Tony Laubach
EF5
A toot-my-own-horn post, if I may... but back on Friday, I hit a long-standing career goal of mine to storm chase a total of 500,000 miles. It was a mark I set for myself when I started keeping official logs of my chases back in 2002. At the time, I had no idea the amount of miles I would actually drive in a year, so when I set that, I figured it would be career-long climb, assuming of course I went 30+ years. Well, it 'ONLY' took 22 years, and I drove the final mile on my way back from Wyoming on Friday, only a few miles from my house.
I had chased a little prior to 2002, but it wasn't til then that I started making money from videos, and being a numbers nerd, I began a spreadsheet to keep track of miles among other things, and I've been keeping track ever since. And if I can brag, I'd say the mileage count is pretty accurate as I have been anal about making sure I had the proper logs.
While I did have some chases between my first tornado chase in 1997 through 2001, I'd estimate the mileage total to be less than 3000. The first couple years were high school years, and I didn't venture out of state til 2001, so it would be a mix of very local spot chases early on til I made a couple panhandle trips in 2001. But I consider my professional career to start in 2002 when I started freelancing, so my professional career mileage count started with my first chase in April that year.
I have owned a total of five vehicles during the stint, plus my time chasing with TWISTEX which was mixed between Tim's Probe truck and my mesonet vehicle. Only about 33K miles accounted from riding with friends, rentals, and company cars. Over 70% of the miles I drove happened in April, May, and June.
For largely being focused during the typical severe weather season, I'd say it was a solid run to get to this point. The mileage does NOT take into account any miles flying (obviously); nor does it count miles chasing winter weather events or hurricanes. This is all convective severe weather chasing. I'm making a run at 700,000K if you take all that additional weather chasing into account, but I didn't keep as exact logs for those types of things until I realized the tax benefits of writing off mileage haha
In the end, I think the seasonal average balances out. 2023 was my longest season in terms of miles by a long-shot, my only 40K+ season. Meanwhile three years based in Wichita and largely being limited by DMA and Covid had three of my lowest season totals in the modern era. TWISTEX years certainly racked up the mileage running around with them like we did. But it was/is my two Subarus that have done nearly half the total between the two. A testament to the reliability of those cars. But I gotta say, I loved the minivans for the space. BTW, 'Van Damme' got its name because she literally saw 20 tornadoes in her first five days out after buying her in May of 2016, and that usually gets the response "DAMN!", so I went with it
This was a big deal for me and when I came into this season knowing it was within grasp, I have been waiting for the moment all season. Oddly enough, I had conjured a whole list of scenarios as to how to handle that moment in various situations such as middle of a chase, middle of the night, running from a bear, whatever. The scenario I didn't think about was what to do if that moment happened pulling into my driveway. When I wrapped up the chase Friday and started to head home from Sterling, Colorado, I googled the map distance from there to my house and it was within ONE mile of what I needed to hit the mark. I thought that it be funny as hell if I pulled into the driveway at 499,999 and had to wait for the next chase. But my route home gave me a little breathing room, and I hit the mark with 6 miles to spare, happening at Mile Marker 10 on Colorado Highway 60 on the east side of Johnstown.
Anywoo, just wanted to brag and date myself a bit
Was a fun moment to finally experience after a couple decades of driving a bunch of back roads chasing clouds 
