State of the Chase Season 2025

[Brett Nickeson]

Tornado of the century occurred yesterday in western NE. Discrete supercell, barely moving, lasted nearly an hour, shape-shifted through every phase imaginable, impeccable backside lighting, beautiful prairie backdrop, and it didn't appear to hit anything. All on a random 2% day.

I don't know how anything gets better than that.

 

[Tony Laubach]

Pretty sure the 'State of the Chase Season 2025' just went up a notch for a bunch of folks in southwest Nebraska last night... me, on the other hand, was 1,300 miles away on a work trip...

Oh, and baseball-sized hail clobbered my house at 4am in northern Colorado this morning...

You're welcome, all! haha

 

[Brett Roberts]

The phrase "it only takes a day" gets thrown around far too much for my liking. Yesterday near North Platte was the very rare case where it rings true. I legitimately think that even if the season-to-date yesterday morning had been as bad as 2018 or 2020, being in good position for Wellfleet/Dickens would've completely atoned for months of drought-stricken awfulness and then some.

On the flip side, it's the kind of gut punch that the rest of us will spend every marginal/flawed chase day for the next 5 years reflexively thinking back on: "why couldn't it have been today's nondescript setup instead?" Actually, I already started doing that retroactively last night... "why couldn't the Hydro OK storm over the weekend have done 1/10 of this?" Storms like yesterday, Ashby 2020, and Campo 2010 are the ultimate reminders of the absurdity of this endeavor... that the real prize that we're all really after, the true subconscious motivation every time we make that 6-hour drive for a setup with 28 kts of bulk shear and 22 F spreads, comes down to brutal luck a handful of times per decade.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I've disconnected myself from the disappointment of missing days like yesterday, because of days like yesterday. So many times over the years I chose to stay home, thinking the chances of something not happening are far greater than what could happen, only to see sudden reports of epic-ness taking place which then would then motivate me to get out on the next one, only for nothing to happen. Like clockwork, season after season, and yesterday was no different.

The only answer is to literally never stop chasing (argh) and that's not something I even want to entertain anymore. So, yesterday's once in a decade tornado gets filed in the coulda-woulda-shoulda category for me and a "Hat's Off" to everyone else who made the trip out. The only thing I truly know these days is there will be more and I'll probably be mowing the lawn or some other mundane task instead, due to my own choice.

 

[Tony Laubach]

I think it's no secret that the best days are the low end days... everyone runs to the high risks and its so rare to EVER see anything of that quality. You look at the Akron 2023, Campos, yesterday... they're all low-end days that may not even reveal themselves to the morning of. Yes, that makes a case for the 'never stop chasing', but the truth is if you want THOSE types of quality, you have to focus on those lower-end days. And yesterday was NO exception. Folks that live a couple hours away (had I been home, I would've likely been chasing), or those on vacations/trips were the only ones there. And that's how it works for all these insane days.

Sucks I was away... I hated watching that live knowing I would've been there. But I got in to my hotel, watched my Akron 2023 footage on repeat for an hour, and cried myself to sleep. Today I will annoy the living hell out of everyone about it, and tomorrow I will wake up and piss and moan about what I'll miss today. When that is done, I'll move on just like I did with Campo... but daymn..

 

[Jason N]

hahaha these are great threads @Tony Laubach (did you at least order a sub and ice cream while you were in sobstation? lol )... I had to come back from a business trip out in San Diego earlier due to some work issues, missed the protests by a day and had photos of the drive down on the water by the tall wooden ship, that less than 24hrs later were street covered funny enough, so this year's chase has been canx'd. and that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

[Jason N]

goodness.. could you make this more complex ???

its not chase related but goodness! they could have meshed areas together a lot easier lol

 

[JamesCaruso]

It definitely sucks to miss an event like Wellfleet/Dickens. It’s what makes this hobby so maddening, and can drive an unhealthy obsession to chase everything, similar to the gambler that can’t pull himself from the slot machine or the roulette table, because the next bet could win the jackpot. It hurts because these events are so very rare that the regret over missing it can be unbearable. When you miss something big on a low-end day, I think you have to ask yourself, “If it’s a 5-hour drive, for only a 5% probability of something memorable, would I be willing to make that drive 20 times to see it?” (This may not be a statistically valid way to look at it, but you get the idea). Unfortunately, that is probably limited comfort in this case, because the answer is likely YES, I would have made that drive *50* (or more) times to see Wellfleet/Dickens!!!

