Some personal thoughts on chasing; the "chase" for social media glory and keeping it all in perspective (TL;DR/soapbox alert!)

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I started to type this in the "State of the Chase Season 2023" thread, but realized it had veered way off topic for a thread that was supposed to be for more technical discussion of the teleconnections and longer range modeling indicators for how the 2023 season will play out.
...

I'm also not minding the downtime as I had/have a lot of social/family obligations in recent and upcoming weeks, and the afterglow of Keota will carry me through that as it did the disappointment of screwing up 4/4.

To accompany all the recent discussion in the Weed Trimmer and "near death experience" threads, I feel like that intercept has taken the pressure off and allowed me to step back and reassess my approach to chasing. In the past, I often felt like I was always out there trying to redeem myself for the last big miss/bust. First Pilger, then Rochelle, then Mangum, then Benkelman, Winterset, Gilmore City, etc., etc. Even if I didn't bust, I'd usually manage to mess up the intercept in some fashion and come away with much less quality "tornado time" and imagery than I easily could have by doing things just slightly differently. Some examples being at Hanna City, IL on 3/15/16, Waverly, IA on 7/14/21, and DeKalb County, IL on 8/9/21.

Keota was essentially my dream intercept. A few comments on my YouTube video have said that it wasn't really a "chase" because 99% of it was tripoded and from one spot. I picked a target area and drove toward it, monitoring radar en route, then picked a storm and a location downstream on its track that I thought would have a good view of the updraft base with multiple escape options if I turned out to be in the path. When I reached there I set up, waited and shot the tornado as it went by. I'd gambled that I would reach the storms right as they hit that "sweet spot" of parameters but before the discrete cells started to get gobbled by the following line, and for once it paid off. I have no interest in blasting through the core toward a debris signature unable to see anything but rain, or driving like a maniac a hundred feet from the tornado as debris impacts my vehicle, panic sets in and I totally lose my bearings on which way to go to stay out of the path.

Now that I finally have just one "career"-type intercept of an intense, photogenic tornado, I feel like I'll be able to better appreciate things like that pretty but benign skeletal LP that was all my target could muster as tornado reports pour in at an alternative target which I'd also seriously considered (Benkelman day), that ominous shelf cloud and sunset mammatus on a day when storms instantly grew upscale, etc, without wondering in the back of my mind whether the long hours behind the wheel, thousands of miles and hundreds of dollars in gas/motel money were really worth it.

@Skip Talbot , a chaser I've long held in high regard, recently posted a detailed accounting of his particularly painful bust on 4/4. He's always tried to conclude every chase account with some lesson(s) drawn from the experience, and summed this one up with:

"...Never stop chasing, except for all those times when you really should stop chasing. Like when it’s no longer fun or safe. It’s just not worth it."

Words to live by. Make chasing fun again. It's not fun when you nearly get yourself killed and wreck your car. It's not fun when you get into a profane shouting match at the side of the road with someone else who was also trying to track the storm.

Social media really has contributed to a lot of us losing perspective, even those of us who are old enough to remember when "The" Facebook was just this kinda-neat website that a college kid made so that other college kids could keep in touch with their friends back home (or so we thought).

Besides storm chasing, I'm involved in a couple of other niche/"nerdy" hobbies that are also much less publicly "glamorous" than tangling with Nature's fury, namely railfanning and the collecting/appreciation of vintage electric fans. I've also encountered an at times surprising/dismaying level of toxicity in the Internet communities surrounding those hobbies, although I guess it's not so surprising considering you have a bunch of highly opinionated people organized around a topic they are passionate about. All the same, it does require some stepping back/taking a deep breath to avoid letting the idiots suck the enjoyment out of those hobbies for me, as well.

I'm venting/rambling here, you may think I'm full of ****, I don't really care. I'm just a guy from Wisconsin who's been interested in severe weather since childhood in the 1990s, has been trying for years to join that club of people who have seen a spectacular tornado and captured spectacular imagery of it, and finally succeeded.

