CHANGES YOU WILL MAKE FOR NEXT SEASON

[Dick McGowan]

1. New Camera body.
2. Stop shooting video.
3. Read up more on forecasting.
4. Work more. (maybe a new job with as few hours as I get now)
5. Post less on here.
6. Find a winter activity to do, instead of watching models 3,400,500 hours out.
7. Choose days more wisely.
8. Save money and try to get morning classes.
9. Not miss a single class until April.
10. Study more on photography and post-processing techniques this Winter.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Good sound ideas Dick...especially the one about choosing chase days more wisely. It's so hard not to take the bait in March and then end up wasting those valuable days which should have been saved for later in May & June when those REAL good events start popping up.

 

[Joel Wright]

I'm planning on getting a new laptop and a new HD DVD recorder. Other than that no changes.

 

[Dick McGowan]

Good sound ideas Dick...especially the one about choosing chase days more wisely. It's so hard not to take the bait in March and then end up wasting those valuable days which should have been saved for later in May & June when those REAL good events start popping up.

Yeah, I say that now, but in late February or March, when that first setup shows up on the models, I'll be itching to chase, which, I'm sure will bust for me. Wouldn't mind a true cold-core setup between now and then. Heck, Scott Currens saw a tornado in January of 06' in KS with maybe 200 j/kg CAPE to deal with, it's possible!

 

[Susan Strom]

Something I'll be changing is rethinking one of my vantage points, and realizing its full potential of danger. On Sept 3 2007 I did something really stupid. I got caught up on the Promontory, the cliff edge summit of the Colorado Plateau in Arizona, during the 2nd most violent lightning storm I have experienced in my 10 years of chasing (Plains included). I pushed my luck way past the point of (box of hammers) on that chase and escaped with my skin pretty much due to nature's mercy. It's hard to describe in words. I had no business being up there. No radar access up there, but I did see the loop later. My storm was a round burgundy Pepperoni slice right over the edge of the Mogollon Rim's Promontory. Inside the storm, there was stuff that humans probably shouldn't be seeing, lightning so close, making a grotesque hiss and exploding like green bombs in my face. Thunder was a deafening drumbeat that would never stop. The whole experience was incredible, but so exhausting, have you ever had so much adrenaline pumping that you get tears in your eyes in kind of a weird way? And you feel like you're way past overdrive? I couldn't believe it...the Rim is capable of such violence, beyond what I had previously seen. Being on the Promontory in an electrical storm of that strength, chasing alone at 3am dealing with the hydroplaning on 8% grades and blinding CG constant afterimages in eyeballs...and there is no refuge anywhere...can't go forward, can't go back, what do you do with it? Next time I will rethink the Promontory bigtime if I see certain conditions setting up. I have been rewarded up there, with lightning pictures under full moon and aspen trees. Yes there is lightning, this is Arizona. But in the future I will handle the Promontory with extra kid gloves. Wow.

 

[SteveCarter]

For a mount on your dashboard for a camcorder...try velcro. Simple, it REALLY works, and you can just pull the camcorder right out when you need to get out and move about. It really is a steady pic too. It really comes in handy when the storm is in front of you, and you can adjust it any time you want to. Some of the best shots I've gotten has been from the dashboard. Another thing I'm doing different next year is NOT leaving a storm to get to another one until I KNOW for SURE the first storm has bottomed out. I can't say how many storms I've painstakingly got to, and then left to early, and then heard it go tornado-warned 20 minutes after I abandoned it. Have to be more PATIENT.

 

[John Erwin]

Learn more
This is on my list every year. I try to study as much as possible in the off-season.

Better preparation
While I tend to plan out my annual "chase-cation" very well I'm not so good at keeping a good level of readiness for local setups, which became oh-so-apparent this past year when I was basically only catching the tail-end of some really wild stuff here. Specifically here's what I need to do:

- keep chase vehicle gas tank above half at all times. Got caught on this one recently and it cost me valuable time getting out to target.
- Perform all preventative and planned corrective maintenance on vehicle and equipment outside of "normal" chase season.
- keep chase "go" kit ready at all times; no fun trying to find stuff when time is limited.
- keep closer tabs on local weather and trust personal forecasts to determine potential targets over what is being provided through official channels, which has proven to be too little/too late/wrong.
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Budget
I plan on creating an extra account that I'll keep a reserve of cash in for the sole purpose of chasing. If something unplanned comes up and I'm a bit tight it means I won't get tempted into dipping into other funds or using the ol' credit card as much.

 

[David Mikulec]

1) More study time

2) Keep closer eye on local conditions (which hopefully will be better next year)

3) More chasing / Less armchairing

optional: better camera

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Yea, the El Reno tornado was back in 06. I really need to get a portable TV for those chases close to a big city where I can get radar updates and cut-ins from the TV station.

This is several pages in, so someone may have already mentioned this.. I have a USB TV tuner for my laptop that works great.. might look into doing that.

 

[Josh Richardson]

1. Getting away from the northern plains and back down south more.

2. Adding F5 Data to my list of products to use.

 

[Michael Towers]

1. Take an extra trip to the Southern Plains and extend my annual trip.

2. Buy a better camcorder, maybe an HD.

3. Learn more and rely less on the forecasts of others.

 

[Skip Talbot]

NOT leaving a storm to get to another one until I KNOW for SURE the first storm has bottomed out.

That can bite you either way. On May 5 Chad and I were under a big junky whale's mouth. We were sure it was done and were in the process of bailing from it when a big cone dropped on the north end of it. We almost missed it had I not seen it out of the corner of my eye. After the tornado lifted we had to keep up with the storm to really make sure it was done, and got snarled up in Great Bend. Meanwhile the cells to south started dropping tubes and although we bagged a tube, it was a multi-tornado day if you played the line right. So definitely don't blow off a storm early, but also don't follow some embedded, tease wall cloud into oblivion while Tail-End-Charlie starts spinning up to the south.

 

[Scott Roberts]

Biggest changes for next year:

Stick with the early target. Surprising how many times I nailed a target previous night or in the early AM, only to change my mind as I left town ... and regret it.

If in doubt, stay home. I just have too much going on and requiring my time (like multiple hours of work in the overnight hours that go much slower when I'm in the field) to do much more than local chasing.

 

[Verne Carlson]

I have some big plans for next year!

First and most exciting is that I have my 'Wicked Witch Project' RC video and camera planes that I will be deploying in and near thunderstorms to try and get some unique shots of storm faetures and tornadoes.

Second I will use my RC glider and a 30 sq foot parasail kite to get high resolution 'first light' photographs of tornado damage paths. I would like to document the damage through towns and also the subtle multi-vortex swirl patterns visible in crops only seen from the air. Also I want to document a seldom photographed phenomenon - hail swaths. Unless a TV News copter catches them they have already melted before a conventional aircraft can get to the area.

Beyond that I am leaning more towards saving my vacation for MOD and HIGH risk days and moving away from the prolonged chase-cations. Favoring more 3-4 day trips around big events. Chase early and chase late, May and June just don't cut it anymore.

 

[Michael O'Keeffe]

Don't second guess everything I do.

Get closer, better, higher quality video.

Don't chase SLGHT risk (busted on every SLGHT this year) further than 150 miles away.

Continue improving and adding to our website.

And of course learn to forecast better, there's always more room for imporvement.