I'm from wet, wet Iowa, and almost everything up north here has been HP. Even the lone supercell we had here in Iowa a few weeks back was pretty wet from what I heard (like I'd know, since I was caught in glorious one-lane "wait 40 minutes for the pacecar" road construction in NE Kansas).
I've put, as of now, 14,500 miles on my car since March with chasing alone. It seems unbelievable, but that's what I've logged, and it includes three long trips down below the Kansas border - one of them a bust day.
We've caught tornadoes, but of course our only filmable tornado was that piddly little spinup near Dighton, which turned out to be my first tornado I caught while chasing - but only after waiting to confirm it since we weren't 100% sure it wasn't a gustnado or RFDs or whatever. Not exactly 5-star Youtube footage but eh, it's a memory.
My second tornado that I got to see with my own eyes was the Wakeeney one later on May 22nd. It was gorgeous and amazing before it got wrapped up in rain and the RFDs blew us so hard that my car nearly ditched out. Footage? Heh, all seven shaky seconds of it. We have two whole pictures - one clear one before the funnel became a tornado, and one fuzzy one I took from my cell during the brief time it was a tornado but before it clothed itself in rain.
And the other tornadoes. The Abilene area back in March - whoops, too dark. Arkansas on the day Picher happened - brief F1 in front of our noses. But all you can see in a forest is trees. Parkersburg - it had a brief moment of visibility but it was in the middle of that monster's rain soon after. It looked like that scene in There Will Be Blood when oil was raining down everywhere after the well struck gold by the time we arrived, and I don't know of a chaser or spotter who could have followed it (except if they were on the wrong side of it to begin with, which we were briefly several times before we got smart and bailed) due to the damage it caused. We might've seen the secondary tornado it produced, but the cell was so wet with so many outflow-dom parts that we couldn't call the difference from just ominous clouds and RFD from a distance. And in Nebraska just two days ago, we couldn't get another tornado on visual because of hills and the northern 'burbs of Omaha suddenly appearing out of absolutely nowhere.
On the day of Picher we had two equally good cells just 30 miles away from each other with equally good potential, tornado warnings off the bat, etc. Both TORs had "large and damaging tornado" wording to them. We played the southern storm and the northern storm hit Picher - couldn't catch that because of the speeds. We play the northern storm on Parkersburg's day and miss the brief and frightening moments of Parkersburg to the south due to being cut off by the monster itself and its entourage of rain. We caught a wall cloud developing, initiating rotation, producing a brief funnel allllmost to the ground, and then going its merry way to storm heaven on May 24th. What happened? The Nebraska Curse of the "sit back and relax" supercells in Oklahoma. We were on the wrong side of a wedge on May 23rd in Kansas on I-70, and left two wall clouds that ended up producing because we bit on TOR-warned storms nearby that were long gone by the time we arrived.
But was it worth it? Sure. This is my first year, and living where I live chases will generally be tougher and longer, and chases here in Iowa are extraordinarily wet and notoriously unpredictable and bust-prone. My chase partner has been doing this for over a decade and he mentioned that this year was one of the toughest ever in regards to staying safe and getting clean footage. I think it was Reed Timmer who mentioned on his blog that the Chicago area tornado was the best footage so far, and I tend to agree - everything else I've seen has been either short, shot with night-vision, hazy, or rainy.
But I'm a storm chaser, not a tornado chaser in specific. I prepare for tornadoes since that's the most interesting storm in my opinion, but it's the same as being a Cowboys fan and wanting to see them win every game by seven touchdowns. I'm still pleased at the end with a weaker win, and with stormchasing, seeing everything else I've seen has really made up for not getting a 120-gig hard drive completely full of uncountable tornadoes of perfect quality. In addition to tornadoes, I've seen all modes of supercells, gustnadoes, softball hail, severe gusts blasting freshly manured Iowa topsoil all over my windshield, wall clouds galore including two that were so big they nearly spanned my vision if I held still, historical flooding, the birth through the death (nearly ten hours later) of the supercell that produced a tornado in Enid, the birth through the death of the entire train of supercells in Nebraska the other day, the birth and the death of the tornadic process (albeit brief and weak), thundersnow, and even a gorgeous, photogenic shelf cloud after I thought I was sick to death of them.
I've wound up being the chased rather than the chaser on more than several storms and have now logged tons of experience in learning how to recognize danger and drive out of it - and had a stressfully fun time during every second of it. I've learned from a knowledgeable partner what to watch with my own eyes and what to discount. I've met new and interesting people in a community that has been mostly quite welcoming; Reed Timmer and Chuck Doswell - considered "opposite ends of the spectrum" - have been the only two chasers I've met (outside of who I've chased with) who have taken their own time out to approach me and introduce themselves, Reed doing so right in the middle of a chase. And I've made several friends above and beyond the strict stormchasing subject, and have had tons of people jump at the opportunity to help me with models, direct me through learning GRL3, and share stories with me through chat, PMs, emails, and phone calls that have helped me learn what to see and expect.
Has it been tough? Yes, tougher than even the high expectations I had on the difficulty level coming in to my first year. Expensive? Hell yes, I've dropped $2000 of hard-earned money on gas and a broken windshield, and I've basically given up every other expense-generated hobby and interest as a result. Have I learned? More than I ever would in a classroom. Would I do it again? Absolutely. I always have self-doubt and wondered if I really would cheer and throw in the towel after my first tornadoes, but seeing them made me even more thirsty, so I know this hobby is going to be here to stay no matter what I have to do to pay for the fuel to get me to the storms.
In my opinion, this year and the difficulty all but the most skillful (or luckiest) stormchasers have had with watching/filming it, will serve as a cut for new chasers not putting in the effort and who think the process is as easy as clicking on their favorite Youtube videos. There could be some, veterans or not, who are solely "glory seekers" (and not enjoying it as a side-dish to the storms) who will likely think twice about chasing with gas as it is and the risk of next year being a repeat of this year's HP slop. If I came in wanting only fame and fortune (yet another self-doubt I had) then I would've realized that Mother Nature will always be my biggest critic and I would have stopped long ago.
A "birdwatcher" like me is probably never going to be on the media hotdial list, but I've gotten more than I could ever hope for and I will strike 2009 with a vengeance. It's been tough, but that has only served to encourage me more. For someone who had to wait seventeen years to mature enough (and grow brave enough) for the danger after the Wichita, KS videos and old videos and stories of my hometown's disaster in '79 got me interested in the topic in the first place, this year's been a hell of a payoff and has given me enough stories for a lifetime - even though I've made more roadkill than seen tornadoes this year. I'm just getting started, and I'm not stopping anytime soon.
