*New Users. Meet and Greet Area*

[Aaron Cathcart n0war]

well, here we go. i am new here but wanted to announce my presence.
aaron cathcart here in estes park, colorado.
grew up in nebraska and have been in colorado for almost 20 years.
ham radio op for at least that long. just did skywarn training and have had spotter # for awhile now.
love ham radio and storms.

 

[Tyler Schiller]

Hello from Wisconsin!

Greetings to Everyone!

To introduce myself my name is Tyler Schiller. I've been a big fan of Stormtrack.org for at least 10 years now. It all first started when I subscribed to the Stormtrack publication for a couple of years back in the mid to late 90's when I was a teenager. Ever since the Stormtrack website landed on the internet I've been lurking ever since.

I come from the great state of Wisconsin (Milwaukee metro area) where you will find beer and cheese fanatics I've come to know some chasers up in this area, but not that many compared to the plains. I've been chasing since the late 90's primarily in Wisconsin area. I took my first plains trip last year during the May 22, 23 2008 outbreak which was something I will never forget!

With that said, I'm glad to say Stormtrack is one of my outlets when it comes to severe weather phenomena, educational insight and meeting new members. I've read many posts on storm track for many years and I would like to thank those members who really put their heart and sole into the discussions on these boards. I hope to meet many more of you!

Keep Rockin,

Tyler

 

[Jeff Hawkins]

Hi, I'm Jim, new user as of 4/26/09.
I have done some storm chasing near where I live in Illinois, and have some basic storm education, although not formally degreed in meteorology. As with most storm chasers, I have a full time career in the real world, but also a passion for chasing, and learning more about severe weather, and enjoy just getting out on the open road to chase, even if I don't come across a tornado.
Given that, I'm also aware of the costs of chasing, as well as the importance of not going it alone. I have a few days off work coming up, and am planning a trip. I am interested in doing some in TX/OK/KS/NE and surrounding areas, this Memorial Day Weekend.
I would like to join a group who may be chasing during the period 5/29-6/2.
If you are an experienced chaser group and would be open to reducing your costs by allowing an additional 'newbie' to tag along, please contact me privately.

 

[Marcus Hicks]

Hello everyone. I'm Marcus out of Sioux Falls, SD. I've been chasing after storms since 2005. I've been lurking around here awhile and figured I should join. I hope to learn from others here as I recognize that I don't know everything. I typically run in SD, NE, IA, and MN when time allows (depending on workload).

 

[Ric Burney]

I've been meaning to do this for some time now but I guess now is as good a time as any. I grew up in San Angelo, Snyder and Lubbock, TX and now live in Dallas. I've been interested in weather since I was old enough to know what it was. Around 1979 or so my father and I would chase (if you could call it that) locally while he worked in the oil fields in and around Scurry and surrounding counties.
Starting around 1983 I began traveling back and forth from Dallas to Snyder, Lubbock and Amarillo. Every so often I got lucky to see (and dodge) a few tornados, steroidal hail and all the other wonderful trappings of Texas weather.
While I am not a meteorology student, nor do I play one on TV, I am constantly reading and learning as much as I can about weather. I am currenty a cert. spotter, member of Dallas County RACES and a ham radio op. (K5RDB). This year marks my first time out chasing with a laptop, GPS, etc. All I can say now is... Wow, I love it and where was this stuff back in th 80's!

 

[Brian Mette]

Hey everyone,

My name's Brian, and I've been lurking here for a while, and I'm just now getting around to posting one of these. Let's see, weather has always been a big part of my life. When I was little, thunderstorms terrified me. Yet at the same time, they fascinated me. I remember being in first and second grade and just reading every book I could on storms and tornadoes. As I got older, I decided I wanted to become a meteorologist.

But as I got into college, my interests changed a little bit, and I got into other things. After my first year of college, I decided I wasn't the scientist type, and turned my attention to other things. Despite my change in major, I still had a fascination with storms. It was either during my later years of highschool or during college that I started going ontop of my roof during thunderstorms with my parent's digital camera. My goal was taking pictures of cool looking clouds, storm formations, lightning (though I failed at that one), and even the occasional funnel cloud.

After my first semester of college, having moved away from meteorology and having not yet decided on a new major, I decided to kind of stall things for a while. So I joined the Army Reserve. I ended up being a graphic designer for Army Psyop, which is where I still am today. After returning home after a tour of duty overseas, and being presented with many educational opportunities (good ol' GI Bill,) I once again started getting into meteorology.