I wasn’t even out there, but it makes me regret that I can’t spend more time on the Plains, because the odds of seeing something like this drop even further when limited to 2-3 weeks of chasing each year. However, if I was out there longer, or even if I lived out there, work obligations and PTO limitations would make me more selective in the setups I chase, so who knows if I would have even chased that day. Even on chase vacations, I have passed on chases that had a low cost/benefit relationship (i.e., 6 hour drive for a low probability event, especially if it left me with an equally long ride for a better setup the next day).

I do think some of the superlatives about this tornado are excessive and driven by recency bias. Don’t get me wrong, of course it was awesome by any objective standard, and most certainly the tornado of the year. But of the decade? Of the century? Not so sure about that. Even IF it qualifies as such by some objective criteria, a *personal* best is much more subjective and remains within reach for each of us, analogous to our talk about how we judge chase seasons. For example, I watched Connor Croff’s video of Wellfleet/Dickens, and he repeatedly said he had never seen such an amazing tornado, but I kept thinking that I was equally impressed by his Durango OK video from 2024. I have yet to have such a close encounter with a tornado crossing the road in front of me, as he had with Dickens. I still hope for that experience, it’s still on my chasing bucket list. But if I am lucky enough to get it, it will be a fulfilling experience, even if before that peak moment the tornado is not as beautiful as Dickens, or hadn’t been on the ground for over half an hour. So yeah I guess objectively this tornado offered a lot of different visuals and experiences, but many of those are available to us on separate chases, even if rarely or never in the same chase. Maybe we can take some comfort in that.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I do think some of the superlatives about this tornado are excessive and driven by recency bias. Don’t get me wrong, of course it was awesome by any objective standard, and most certainly the tornado of the year. But of the decade? Of the century? Not so sure about that. Even IF it qualifies as such by some objective criteria, a *personal* best is much more subjective and remains within reach for each of us, analogous to our talk about how we judge chase seasons. For example, I watched Connor Croff’s video of Wellfleet/Dickens, and he repeatedly said he had never seen such an amazing tornado, but I kept thinking that I was equally impressed by his Durango OK video from 2024. I have yet to have such a close encounter with a tornado crossing the road in front of me, as he had with Dickens. I still hope for that experience, it’s still on my chasing bucket list. But if I am lucky enough to get it, it will be a fulfilling experience, even if before that peak moment the tornado is not as beautiful as Dickens, or hadn’t been on the ground for over half an hour. So yeah I guess objectively this tornado offered a lot of different visuals and experiences, but many of those are available to us on separate chases, even if rarely or never in the same chase. Maybe we can take some comfort in that.

Probably a good perspective from more distance than those of us who hypothetically could've found a way to be there without a plane ticket (not that I ever even gave it a thought, if I'm honest). I think one factor is that, even though 2025 has been decent so far even outside Dickens, it strikes me that all the other Plains TOTY candidates were substantially less impressive than the top few tornadoes of the past couple years. This is especially true if you exclude the Floyd NM postfrontal fluke over Memorial Day weekend, and an oddly similar event in the OK Panhandle on June 8, both of which like 3 chasers saw. Arnett, Morton, and a couple others have been really solid, but they don't touch the best stuff from 4/26/24, Akron 2023, 6/23/23, 3/31/23, etc. The separation Dickens/Wellfleet has from everything else that could even be considered for second place this spring might be unusually large.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Most of us are always going to miss the Wellfleets, Campos and Laramies. I came to peace with this years ago to the point that it doesn't bother me now. James' gambling analogy is spot-on. The cost to catch those (financial, life upending, etc) is just overwhelming and unreasonable for most of us. We're talking about chasing every single mesoscale-accident potential setup from April to August for a decade to get just *one*. We're talking about choosing secondary targets on a lot of big days, missing the primary target action.