The first reaction of both my mother and my wife to that news was "Great, now you can retire from chasing!" Heh. (I overhead them talking on the phone about conspiring to hide my keys the next time my wife catches me staring at maps of a big trough on Pivotal Weather) Maybe I really should. Not because I'm running the risk of being impacted by a tornado or some other weather-related hazard, but by somebody barreling through a stop sign at 90 MPH trying to catch up to a storm, checking RadarScope with one hand while filming with the other.

I'm not ready to stop chasing, but maybe now I'll be more okay with picking that "sleeper" target with less strong parameters but also the likelihood of less traffic. Now I'll go out on those 5%/2% slight risk days not on the slim, desperate hope of a rogue overacheiving supercell, but because I want to see whatever displays the sky might have in store.

Maybe now I won't obsessively stare at the long-range models agonizing over the prospect of another spring slipping away after botching my one crack at a synoptically-evident, high-potential tornado threat that was actually in my range on a day I could chase. Ah, who am I kidding? I'll still do that. But it'll be at least somewhat less agonizing, this year.

Peace out. See (ideally not literally run into) you under the meso.
 
I started to type this in the "State of the Chase Season 2023" thread, but realized it had veered way off topic for a thread that was supposed to be for more technical discussion of the teleconnections and longer range modeling indicators for how the 2023 season will play out.
...

I'm also not minding the downtime as I had/have a lot of social/family obligations in recent and upcoming weeks, and the afterglow of Keota will carry me through that as it did the disappointment of screwing up 4/4.

To accompany all the recent discussion in the Weed Trimmer and "near death experience" threads, I feel like that intercept has taken the pressure off and allowed me to step back and reassess my approach to chasing. In the past, I often felt like I was always out there trying to redeem myself for the last big miss/bust. First Pilger, then Rochelle, then Mangum, then Benkelman, Winterset, Gilmore City, etc., etc. Even if I didn't bust, I'd usually manage to mess up the intercept in some fashion and come away with much less quality "tornado time" and imagery than I easily could have by doing things just slightly differently. Some examples being at Hanna City, IL on 3/15/16, Waverly, IA on 7/14/21, and DeKalb County, IL on 8/9/21.

Keota was essentially my dream intercept. A few comments on my YouTube video have said that it wasn't really a "chase" because 99% of it was tripoded and from one spot. I picked a target area and drove toward it, monitoring radar en route, then picked a storm and a location downstream on its track that I thought would have a good view of the updraft base with multiple escape options if I turned out to be in the path. When I reached there I set up, waited and shot the tornado as it went by. I'd gambled that I would reach the storms right as they hit that "sweet spot" of parameters but before the discrete cells started to get gobbled by the following line, and for once it paid off. I have no interest in blasting through the core toward a debris signature unable to see anything but rain, or driving like a maniac a hundred feet from the tornado as debris impacts my vehicle, panic sets in and I totally lose my bearings on which way to go to stay out of the path.

Now that I finally have just one "career"-type intercept of an intense, photogenic tornado, I feel like I'll be able to better appreciate things like that pretty but benign skeletal LP that was all my target could muster as tornado reports pour in at an alternative target which I'd also seriously considered (Benkelman day), that ominous shelf cloud and sunset mammatus on a day when storms instantly grew upscale, etc, without wondering in the back of my mind whether the long hours behind the wheel, thousands of miles and hundreds of dollars in gas/motel money were really worth it.

@Skip Talbot , a chaser I've long held in high regard, recently posted a detailed accounting of his particularly painful bust on 4/4. He's always tried to conclude every chase account with some lesson(s) drawn from the experience, and summed this one up with:

"...Never stop chasing, except for all those times when you really should stop chasing. Like when it’s no longer fun or safe. It’s just not worth it."

Words to live by. Make chasing fun again. It's not fun when you nearly get yourself killed and wreck your car. It's not fun when you get into a profane shouting match at the side of the road with someone else who was also trying to track the storm.

Social media really has contributed to a lot of us losing perspective, even those of us who are old enough to remember when "The" Facebook was just this kinda-neat website that a college kid made so that other college kids could keep in touch with their friends back home (or so we thought).

