Leach chasers – it has to stop.

[Jerry Prsha]

Sitting by the road....

I was on an "On Ramp" watching the Ellis Twister on Radar, waiting for it to go by as I found a line of cars behind me. I noticed some cars pulling off with me originally, but was so focused on not getting killed that it wasn't so apparent at the time.

As I sat there and more and more cars stopped, I realized that I was probably stopping them from getting killed too. They saw the Stormchasing sticker on the back of my vehicle and probably thought it was the safest place to be... With me. I took it as a compliment.

I can't fault them for being "smart". When I took off, so did they.

Now, if it were a non-dangerous situation, I could understand getting annoyed with an unsolicited entourage.

I know this might be naive but perhaps a sign in the back window that bluntly says "Please do not follow this car. I will contact the police." might be in order?

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I know this might be naive but perhaps a sign in the back window that bluntly says "Please do not follow this car. I will contact the police." might be in order?

That would be ineffective since there are no laws that prohibit someone from following you on a public road.

In the 12 years that I’ve been chasing there was only one time where I had someone follow me, it was a local chase and at the point they began following me the storm had weakened so I just turned around and headed home. It was about half way home when they stopped following me, they must have realized I was leading them away from the storm.

On the other hand though, if there is a tornado and I had some locals following me I would rather have them behind me than have them end up driving into a tornado potentially getting killed. At least with them behind me I will know that they’re safe, and if having them behind me following me is possibly saving their life then I can deal with being annoyed.

However, if the person that is obviously following me is a storm chaser whom I don’t know then that will irritate me because they should know well enough to be able to chase without having to follow. There has been at least 2 times that I can think of that I did have a storm chaser ask me if they could follow because of equipment failure which resulted in losing radar data, I have no problem with that and if any chaser was in such a position and asked to follow I would be more than happy to let them.

 

[Tony Laubach]

We had a similar experience back on Sunday where a kid was following our group of mesonets, and we ended up flipping around several times in positioning and sure enough, he followed us like a puppy. It was a bit annoying, and I commented to him when we finally stopped something along the lines of "I hope you have some clue what you're doing". He replied, "a bit"; clearly not the case. Never seen him before and after I informed him that we weren't looking for tornadoes at that particular point, we left him behind and didn't see him again.

That was the only time I noticed anyone following us so extensively. It became quite obvious on our third or forth u-turn that he was definitely a bit unprepared.

 

[Jake Wallentine]

Back on Thursday the 22nd and Kevin Rider and I were just northeast of Garden city on a storm when our data decided to crap out. We have AT&T which the signal did alright for the most part on Highway 400, but for some reason this one little area it just plain refused to get a signal. We had just met Jason Boggs back in Garden City at a gas station and noticed he and Jay McCoy were on the same storm we were at the time. Since we were without data at the time we drove across the intersection and asked Jason what the radar was looking like since we hadn't had an update for about 20mins. He was very nice about the whole thing and even allowed us to follow him and Jay until we got signal again. Hopefully, he didn't percieve us as "leaches". lol. We finally got signal again near Dighton where we parted ways. If you're reading this Jay and Jason...we appreciated it and hope we didn't cause any trouble.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Although I totally agree with stuart, I think there is a very fine line here.. Which is who is following me, and who is going the same place as me..

Now in Stuarts case, it was clear that he was being followed, which would be annoying, and unsafe. You have enough things to worry about when on a storm than who is following you and who is going to be in the way.

But also, many of us out there (including myself) have radar, and radio communications, and could just as easily be heading in the same spot.

I know from last week that many days we were behind other chasers, other days we were in front. We were not following any one person, simply heading for the right cell..

So while I totally agree with Stuart in this Case, I think that you are going to be followed, whether it be to that extent or not.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

You just need a faster vehicle I rarely get it since nothing says "chaser" on my car. Only time is if someone recognizes it from the site, I guess. I'm amazed how hard some will try to stay with you. It is fun to lose them though, by slightly breaking the speed limit laws. Not the answer I know, but fun non-the-less.

I had a couple follow last year. I left a parking lot and they left. I pulled over west of town on a gravel road, they turn on it and park a 1/4 mile down. I was like, hmmm. So I leave again and drive back east towards town. Sure enough, they flipped around where they were parked right as I did this. So I then just punched it east on the highway, crested a hill, and punched it south on another gravel. I stop, wait for the dust to clear.....and no signs of them. There were no storms anyway, so it was some rather good entertainment considering.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Seems like it's a lot more fun when you forget about everyone else and try to figure stuff out for yourself. Makes the intercept that much better - - I don't even turn on the radios and listen to chatter these days. Would much rather work for the prize than let someone else earn it for me. By the way, I used to have more people follow me when I had the torn8o license plates and Skywarn stickers ... stuff like that is much better now that there is no indication that I'm a chaser.

The one thing I don't really get - especially after all the talk about parking habits, etc. ... when there are great gravel roads branching off in all directions, why folks feel the need to congregate with a million cars all on the same road in the same spot. We moved off the main road less than a quarter mile at one point Friday and basically had a view of the storm base all to ourselves. Beautiful green fields, rotating updraft. It was all there for the taking. So why choose a spot full of people doing crazy stuff? Seems like chasing is more about social stuff than weather sometimes.