Now, I am in my last semester at my local community college (I will have my associates in fine art,) and I am debating whether to pursue a bachelors in graphic design at NIU, or to take up the meteorology program at College of Dupage. Though, in the excitement of all the spring storms I am definitely leaning towards meteorology at COD.

This May, after school gets out, I am planning to go for a short storm chasing trip to the plains. This past Sunday I actually went for my first mini-storm chasing trip within my area. It was a spur of the moment thing, and I decided to go after a nasty looking, but non-severe, storm moving towards Rockford, IL. I decided I would intercept at Marengo. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to go (I had to run to best buy to buy a power inverter for my car, and then put the ram mount laptop mount in my mustang,) and made it out to Marengo (about a twenty minute drive,) the storm had gotten north east of me.

I tried chasing it down, but it managed to get away from me as I neared the Wisconsin border. I saw another cell to my north west, and tried for that one instead. However, I was too far south to catch that one as well, and I gave up when I got to Lake Geneva. But the whole experience was a lot of fun, and definitely gave me some much needed experience in the field of storm chasing.

 

[K. Melcher]

Hello,

I'm new on here. I was a subscriber to the magazine about ten years ago or so. I also subscribed to the ill-fated Storm Magazine. I sent them the money and never got a single magazine! The only one I ever had was one a TV Meteorologist gave me.

At any rate, I'll be around.

 

[Bryan Stokes]

Hi Brian,

Welcome! It's great to hear about your background and possible interest in a meteorology degree. I hope you have a great chasing trip once school lets out and it kindles the fire. Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Bryan

 

[Bryan Stokes]

Welcome K. Melcher! It sounds like you've been interested in storms for quite awhile. It's good to have you here!

Bryan

 

[Steve Brauer]

Hi everyone! I live here in middle Tennessee. I have been interested in storms for many years. I grew up outside of Milwaukee in the 70’s and I have very vivid memories of the tornado warning going off in the town (Muskego). I never saw any of them, but I did witness the destructive power of them. When my family moved here to TN in 1980, tornados were something that you heard about and saw on the news.

Within the last several years, Mid TN has been hit by quite a few. In 1998 when the one hit downtown Nashville, a couple of family members and myself went down and volunteered for the cleanup. WOW!! The destruction was amazing! On April 7, 2006, I watched the one go thru Goodlettsville on its way to Gallatin, TN. I took a friend to find here husband in one of the buildings that we watched being destroyed in Goodlettsville. Luckily he was ok. But others were not that lucky. Lives were lost. Several family members and friends homes were damaged pretty badly. Earlier this month I went down to the area hit in Murfreesboro, and helped in the cleanup. Once again it was incredible.

Thanks for the opportunity to be part of this community whose wealth of knowledge is so amazing…

I am presently waiting for my copy of Tim’s Storm Chasing Handbook, and I look forward to the chase!

 

[K Brown]

Weather Newbie...

I have always loved watching "heat lightning", outran a F4 tornado in SC, not to mention Hurricane Hugo. Now in Florida I have made it through Charlie, Frances and Jeanne.

I really admire meterologists and tornado chasers! While I will never be accredited, I hope to participate and learn much about weather phenomenon.

 

[Jane Herbert]

We (The Trentham Stormchasers) - Jane ONeill and Clyve Herbert, both live in the central ranges of Victoria in Australia. Have hit US soil for the first time to chase for the entire month of May. Have been chasing here for 5 days, have had 5 days worth of storms so far and have done 3,000 miles so far through 5 states (sightseeing in between stormchases). Loving every minute of it and learning heaps about the setups on this side of the world....and taking far too many photos...

 

[buckslayer]

Hello everyone. My names Dave and I am from Saint Paul Minnesota. I pretty much just got into spotting even though I have always been obsessed with the weather. I just transitioned out of the Army after 7 years and am hoping to learn a lot from everyone here.

 

[David Enstad]

Hello everyone. My names Dave and I am from Saint Paul Minnesota. I pretty much just got into spotting even though I have always been obsessed with the weather. I just transitioned out of the Army after 7 years and am hoping to learn a lot from everyone here.

Sorry everyone for me NOT reading one of the rules on here about user names. The information above is still the same, just an updated user name.

 

[mcwell]

Hello all! I am a new member of Stormtrack and am getting ready for my first storm chase of the season. My friend and I are planning on being in the OK area on Friday for some possible storm intercepts. We would love to hook up with anyone with more experience than us so we can improve our chances of seeing a tornado,or an awesome thunderhead!