Besides storm chasing, I'm involved in a couple of other niche/"nerdy" hobbies that are also much less publicly "glamorous" than tangling with Nature's fury, namely railfanning and the collecting/appreciation of vintage electric fans. I've also encountered an at times surprising/dismaying level of toxicity in the Internet communities surrounding those hobbies, although I guess it's not so surprising considering you have a bunch of highly opinionated people organized around a topic they are passionate about. All the same, it does require some stepping back/taking a deep breath to avoid letting the idiots suck the enjoyment out of those hobbies for me, as well.

I'm venting/rambling here, you may think I'm full of ****, I don't really care. I'm just a guy from Wisconsin who's been interested in severe weather since childhood in the 1990s, has been trying for years to join that club of people who have seen a spectacular tornado and captured spectacular imagery of it, and finally succeeded.

The first reaction of both my mother and my wife to that news was "Great, now you can retire from chasing!" Heh. (I overhead them talking on the phone about conspiring to hide my keys the next time my wife catches me staring at maps of a big trough on Pivotal Weather) Maybe I really should. Not because I'm running the risk of being impacted by a tornado or some other weather-related hazard, but by somebody barreling through a stop sign at 90 MPH trying to catch up to a storm, checking RadarScope with one hand while filming with the other.

I'm not ready to stop chasing, but maybe now I'll be more okay with picking that "sleeper" target with less strong parameters but also the likelihood of less traffic. Now I'll go out on those 5%/2% slight risk days not on the slim, desperate hope of a rogue overacheiving supercell, but because I want to see whatever displays the sky might have in store.

Maybe now I won't obsessively stare at the long-range models agonizing over the prospect of another spring slipping away after botching my one crack at a synoptically-evident, high-potential tornado threat that was actually in my range on a day I could chase. Ah, who am I kidding? I'll still do that. But it'll be at least somewhat less agonizing, this year.

Peace out. See (ideally not literally run into) you under the meso.
Your last couple of paragraphs is EXACTLY how I chase these days. When I started back in 99, you knew everyone that was in a chaser convergence which might have been 5 or 6 vehicles. Now, I chase the sleeper days in secondary targets away from the huge parameters and traffic. I don't chase to get stressed out, and that's exactly what being in the MAIN target area brings.
 
Given the current long range modeling, April is looking like the dust bowl out west. That is good and bad. It will keep the heathen hordes in check. Gas prices are also slowly creeping upwards. The bad news is that any kind of risk out west could bring "everyone" out on 1-2 good days.
 
Nicely written @Andy Wehrle - Sounds like the YT comments are from internet experts jealous that they couldn't pull off what you did. I think it takes more skill to pick an intercept spot, and get it coming to you, than drive right into the debris cloud screaming like a smack ass when you realize you've f'ed up.

I'm happy for you getting your career intercept, now I'd be curious as to how long it'll take for the drive to match it creeps up. When you have a passion for something, it's hard to walk away for good, even when you're on top.

Congratulations on the awesome video!
 
Great post @Andy Wehrle - I have always enjoyed the philosophical side of chasing, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts in a long-form post.

After 25 years of chasing, I feel like I am still waiting for that big day… I, too, have missed many of the more famous events - either because they did not occur during my chase vacation, or because I screwed up (probably more of the latter). The few famous events I chased successfully, I wish I had gotten closer - not in a zero-meter way, just safely closer, because in retrospect I probably could have - most notably, Campo 2010 and Dodge City 2016. I don’t think I ever felt the satisfaction you describe, in the sense that you’re content no matter what else happens this season. There have been times that a relatively successful day - such as Canton Lake 2011 - came early in my trip, and I still worried that would be it. Even after Campo, I was disappointed by the lack of activity in the second week of my trip. The day after Dodge City 2016, I was content, but it made me complacent and I missed Chapman because of it. And then I had a lengthy tornado drought, until Selden KS in 2021… But that’s on me to learn how to be content - which is a great lesson of chasing. Either way, I think you will “reset” by next year and maybe be antsy again...