 

[Jay McCoy]

Back on Thursday the 22nd and Kevin Rider and I were just northeast of Garden city on a storm when our data decided to crap out. We have AT&T which the signal did alright for the most part on Highway 400, but for some reason this one little area it just plain refused to get a signal. We had just met Jason Boggs back in Garden City at a gas station and noticed he and Jay McCoy were on the same storm we were at the time. Since we were without data at the time we drove across the intersection and asked Jason what the radar was looking like since we hadn't had an update for about 20mins. He was very nice about the whole thing and even allowed us to follow him and Jay until we got signal again. Hopefully, he didn't percieve us as "leaches". lol. We finally got signal again near Dighton where we parted ways. If you're reading this Jay and Jason...we appreciated it and hope we didn't cause any trouble.

No trouble at all. It was nice meeting you. There is a big difference in chasers coming up and asking for a look at the radar cause their wireless card is out of range compared to people you dont know following you around a dangerous storm without so much as a word. Many times my card loses connection and I depend on Jason or Steve Miller. We use different companies so I may have a signal and they dont or vise versa and it works out great. I dont mind working with other chasers or giving out a bit of data if needed. I have asked for some myself many a time.

If somebody will have the courtesy to ask ahead of time I usually dont have a problem with somebody tagging along as long as they follow basic safety and courtesy rules and dont interfere with my chase. I have taught a number of newer chasers the ins and outs and enjoy doing it. But if you just follow without asking or saying thanks then you might find yourself being led to the middle of the core since my truck is already totalled out by the insurance people so it cant do much more damage except windows which would be worth it to teach them a lesson.

 

[Shane Adams]

I'm always too busy doing my own thing to even notice what is going on with others out there. I could care less about the thousands of other chasers out there, when it's tornado time nothing else matters, and all those other chasers just disappear to me...it's just me, my vidcam, and the tornado.

The lone exception are the DOW teams, of which there seem to be 12 or so nowadays. They are always taking forever to pull over, pull out, position, all of that which normal chasers can do quickly. Those damned SUV 'gopher' crews are the worst though, just a bunch of kids laughing and carrying on and being there to assist with research, not really hard-core chasing, which means their sense of urgency is lost. Thursday while holding us and other chasers up, by just being stupid and sitting in the road waiting on another SUV tard to do his/her thing in front of them, they just looked at us and laughed, like "oh well, sucks for you." I might add that the particular bunch I'm referring to are the blue truck DOW people, in particular their gophers in those SUVs with the tornado logo made up of several red slashes. Fortunately, every time I'm seeing a tornado these guys are nowhere near me.

But what do you expect from college kids who only know what they're told to do out there.

I only have two things I ask for out there....

(1) - Don't step into my shot
(2) - Don't block me in/hold me up

This year I've taken up screaming obscenities at the DOW folks when they are blocking roadways. It doesn't do any good, but it damn sure feels good

 

[Andrew Stoller]

Seems like it's a lot more fun when you forget about everyone else and try to figure stuff out for yourself. Makes the intercept that much better - - I don't even turn on the radios and listen to chatter these days. Would much rather work for the prize than let someone else earn it for me. By the way, I used to have more people follow me when I had the torn8o license plates and Skywarn stickers ... stuff like that is much better now that there is no indication that I'm a chaser.

The one thing I don't really get - especially after all the talk about parking habits, etc. ... when there are great gravel roads branching off in all directions, why folks feel the need to congregate with a million cars all on the same road in the same spot. We moved off the main road less than a quarter mile at one point Friday and basically had a view of the storm base all to ourselves. Beautiful green fields, rotating updraft. It was all there for the taking. So why choose a spot full of people doing crazy stuff? Seems like chasing is more about social stuff than weather sometimes.

Totally agree. If you have enough desire to drive out to the middle of BFE to look at thunderstorms, you'd think these people would have the desire to learn about storms.

Part of the satisfaction of chasing is forecasting, planning, and implementing. And having the spacial awareness to know where to put yourself givin all the variables - the road network, the storm motions and speeds, where on the storm you need to be etc.

Last week was really my biggest two chase days and it was fun as heck to juggle everything at once. I'm here, storm A is approaching at 60 mph from there, I have roads x y and z available, and I need to get to the southeast area of the storm. In all actuality, it's a pretty difficult thing to do and would be impossible if someone had no clue about supercell thunderstorms.

No one latches on to my car cause it's a p.o.s. Even though I have a huge antenna for my scanner and an antenna/booster for data.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

That reminds me - - what was the new 'mini-DOW' thing? It wasn't far from the TIV when we saw it ... just wondered who it belonged to. Kind of looked like "honey, I shrunk the DOW."

 

[Heather Moser]

But what do you expect from college kids who only know what they're told to do out there.

I don't know, I would give several college-aged chasers I know a lot more credit than that. Yeah, they're helping with research and generally doing what they're told, but the ones I know take it very seriously.

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

I might add that the particular bunch I'm referring to are the blue truck DOW people, in particular their gophers in those SUVs with the tornado logo made up of several red slashes. Fortunately, every time I'm seeing a tornado these guys are nowhere near me.

I wanna buy those macho helmets like they were wearing. Chicks dig 'em.

 

[Dick McGowan]

I drive a regular car and don't have a single antenna nor any stickers, I don't want anyone to know that I'm storm chasing and we never have any problems. BTW, which tour company drives 3 full-sized, white vans with Colorado and Texas tags?

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

That reminds me - - what was the new 'mini-DOW' thing? It wasn't far from the TIV when we saw it ... just wondered who it belonged to. Kind of looked like "honey, I shrunk the DOW."

I saw one from UMass Friday, guy looked like a kid but he knew what he was looking at, at least.