waldo/Tipton.

Then four days of nothing, spent time in Wichita by myself while my chase partner went home to take care of business so that he could come back and extend the chase vacation with me. On Sunday June 2 we made the trip all the way to southeast NM to see some photogenic but generally unimpressive storms near sunset. The next morning we decided it wasn’t worth sticking around, as I had work issues beckoning that would make it impossible to stay as long as I thought I might be able to. Didn’t think NM looked that great for June 3 / 4 but we probably missed a photogenic supercell or two; maybe could have gotten the Hope or Alamogordo NM tornados on Tuesday June 4. Oh well.

Only saving grace is that everyone agrees the hyped up pattern of a lifetime was a disappointment overall. But while others made lemonade out of lemons, I got a mouthful of lemon peels.

Remember even one good day can make a season, so if you got even one of the better events this year be happy.