Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We all know the season was pretty bad. But I did learn a few lessons, and gained some new perspective. Much of this is aspirational, “trying to convince myself” kind of stuff, as I am not naturally a particularly optimistic person, but I am trying to work at it [emoji57]
1. Even the worst seasons can have some good stuff. Were it not for my own screw-ups, I *could have* seen tornados on three consecutive days during my trip: Cheyenne; Colorado (landspout fest); and Dodge City (sorry I don’t have exact dates, but you all know the stretch I am referring to). Not enough for a Plains resident to consider it a good season, but as many tornado days as a two week chase vacationer like me might get in even a very good year.
2. It is worth trying to time a chase trip, if you can. I delayed twice, and pulled the trigger on the above-mentioned stretch. But this comes with an important caveat: don’t try to be too cute with this; don’t wait for a perfect pattern. When I finally did go, the pattern was far from perfect; in fact, I doubt anyone thought there would be tornados on any of those days, let alone all three. But I was running out of time, it was either finally get out there or wait until next year. If it’s anything other than a complete death ridge, get out there. You’re not going to see anything at home on your couch.
3. Similar to the above, if you are out there, especially for a limited chase vacation, chase. Due to frustration, pessimism, demoralization and other factors, we decided to blow off our last chase day and decided against the trip down into central New Mexico, missing the picturesque storms, and just the overall experience of being in an unfamiliar region with a cool landscape, as evidenced by
@John Farley ‘s excellent pictures and write-up.
4. Trust your gut and don’t allow technical discussions to dissuade you. Or maybe it’s just to try not to parse every word and read too much into them. Tough to ignore the experts, when you’re not a meteorologist yourself, but on the day of the Dodge City tornado I was down in northwestern OK but knew the OFB had lifted north toward DDC. The DDC AFD acknowledged that, but also said the best chance of a tornado (and they didn’t seem too high on that anyway) would be in the southeast regions of their forecast area. I interpreted that as being down toward the OK border so I stayed where I was; probably also influenced by all the other chasers around, so that’s another thing to not let happen..
5. Storm chasing is not easy. Technology has made it EASIER but NOT easy. Like in baseball, a 300 average is pretty good. Isn’t part of the reason we love chasing because of the challenge, the unpredictability, and the rarity that everything comes together perfectly (good forecast, good execution, good roads, atmospheric cooperation)? Well, if that’s true, then it’s all the failures that make it so. Like a salesman knowing that every “no” gets him closer to a “yes,” embrace the failures as a necessary part of the game.
6. Most of these lessons will be forgotten, because I have thought and/or written about most of these for years already. I will say that #5 is a somewhat new attitude for me, but after bad chase trips in both 2017 and 2018, that new attitude is going to have a very short shelf life if 2019 is also no good.
I could probably think of more, including some specific forecasting and field strategy lessons that came out of my 2018 screw-ups, but it’s thanksgiving so I have to get to the gym and back home!
lol).
