What are your basic coverage areas when you're chasing?

[Mike Marz]

For the most part I chase the Southern and Central Plains whenever I'm able to get out and chase. I would like to give the Northern Plains and Colorado a try as well as the Canadian Prairies whenever I get a passport. After moving to Norman I made a personal vow to never chase in Dixie Alley again unless there is an outbreak remotely close to April 27, 2011 in that area.

Don't forget Minnesota on your list. The south central, southwest, west central, and northwest parts of the state offer some really great terrain with a lot of paved road options.

 

[StephenHenry]

Here are all my chases over the last 4 years since moving to Albuquerque and having plains access. My favorite spots are definitely SW Kansas and Eastern Colorado. And there's a definite cutoff around I-35 where the double whammy of distance and increasingly jungle-y terrain just don't make it appealing enough.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Before beginning to chase on my own in 1999, I chased for three years with Marty Feeley's Whirlwind Tours. Marty was one of the veterans at the time, and his tour company was one of the first. He used to consider his coverage area to be roughly bounded by I-35 to the east, I-20 to the south, and I-80 to the north. Of course, we would go beyond this (especially to include the rest of NEB north of I-80) when conditions warranted.

I have always stuck to this preferred area. I really dislike going into the hills and trees east of the longitude of I-35 in TX, OK and KS, although I like eastern NEB and will continue east into Iowa if it's worth it. I have been up in SD several times but try to avoid it, especially the western portion with the Black Hills and Badlands. While many chase vacationers like me will go anywhere and everywhere to see storms, for me it's got to be worth it; I won't go from KS all the way up to SD for a marginal risk, especially if it is a one day deal and I'm going to have to come all the way back down to the southern Plains again. I try to avoid more than one long repositioning drive between the southern Plains and the northern Plains. If I am going to be able to stay up there because the action has shifted north for the season, I'll do it, otherwise I'll wait it out and stay put. I have never been into ND or MT. I have been to southeast WY plenty of times but never further north than Casper.




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[Bob Schafer]

I have never been into ND or MT.

I earlier mentioned that I have chased in MT (3 or 4 times) and ND. I'll elaborate a bit for anyone who might find the info useful. I have decided to never set foot in Montana again (chasing) because of the lack of paved roads as a ratio to acreage. Because it's such a huge state the vastness may fool you when you look at a map. You get lured into taking a dirt road to intercept a developing storm and the next thing you know you've committed to a drive of 50 or 70 miles on that not-particularly-well-maintained dirt road. That's okay with you? Fine. Go for it.

ND is mostly perfect chasing terrain, pretty good road network, and you won't run into chaser circuses, but for the last few years it has been a nightmare to get a motel room in the western half of the state. Maybe it's different now with the collapse of the fracking boom.

 

[Matt Ashworth]

My chase area has, with very few exceptions, never been east of I-35, south of I-20, north of I-90, or west of I-25. I've never chased into any state east of I-35 or west of I-25, nor have I chased North Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, or (despite only living about an hour away from the border) Wyoming. Every tornado I have ever seen have all been in Colorado, and most of my chases are between I-40 and I-80. My personal favorite spots include the Texas panhandle, western Oklahoma, and the area along the Colorado/Kansas border. I don't really care for the hills and trees that are the eastern halves of Oklahoma and Texas or the road network and endless hills that are northern Nebraska, but anywhere else in that region I'm good to go for.

 

[Verne Carlson]

I like all of eastern CO, eastern WY, western NE and KS. Also western OK and the TX panhandle are favorites. This m ap by Jeremy Perez is helpful in looking at favored chase areas: <<LINK>>

 

[samuel stone]

My chasing coverage area and thoughts..

I don't personally like overnight chases.. If I took a chase-cation type thing I probably would be fine with it, but since I live in the heart of the alley and have plenty of action near me I generally just chase one-day ventures when my regular schedule permits.

So with my home base of Manhattan, KS I generally chase the following:

All of Kansas: Don't like the red hills of Barber, Comanche, and Clark counties or flint hills ( roughly 40 miles either side of a Manhattan to Osage Co. OK line), lack of road options and hilly. Favorite areas are South central, West central, South west KS. Personally I think The area of Sumner, Harper, Sedgwick, Harvey, McPherson, Rice, Reno, Kingman, Stafford, Pratt, Barton, Kiowa, and Edwards counties is some of the best chasing territory in the plains (great roads, completely flat, few trees, lots of supercells). For those who don't know KS counties this roughly bounded by Greensburg to Great Bend to Newton to Wellington to Pratt line. Central and North central KS are good too but it is a little hillier north of about K-4

Western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle: Although Manhattan, KS to Childress, TX is about a 7 hour drive I don't mind heading pretty far southwest when the storms will carry me back towards where I came from. Obviously there are weak areas but by and large good chase country, especially considering the large amount of great supercells the area gets. Will absolutely not go east of 35 in OK, however east of 35 in KS is not bad except flint hills, despite what some have said. Areas I don't like in W OK/ TX Panhandle include red hills of far NW Ok, Canadian river valley and other scattered canyons in TX, Wichita mountains.

Far Eastern Colorado: I generally won't go west of the first couple row of counties as far as a original target is concerned. In other words I'm not gonna go after a purely upslope event, but I will target a dryline in eastern colorado (Say an event like May 9th 2015). Great terrain, but questionable road networks.

South central/South east (Sometimes all of Eastern Neb): I love chasing south central and at times SE Nebraska, great chase country in all aspects ESP. SC Nebraska and not far from home. I don't usually like going too far north past say Columbus, NE just because storm motions will usually lead me further from home but in the case of high end events I wont hesitate to chase all of eastern Nebraska. I will not chase the sand hills or anything else NW of North Platte. Not worth the drive given the road network. I have occasionally chased SW Nebraska.

Other Notes...

I don't like chasing Missouri, hills trees get worse and storm motions take me far from home (seams like every time I chase there storms are moving NE @ 45+mph), but I will go into western mo if I target eastern KS and storms move into MO.

I have heard great things about Eastern SD and would like to try up there some time but it will take a really high end event and not having any obligations the next day to get me up there.

Definitely do not see myself ever venturing to Dixie Alley.. not even that little stretch of Eastern Arkansas where its flat and treeless, I've seen enough videos of messy HP hard to keep up with tornadoes on you tube from down there and that will do just fine.

I am always much more satisfied by a 25mph LP non-tornadic structured supercell than I am a 45mph fat-hook HP with a rain wrapped wedge behind something that looks more like a shelf cloud than a wall cloud.. that you might catch a low contrast glimpse of as it blows by your only road you have, never to catch up with it again.. so hey maybe I should rethink my not chasing CO upslope huh haha.

So in closing basssically all of KS, W OK, TX PANHDL, far E CO, SW, SC, E Nebraska.

 

[Scott Roberts]

Early on, as I was gaining experience, I chased about anything I could. For the most part that ended in 2008. For various reasons outside of the chase terrain and so forth, I'm pretty well limited to backyard chases. For me that's bounded by I-44, US-75/K-99, I-80 and the Kansas/Colorado line. My core chasing is US-60 to I-70 from US-77 to US-83 or maybe K-25.

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