Although I have no desire for any sort of social media glory, I do still hope to have an Iowa crossing the road type of moment on an EF-4 or better… I am still looking for my own holy grail, or white whale (insert your own favorite metaphor). I do admit to wanting to have something significant to show family, friends and work colleagues, but I couldn’t care less about social media. And I’m not willing to take major risks to get close - I don’t think I even have the courage to do a maneuver like the guys in Iowa in the video you posted… I’m looking for that classic, highly-visible tornado that happens to be cooperating with the road network and allows a close yet safe approach, without having to choose between watching it or staying with it because the road network gives plenty of flexibility.

There is definitely something in me that makes me want to be closer. I have already seen amazing things that should satisfy the bucket lists of most normal people… But I am nowhere near as extreme as some of these people.

BTW Andy, your chase was ideal, from a forecast, targeting and field strategy perspective… So much better to watch it come to you, than to be constantly driving or on the run, never being able to stop, enjoy it, and absorb it mindfully…
 
A lot of good points made. It's something I notice in other weather related groups where, when there's a break in activity, people start to get really restless, as if they can't handle the idea of there not being storms. I try to caution these people that it would be in their best interests to pick up hobbies that they can do when there aren't storms. Whether that advice is listened to or not, who knows. But I know in my life, if I can't chase (and I can't drop everything and chase due to the nature of my job), there are a number of other things that I can do to occupy my time without leaving me wanting more. I can completely lose track of time in my "office" at home that contains both my home ham radio setup and my reloading bench. And for that matter, I can have some brass cleaning in the tumbler while I'm doing stuff on the radio.

As far as my chasing, I've never been prone to get close as it is. 12 years in the Army left me with the desire to not tempt fate, so I'm perfectly fine with sitting back and relying on the miracle of telephoto lenses. I also prefer shooting stills (and I've come full circle and am shooting largely in film again) rather than video, so my style/philosophy of chasing is geared towards that as it is. Stills seem to be greatly underappreciated in today's world, so I've noticed that even those that are far better at photography than I am don't get the same recognition that those doing video and live streaming get.

That said, anymore it takes some form of tornado risk to get me out the door. Given the way fuel prices have gone up and likely will never again drop below $3 in my neck of the woods barring a severe economic downturn, I've become a lot more selective about what I will leave the county for. I'm not burning a tank of fuel to go see structure or hail or a shelf. The fact that I also drive for a living and spend anywhere between 40 and 70 hours a week behind the wheel of a vehicle to begin with also has left me needing something more to get out the door.

Skip's advice is on the money though. When it gets to a point where it starts to drag on your mental health, or putting you in a position to have to "one up" others (or your previous chases) it's probably time to step back a moment and reevaluate what you're doing and why.
 
Earlier this year I saw the movie Supercell. In it the Roy Cameron character says "Every time you chase the sky shows you something you have never seen before. It is why we feel the way we do on the morning of a chase." I've been trying to take that to heart this season - to enjoy what they sky has to show me and not get flustered when I don't get a photogenetic tube. While I would be lying if I told you I wasn't at little flustered with April, the sky has shown me some amazing things this year like an amazing display of pileus clouds and on different occasion a LP supercell with great structure at sunset with Venus in the same frame. The sky gives us lots of gifts to look at if we take the time to enjoy them.
 
….enjoy what they sky has to show me and not get flustered when I don't get a photogenetic tube. While I would be lying if I told you I wasn't at little flustered with April, the sky has shown me some amazing things this year like an amazing display of pileus clouds and on different occasion a LP supercell with great structure at sunset with Venus in the same frame. The sky gives us lots of gifts to look at if we take the time to enjoy them.

That was an important point. It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone misses tornadoes. The good news is that you will see supercells most days out, and they can be very beautiful. I don’t believe in kicking myself too much if I at least get to observe processes playing out, and get to witness that phenomenal amount of energy being released. Storms seem to become more beautiful when you begin to understand how they work, and it’s great to see a supercell from a distance out over the plains, where you can see the whole storm. My favorite storm footage is tripoded shots of supercells from outside the updraft base.

