The people you meet while chasing...

[Shane Adams]

Having touched on the happy side of meeting people on the chase, I thought I'd delve into the other side...LOL. Chad's car has a mesonet which draws a ton of attention anytime we stop. Over the past few years, he, Mickey, and I have kinda developed this little game where we all try to pawn each other off on the curious passers-bye, when they come over to ask about it. It's funny if things are going well, but if we're busting, it becomes all-out war. If I'm in a particularly crappy mood when someone walks up to me, I'll point Chad out and say "I'm just riding along, he's a meteorlogist chasing for OU....you'll have to ask him."

Just yesterday, while sitting in Kingfisher, OK busting like legends, we'd all take turns turning on one of us, two against one. Whoever was the slowest to realize someone was pulling over to ask us questions, lost the game.....as the other two, more-aware individuals had already strategically slid inside the car, pretending like we were looking at maps, radars, or other "important" stuff.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Matt and Jen updated their blog, check it out

http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/Amarillo/blog-152292.html

 

[Andy Rice]

We love meeting people out on the Plains, as it's so far removed from London! We did meet a very odd chap at around 2am one night though, in N-Cent NE. He wanted to race us, but we declined!

Last year we were in CO outside a motel picking up wi-fi, and posting on Stormtrack. Suddenly one of the chasers in the car next to us got out and came over, asking if I was Paul! He'd seen my post on here - that was pretty cool!

Paul,

I still think the randomest encounter I have had with another chaser was when we ran into you on a really random dirt road on a very CAPed day under sunny skies near Winner, SD last May. How both of us decided that with no weather going on we should drive down a random dirt road to sit and wait.... I will never know. But I still remember the spot.

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?...ipp, South Dakota, United States___&encType=1

 

[Helen Rossington]

Paul,

I still think the randomest encounter I have had with another chaser was when we ran into you on a really random dirt road on a very CAPed day under sunny skies near Winner, SD last May. How both of us decided that with no weather going on we should drive down a random dirt road to sit and wait.... I will never know. But I still remember the spot.

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?...ipp, South Dakota, United States___&encType=1

Yeah, that was a bit weird it was very random....the name was the reason we (I am his girlfriend/chase partner) went there...Dog Ear Buttes...we just thought it sounded funny....we were bored!.. (and it was supposed to be slightly elevated above the rest of the plain)

 

[Paul Knightley]

Yes - it was quite funny to meet other chasers in the middle of nowhere, with no storms about too!!

Here is a link to the page with a pic on!
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~paulkn/usa 2006/may28.htm

 

[Terry Tyler]

i usually deal with alot of people over the course of a chase...namely because i need to go to librarys to get intel...often times, if ive never been in the town...it can get real hard to find a library or carreer center in the heat of chase...

some people have givin me wrong directions...in oxford, MS...there is a club in town called "the library" and since oxford is a frat town, and if you want to go to the library, you must be wanting to go clubbing...i spent 20 minutes looking for it and everyone i asked refered me to the club...i never found either one...

i meet cool people too...some librarians are tight too...some are rude...like, sometimes they ask me for an ID and to sign up...i usually tell em im a storm chaser for a data stop and sometimes they let me pass...other times they dont...i meet convience store clerks...and the best thing in my opinion is to hear people concerned about the storm...

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I had one of better encounters meeting somebody on Tuesday. We stopped in Kingman for data before heading North to watch towers along the dryline early in the day on 4/24. Some guy and his wife pulled up and started talking to us while I was on the computer. He was a meteorology professor from New Orleans that had relocated to Nebraska named Bill. They were on their way back from a conference in California and decided to come through Kansas to chase. He asked if he could tag along and we told him that was fine. Long story short, apparently him and his wife had been chasing for the last two years and hadn't gotten a tornado yet (so it ended up being his wife's first tornado). You should have seen how pumped this guy was while we were on the storm. I didn't get to see much of how he was reacting while we were chasing because I was busy with video and everything else that goes along with a chase, but afterwards I watched Jordan's video (who was caravaning with us) and I got to see and hear Bill's reactions from the chase. He had the biggest grin on his face when we had this funnel passing overhead. He kept saying "look at this, the whole thing is rotating". We were right under the edge of the RFD so it was one of those views where you could see all the way up along the side of the mesocyclone. Seeing how pumped that guy was did it for me and now that is definitely a chase I will remember for a long time. Not because of the quality of the storm or the tornadoes it produced, but because of the people that were there and the unrestricted emotion they expressed.