2024 Chase Season Epilogue

[John Farley]

I kind of need to update what I posted June 15 when I called my season very subpar. Although I am still at just one brief glimpse of a tornado and no pictures of one, probably my 3 best chases have been since that post. On June 19, I caught the nearly stationary supercell near Willard, NM that produced massive hail accumulations and flash flooding, leaving vehicles stranded for hours. And a number of brief but photogenic funnel clouds, like this one:



Then, almost a month to the day later, on July 18. while out initially just to shoot lightning, I got this near Las Vegas, NM:



And then last night near Pagosa Springs, CO, again out for lightning, I got some of my best night-time supercell pics ever, including these two:



I would now rate my season as still subpar, but only slightly so. Definitely was not a good year for tornadoes, but for storm structure and photography, it was not bad at all. It ain't over till it's over, and of course it is still not, with some of September and all of fall left to go.

 

[Jeff House]

2024 was my best sky year in a decade and perhaps lifetime, but I did not chase one severe thunderstorm. We saw our second total solar eclipse; shared TWO auroras with family in the South; and, documented my favorite comet since Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake. Comet nights were about 50/50 family and more serious observing.

Have I quiet quit storm chasing? Well the calendar never lined up in spring. Now with two kids at the Activities age vs just one, I may struggle to get out into the field for several years. Except slop in the South on weekends. Then something like Oct. 30 happens in the Plains, near the anniversary of much more successful fall chases, and I'm glad I wasn't out there. Maybe I will quit.

If I quit it will not be out of frustration or spite. Quite contrary. 2024 my non-storm year has been one of my best. More likely I will continue to play it by ear. I have taken a liking to more astronomy related events, but I reserve the right to park in the Plains if a standing Rockies wave sets up for multiple days in late spring.

Now time to look at travel plans for total eclipses abroad.

 

[James Wilson]

2024 was a great year for me with 54 tornadoes (so far) and a few very close-range intercepts. It is the first year in a long time that almost every chase day resulted in tornadoes. With that said I had bad days too like going to Nebraska when I planned on going north of Topeka then Westmoreland happened. I did fall for the “big tornado days” in Oklahoma twice but was able to salvage one of those trips with a Missouri tornadofest the next day. I drove out the other time to Tennessee only to see a weak birdfart so I packed a lot of milage in 2024. Here is a photo showing some of the tornadoes in 2024 and I will link a couple video to some of the better days.

- YouTube

Hopefully not done yet!

 

[Boris Konon]

Latest stats from SPC shows 2024 closing in on the most tornadoes recorded in the U.S. in a calendar year.

NWUS21 KWNS 101604
STAMTS

TORNADO TOTALS AND RELATED DEATHS...THROUGH 09 FEB 2025
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0956 AM CST MON FEB 10 2025

...NUMBER OF TORNADOES... NUMBER OF KILLER
TORNADO DEATHS TORNADOES
..2025.. 2024 2023 2022 3YR 3YR 3YR
PREL ACT ACT ACT ACT AV 25 24 23 22 AV 25 24 23 22 AV
--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
JAN 20 - 45 130 37 71 0 2 8 0 3 0 2 2 0 1
FEB 9 - 45 56 11 37 2 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1
MAR - - 56 208 234 166 - 4 47 12 21 - 2 11 6 6
APR - - 356 149 219 241 - 7 8 1 5 - 6 4 1 4
MAY - - 530 168 239 312 - 27 1 2 10 - 11 1 1 4
JUN - - 151 253 123 176 - 1 9 0 3 - 1 4 0 2
JUL - - 213 114 64 130 - 3 0 0 1 - 2 0 0 1
AUG - - 85 145 35 88 - 1 2 0 1 - 1 1 0 1
SEP - - 70 27 25 41 - 2 0 0 1 - 1 0 0 0
OCT - - 54 32 36 41 - 6 0 0 2 - 1 0 0 0
NOV - - 60 18 62 47 - 0 0 4 1 - 0 0 3 1
DEC - - 145* 21 58 75 - 1 7 3 4 - 1 2 2 2
--- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
SUM 29 - 1810^ 1321 1143 1425 2 54 83 23 53 1 28 26 14 23

*PRELIMINARY REPORTS.
^PRELIMINARY/INCOMPLETE VERSION OF FINAL COUNTS.

PREL = 2025 PRELIMINARY COUNT FROM ALL NWS LOCAL STORM REPORTS.
ACT = ACTUAL TORNADO COUNT BASED ON NWS STORM DATA SUBMISSIONS.

COMPARISONS BETWEEN PRELIMINARY AND ACTUAL COUNTS SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

..ELLIOTT..02/10/2025

Numbers final through Nov, just Dec left, which should be done by the end of March.

1810 preliminary. Best I can tell, at least 1780 discrete tornadoes have been identified
so far. Record for any year is 1817 in 2004.

What really pushed it at last minute was the 109 tornadoes in the Dec 28-29 outbreak.