If you go out often enough, you will see some crazy things. You will see crazy powerful tornadoes. You will have the opportunity to get close without much risk. It is just statistics. Nobody should kick themselves if they miss the storm of the day. It’s going to happen often. Your turn will come. In the meantime, enjoy the show. There’s a lot more to it than tornadoes.

The flip side is that you will eventually witness human tragedy, and feel helpless throughout. You have to realize that that will happen, and it’s horrible.
 
Also, as a Midwest chaser I feel like as an addendum to Skip's thought I must add:

Listen to that little voice in your head that says "Don't go to Iowa," except for those times when you really should go to Iowa.
 
It's tough when chasing is a job to often pick "secondary targets". Unfortunately in the world of media coverage, it's where will the biggest impacts be. It's been the rule for me for the better part of the last decade tracking storms for various media entities as an actual employee (verses freelancing).

I will say, speaking of freelancing, there is a charm to working for an employer verses freelancing. I get paid either way. It definitely takes the pressure off having to be among the best/fastest/dramatic on the day. It's worked much more in line with my style of chasing, despite some days being a little more stress-driven than others. But, I've also learned that the freelancers that are out can handle most of that kinda craziness.

I've been lucky in the field as my experience has allowed me to roam in the field based on my forecasts; seldomly have I ever been directed where to go. The consistency of my work to bring in the goods has given me a lot of freedom to make my own choices, which while still means I usually pick the main target, in exchange, I get to go out on a lot of lower-impact days, which definitely is a worthy exchange, especially later in the season after months of high-pressure setups.

With age comes experience, and with experience and age comes the acceptance of knowing you won't see every tornado. Those botched days, which still come in earnest, hurt less and less as the years go on. Sure, I've missed more than my share of epic-level days, but its hard to not look at the days I did see. It always burns, there is not a lack of sting at the end of the day where you pick the wrong storm, make the wrong turns, or (as was the case on 4/4), don't decide a target between two and make your move too late and miss both. This coming off the high of Ottumwa on the 31st, which is arguably a top 10 tornado intercept for me. It's like baseball; one day you hit the walk off grand slam and the next, you strike out 4 times with the bases loaded.

Another thing I've come to accept... someone will ALWAYS have something better than you on a day... I think that's where social media starts to see it's negatives. Someone had better position, someone took a better framed shot, someone was in better lighting, someone post-processed better, whatever. For me, getting the media is important, and yes, a required function of the job, but you can't compare experiences. I've talked to many chasers whom I swore got the shot of a lifetime, and they gripe about something that went wrong on the way to getting it. The amazing shot doesn't matter if the experience sucked, and its taken many years of self-torment to finally understand that view to the extent I do now. Also another perk of working for a company, often times what I would consider sub-par media captures in my own mind are more than enough to fulfill the job requirement. For me these days, it's about the experience and the satisfaction of knowing when I got up in the morning, I made a good forecast and put myself in position to experience the storm. And in terms of the job, make good TeeVee.

And yes, that said, it's not always about tornadoes. I just posted my 4/19 chase log and said in that my "perfect chase" is one where I experience a tornado, hail, and can shoot lightning. That particular chase was perfect, even as the tornado was super brief and the view was hindered by trees and hills in the limited window it was ongoing, still I was able to make a couple quality captures. The hail wasn't the biggest or more prolific, but we experienced it and held it in our hands (my chase partner more physically so). And the lightning photos, none probably landing in a frame on the wall, but were relaxing to shoot and many were good, quality, in-focus shots. It's my trifecta, and it was a perfect chase.

But even without tornadoes, some of my favorite chases involve great lightning photography, awesome hailers, good structure. I don't think there is a blueprint for a perfect chase. If a storm is moving at 10MPH and I can enjoy it from one spot for lengthy periods of time in a low-stress environment somewhere in the open plains, that's just as good as high-end fast-paced high risk with rolling shots of an awesome tornado. It's all situationally based. What am I wanting going in. No day is the same.