Now, I'm not saying that those that caught Wellfleet are like gambling addicts. Most I'd say are in one of these four categories:

1.) All-season chasers (professional live streamers, tour operators, independently wealthy/retired, etc).
2.) Those on pre-planned late-season chase vacations.
3.) Those who live within a few hours of North Platte.
4.) Traditional chasers who got lucky on picking that period to go on a short-term trip.

Chasing for most of us is a game of going out when the conditions are most favorable, then scoring on the small number of those days that produce. Paraphrasing a Doswell quote: we go out on synoptic possibilities, then either succeed or fail based on unresolved mesoscale processes. The parameter threshold for the "synoptic possibilities" part is probably something like at least 30kts of flow at 500mb, 2500j/kg surface-based CAPE, a stout but breakable cap, boundary-perpendicular flow plus things like outflow boundary-dryline intersections, favorable jet streak quadrants and such. That gives you 90-95% of Plains days that prompt a chase, and we get maybe 10-15 of those in a season.

The "synoptic possibilities" on mesoscale-accident days involve much lower parameter space thresholds that occur probably 40 to 50 times or more each year. No bones about it, to get the next Wellfleet you're going to have to commit to a decade of chasing *every single one* of those: living on the road 4 months out of the year and not taking *any* down day if there is a chance for any convection from north Texas to North Dakota during that time. I can't do that and likely wouldn't even if I could. Maybe if I was in my 20s again, now, not so much.

Furthermore, chasing everything all season doesn't even guarantee you'll get the next Wellfleet. Many chasers were in Minnesota on the more favorable synoptic setup. Wellfleet was a secondary, maybe even tertiary target that day.

Was Wellfleet the TOTD (tornado of the decade)? Maybe. It checks all of the boxes: high-based, fully developed, long-lasting, slow-moving, little rain wrap, good terrain/road network.. Does it beat Dodge City? I may be biased, but I don't think so. I would certainly rank in my top 5, maybe top 3, had I been there. But I wasn't, and there's no way I would have been, and no way I will be on the next one.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Excellent post Dan and agree 100% except with -

no way I will be on the next one.

That’s not necessarily true! Sometimes even the occasional gambler wins the jackpot I was fortunate enough to get Campo on one of my lousy 2-week chase vacations, so anything can happen!

 

[Dan Robinson]

James, very true. A caveat may be that at least Campo occurred during peak season when most chasers were already out there (but missed it due to taking a down day). The upside is I *will* be there for the next Dodge City or Bennington (providing I can keep doing this until then and of course not mess up the chase on those days)!

 

[JamesCaruso]

Anecdotally (I haven’t followed it super closely or gone back to analyze every day’s storm or chase reports), it seems to have been a pretty decent Northern Plains stretch over the past week or two, including today. I’ve never chased in Montana or North Dakota, mainly because my chase trips have mostly been in late May / early June when the region is not that active, and I generally resisted long hauls even to South Dakota when it was going to require me to head all the way back down south after a one day event. But if I was able to do another chase trip, I would love to have been up there for this stretch (and I’m not saying that only because of Wellfleet/Dickens).

Today looks especially good, really liking the backed winds and instability along the pronounced warm front. CAMs show a couple nice discrete supercells. While acknowledging storm development along the front, SPC seems to be putting much more emphasis on the MCS threat.

 

[Jason N]

I think there is going to be one really good cell out there today... I would be surprised if not. It kills me I had to canx my trip because of World events, but that's how it goes, I would have been there for sure.

 

[Jason N]

I’ve never chased in Montana or North Dakota

Absolutely worth it when the conditions are right.. with Caveats in Montana due to road networks and terrain in places.. the biggest pain in ND is the Missouri river and west area, because of the numbers of roads that cross or don't cross the river makes some chasing out there a little difficult when a storm is over that area. outside of that some of the best views and lack of chaser hoard have always made it more attractive to me.