The storm chaser milk carton thread

[Tim Vasquez]

Thumbing through some back issues of Stormtrack I can't help but wonder about some of the chasers who have seemingly disappeared. Or maybe they're just not on the board.


* Scott Woelm. This Minnesota chaser made some outstanding chase video masterpieces back in the 1990s. The last I heard of him was about 2003 or so.

* Phil Sherman. Well, seriously all I'd have to do is remember to ask Tim Marshall, who he chased with, but Phil's name appears regularly from 1985 to 1995 or so. He was there at Canadian TX 5/7/86.

* Bruce Haynie. To me, Bruce is synonymous with Lubbock area chasing (well, David Drummond too). Bruce caught the photogenic Claude tornado in July 1995 and played a big part in bringing the West Texas mesonet online. The last I heard of him was years ago.

* Carson Eads. This Plano area chaser with the names of two interesting southeast Colorado towns had THE chasemobile of chasemobiles in the early 1990s and featured prominently in a couple of Martin Lisius productions back in the day. Anyone seen him?

* Matt Crowther & Betsy Abrams. Matt at least used to be a regular on WX-CHASE and ST before 2007. I know he's a CFDG regular so I'd be willing to lay some odds that all his posts are over there.

* Tom Grazulis. The king of tornado climatology -- does anyone know how he's doing? I don't think I've ever seen him online except perhaps briefly on WX-CHASE 10 years ago. I don't even see references to him, yet I know he's aging so I can only hope he's doing well.

There are many others... I know I'm just scratching the surface.

Any news about them? Any chasers from days of yore that you've wondered about lately? Anyone remember WX-CHASE and the folks from there?

Tim

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Wow, I haven't seen those names in years.. names in which I was very well familiar with in the mid 90's when I got into storm spotting.

 

[Shane Adams]

I saw Carson Eads at TESSA. As far as I know, he still chases with Tim Marshall, although I've seen no highlights offering from Tim since 2004 so I have no idea what his chase history has been the past 3-4 years.

I've never met Bruce Haynie in person, but he used to pop into the old chatroom way back in the day when it was still a chasing chatroom, circa 2001 or so. His nick was "Brewski".

I met Matt Crowther briefly in Denton, TX on May 5, 1998. Never really talked to him since.

The others I've never met, seen, or heard of.

 

[Linda Kitchen]

I see Matt out chasing every year but Betsy hasn't chased the last couple of years because of her job (she's no longer working at the weather channel). Someone you didn't mention is Marty Feely. I'm in touch with him by email, he is a ranger for the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah.

 

[Danny Neal]

http://stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=20045 - Didn't Matt start this thread a couple days ago? Or is this someone else.

 

[Linda Kitchen]

Your right Danny, that is Matt. I didn't see that post.

 

[David Drummond]

If I'm not mistaken Bruce Haynie is serving as the radar technician at LUBB NWS currently.

 

[Dave Gallaher]

How about Randy Zipzer? And lately, I haven't seen posts by John Diel.

 

[Andrew Revering]

Scott Woelm is still around. He's taken the road less travelled when it comes to the online-chasing scene. Several years back he has left the MN-CFDG affiliate that he started with Bob Conzemius (as have I) and he's gone in hiding.

Occasionally he'll send out a video of his chases for the year and those of us who know Scott will be like.... "he was chasing?"... or occasionally you'll bump into him in rural MN.

I think I actually saw him down in Kansas or Missouri back in 06. He's just anti-social, that's all. He doesn't like the rat-race that chasing has become.

I think it was last year he sent out a video taken in I think the 80s when he was chasing with some of the local chasing legends in these parts (Todd Krause; now MPX WCM, Bob Adams and others) and the video was just hilarious.

They had a full PC in the back of the vehicle, and they would somehow hook up to a pay phone by putting the handset in this seat and it acted as a modem of sorts. I'm not sure what information they could get from doing that, but it was about 10 years before my time. The screen on the PC I think was monocrome. The clothing and hair was equally as entertaining.

 

[IAN GIAMMANCO]

Yeah David is right about Bruce, he is a technician at NWS LBB, after working with the West Texas Mesonet. I actually play softball with Bruce, he's doing good. He came along on our TTU field project in 2005 (data used in Hirth et al. 2008) but he's got two little ones now and I think that probably precludes any frequent excursions into the field.

 

[Verne Carlson]

Add to that list the Twister Sisters - after their show on WE they seem to have dropped out of chasing completely.

 

[Bill Hark]

* Bruce Haynie- Now, he's a memory from years ago when I was first learning about chasing in the mid 90's. Never met him. I think he was involved in that amazing 1995 tornado video compilation called "wedgefest." I know Bruce is still chasing. He had great success on the March 27, 2007 Brice tornadoes.

* Matt Crowther & Betsy Abrams. Matt is still regularly chasing and I usually run into him each year.
http://web.mac.com/mcrowther3/iWeb/Site/5-23-08.html

* Tom Grazulis. I talked with him a few years ago when I was putting together my Eastern fury Collection. He was very helpful in helping me search and aquire some eastern USA tornado video. Tom still has his tornadoproject website.
I was supposed to be working on an update to Significant Tornadoes for the last few years but I haven't seen anything.

Bill Hark

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Add to that list the Twister Sisters - after their show on WE they seem to have dropped out of chasing completely.

Good catch; I was wondering that myself the other day. I think Melanie got married around 2004 or so, so perhaps she's got a lot of other things going on now. I got a Christmas e-card from Peggy & Melanie in 2005, and that was the last I've heard from them.

Tim

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Scott Woelm is still around. He's taken the road less travelled when it comes to the online-chasing scene. Several years back he has left the MN-CFDG affiliate that he started with Bob Conzemius (as have I) and he's gone in hiding.

Sorry for the diversion... there are regional CFDG's? Is there a southwest or NM CFDG? I have no problem with the group, just generally curious. Anyhow back to the missing storm chasers...

 

[Darren Addy]

Former ST moderator Jason Politte?
http://www.onthefront.ws/chase.htm