Age and experience... it's amazing to look back on my evolution in chasing. I started young in the late 90s, "broke out in the early 2000s", and have definitely since "old-manned" up a bit in the years since. You learn to appreciate the experience more, and realizing that for every few "big" days you miss/botch up, there is an amazing day you will experience. It doesn't matter the media you pull from it or how it compares to others, the number of people who saw the same thing. You were there, and your experience is always your own. You make exactly what you want out of all this. And to tie it back to what Skip said (a very honest, open take on chasing), if you're no longer enjoying the experiences as a whole, then perhaps it is time to step back and re-evaluate your choices in life. It's only worth doing if you enjoy it. And yes, there will be bad days, absolutely, but at the end of the day, can you move on from mistakes and appreciate everything as a whole.

Rambling random thoughts from a veteran...
 
Tony Laubach said:
someone will ALWAYS have something better than you on a day...
And therein lies the "danger" of social media ... some people can't take the fact someone else got a better photo/video/etc or more views/clicks/likes/(whatever-they-call-it-these-days). They get all caught up in it & need to one-up the other guy/girl.
I don't want social-media fame, and don't even do facebook, or twitter, or instagram, and tiktok is malware (its not allowed on any device I own .lol. I even blocked the website alltogether). only social-media I use us youtube.
When I take photos/videos, a big part of it is "they're for me". And yeah I put stuff on youtube but the weather-related ones are mostly just from the little snows we get here, and the few thunderstorms for their lightning-show. I'm surprised when gets more than a couple dozen views.

Tony Laubach said:
If a storm is moving at 10MPH and I can enjoy it from one spot for lengthy periods of time in a low-stress environment
That to me would actually be the ideal situation. I'm not too interested is something that blasts through so fast you're like "what was that?" its over & done don't get to see much...or you'd have to drive like a maniac to keep ahead of it...or worse you don't leave quick enough & get caught up in it. (always gotta anticipate that a storm might turn too . 10mph sure gives allot more time to see it starting/react than 50+mph)

Mark Herndon said:
Nobody should kick themselves if they miss the storm of the day.
I pretty much plan to go out with the the expectation that I'll likely miss 'the main part of the show' (I'm sure I'll still feel some disappointment, thats human nature) but hopefully will get to see something - a good lightning show can make up for allot! But even if its just a nice view of a beautiful supercell... and/or get to 'explore' some place I've never been to before

Mark Herndon said:
The flip side is that you will eventually witness human tragedy, and feel helpless throughout. You have to realize that that will happen, and it’s horrible.
That I deff hope to avoid, but yeah I realize it could happen. I'll try to avoid damage zones if I can for that reason.

Andy Wehrle said:
I'll be more okay with picking that "sleeper" target with less strong parameters but also the likelihood of less traffic.
The 'less traffic' part of this if very appealing to me. I also think not as strong parameters/less-crazy storms are good for someone less experienced...
 
Yeah I want to see a tornado that I will redially admit (I'm sure anyone else here would too .lol.), but I deff don't want to end up *inside* one! I won't do things like core-punch or hook-slice as I think of such as extremely dangerous.
Oh and hail is something IMO to be avoided at all costs...if it means missing a storm, or taking a less than ideal road, or whatever, so be it.

A big thing I see is you don't necessarily have to be "afraid of a storm" or "not afraid of a storm" ... but you must always "respect the power of a storm".

When/if I ever get to do a real chase & see an actual tornado, yeah video from that would go on YouTube too, but a big part of videoing it would be "for myself"! And it deff wouldn't be the best one out there, because it'd be done from a good safe distance (I'm not sure what 'safe' but still able to have a decent view is?? .. 1 mile from the storm would certainly be too close? So maybe 10 miles? 20? or more likely its gonna have to be judged on the speed of said storm+what the roads(escape routes) are like?)
Along with that I'd also want to get back enough to see the overall structure of the storm too. In my book a nice mothership supercell is truly beautiful!

Ok. I probably rambled on too much between these 2 posts now but...
 
The vortex itself is what interests me…I don’t like to hear people talking….only the wind itself speaking.

As callous as this sounds, the human-interest “we will rebuild” documentaries Weather Channel doesn’t make for a good documentary.

Even though the attraction the average smartphone user has to document severe weather is something we say we like to discourage…the citizen journalist who in the past felt he must put pen to paper…does have a place I think:


I might have done the same thing here.

Of all the handheld shots…the one of that twin suction vortex in Xenia is the one I wish some brave soul would capture on an 8k device instead of the Super-8…which was good for the 1979 Wichita Falls event to make that “maxi” look like a hellmouth…or was that 16mm?

The Xenia “twin” the double event on Palm Sunday in the 60’s…especially the 1986 MN breakdown bubble deal make me wonder about the power of the double helix.

Perhaps a “smoker” on the sea floor hit by then-greater tides induced vorticity to spin up DNA…perhaps vortex breakdown could help with fusion containment.

The vortex has always been “the power cosmic” for me.

The tornado…almost holy.
 
I think that after a few years of the season ending early and going though a pretty dry spell during the "height" of chase season, a lot of people are getting restless. Not only is it important to have hobbies to focus on outside of chasing, it's also important to have fun on the down days. Even though last year was completely capped out, I still had a lot of fun. I visited the Twister museum, went to the Tanganyika petting zoo in Kansas, visited the world's largest ball of twine, and did a lot of other interesting things during my chasecation last year.

This year I'm already making plans for the down days, such as visiting the memorial in El Reno among other things. I'm going to have fun whether I see a tornado or not. And if I do see one, then great! I learned about 5 years ago that there's no longer any money in chasing and trying to capture great video (since the weather stations just take cell phone footage for free), so I stopped focusing on capturing great video, and started focusing on enjoying the journey.

Now as someone who makes a living from YouTube, I strongly suggest you ignore all comments. For some reason we tend to overlook the 99% of comments that are positive and only focus on the 1% that are negative. If you're going to post your videos to YouTube, then you need to set in your mind ahead of time to not care about what other people think. I know this is a lot harder said than done, but at the end of the day you're capturing the footage for you own enjoyment; not to make a living. So focus on enjoying the moment, and learn not to care about what other people think.

Regarding all of the crazy drivers who care far more about seeing a tornado that they do about getting to the tornado alive and without killing anybody else, I've found that those kinds of people are everywhere. Even on the roads driving to work in the morning. I remember when I was young and invincible, and I didn't care about anybody else but myself. So long as there are college kids chasing storms, there will always be crazy drivers. I don't let them get to me. I just ignore them, let them be, and cruise on down to my spot at my own speed. I can't control them, so why worry about them.

Besides, with experience comes benefits. They're all running to storms after they go warned, while I'm usually sitting at the storm before it goes warned waiting for the calvary to come join me. Heck, a lot of times the storm I'm watching goes warned because I'm the one who called rotation into the NWS. And after the tornado lifts, they're all running to chase it hoping for another touch down, while I'm perfectly fine sitting at the back of the line selecting a new target that nobody has on their radar yet.

I'm not going to risk my life driving around those crazy young college kids for a tornado that 1,000 other vehicles are trying to get to. Life is much more enjoyable selecting targets early and being by yourself rather than around the crowds. I've captured quite a few tornadoes over the years where I was the only chaser on the storm because everybody else was following some other storm. And let me tell you... that's where the real joy is. Knowing that you're the only chaser who captured that tornado. You're the only red dot on SN within 100 miles. Because experience and patience is better than stress.
 
Funny thing about some of those old formats being mentioned, I've been shooting more and more of my stills in film over the past few years, to the point where I probably use my film SLR on an average chase than I do my digital. I've also been looking into getting my hands on either and old 8mm or a MiniDV camcorder and shooting "old school" video. I've not jumped on the 4k train since it's hard for me to justify spending a grand or more on a camcorder when my focus is largely on stills. But this will serve as something fun to get me shooting more video going forward. And if feels like I'm coming full circle in my life. I started out shooting in film and running hi8 and MiniDV camcorders. While I've gotten some great shots with my DSLR (not just with weather, but I also take a camera every time I go to a racetrack or to an occasional airshow), I'm finding I get more enjoyment when I'm doing it in film anymore.
 
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