Whats your tornado count in your chasing career?

[afischer]

Just this morning, I chose to watch some old tornado video from 2001 and revise my total upwards by a factor of six.

I've seen at least 30 or 40... probably more. I tried to go back and review my Beloit KS multi-vortex tornado from 09/21/2006 in order to count the individual vortices as one tornado each... but I got so dizzy I fell out of my chair and hit my head on the coffee table. I'll try again in the morning.

 

[Doug Mitchell]

I have a habit of missing the big tornadofest days. I have 12 tornadoes on 7 tornado days.

 

[mrobinett]

Zero in two years of chasing the plains, of course those years were 2005 and 2006, nuff said, they were good freshman and sophomore years though.
Mike

 

[Rich Thompson]

How 'bout a different statistic:

great tornado days per year time
0.0 1985-89
1.2 1990-99
0.7 2000-07

My definition of "great" is entirely subjective and skewed to multiple visible tornadoes, "high-end" events, or days that exceeded my expectations. The curious thing is that I've had worse luck at the same time most everyone else has seen better luck. Perhaps it has something to do with staying home and/or working more and chasing less...or you could argue it's not having MTN!

Rich T.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Eight tornadoes since 2003 counting them as tornado cycles. Five were on March 28 this year. That day has changed how I perceive being a chaser.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

Somewhere between 30 and 50 since 2000.

I don't keep any specific stats or counts.

 

[Scott Bell]

Rich,
perhaps when YOU are working, we amazingly all do better! Then suddenly when you aren't working you do better and we all seem to do worse. hmmm

 

[Mikey Gribble]

48 as of now
I got skunked my first two and a half years, which hurt pretty bad, but I definitely think that is exactly what motivated me to study meteorology and to get better at chasing. If it was easy, everybody would be bagging 20 plus tornadoes a year.

Here is the breakdown...
2001 - 0 (only chased a few times)
2002 - 0 (chased probably 20 times)
2003 - 0 (hard core chasing and I still got skunked)
2004 - 21 (finally started getting half way decent at forecasting and it made a huge difference)
2005 - 20
2006 - 5 (the season SUCKED bit time and I got a girlfriend which is reflected in the stats due to less time in the field)
2007 - 1 (so far only one, but I am banking on this being my biggest year yet)
- the one tornado that is missing is the Andover KS tornado. I wasn't chasing, but I did see it.

 

[Dean Gill]

6 tornadoes.
-2002 : 1 tornado, May 23, Texas panhandle.
-2004 : 0
-2005 : 5 tornadoes, June 7, South Dakota (1) and June 9, Kansas (4) including 2 simultaneous tornadoes
-2006 : 0
-2007 : Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be...
I'll be chasing from May 14th to June 1st...

 

[Bernard Hulshof]

-2001 : 1 tornado, May 29, Texas panhandle
-2002 : 1 tornado, May 7, south central Kansas
-2003 : 2 tornadoes, May 8, eastern Kansas
-2006 : 0, but I did see my first full grown waterspout in the Netherlands

Bernard Hulshof
Soest, the Netherlands

"Weather Pictures and Storm Chasing"
http://www.weatherpictures.nl

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

40-50 I think. Since 1999. That's not much for someone that chases as much as I do anymore. Some do that in a year or two. That is as strict of counting as I can come up with. Most times it is actually pretty easy to count, if one lets themselves be open to counting questionable transitions as one, which it most likely was. Some of these multivortex counters are annoying, lol.

My only goal I cared about was lost long ago. My goal was to never have a tornadoless year. Thanks 2002! Now I guess it is to only have one. So, I love getting early tubes to get that out of the way, like April 6, 2006(too bad only one for the year though) and March 28, 2007(better not repeat last year).

 

[Bryce Stone]

I started chasing seriously in 2003 (started spotting in 2000). I go more by tornado days than numbers. Since I started:

2003: None. Close enough to see power flashes from May 9th, 2003 in OKC.
2004: May 12th, June 12th.
2005: March 22nd.
2006: None. Didn't chase as much due to an unreliable car.
2007: March 28th.

If I had to put a number on it, I'd say I've probably seen about ten tornadoes from 2003-2007. I'll be out much more frequently this year than I have been in previous years. Another interesting question would be how many states you have chased in. I have done OK, TX, KS, NE, and IA. Looking to add MO, CO, SD, and maybe AR this year.

 

[Matthew Havin]

A billion.

That is a 1 followed by this many zeros:

000000000

Bow down, my minions.

 

[Marko Korosec]

Glad to see so many posts, interesting numbers, thanks! Also surprised about so many respondings, since its wildy-unpopular topic, right Shane?

Just to add some of my data...saw 3 tornadoes so far in my 5 year long chasing career, would be better if I wouldn't live here I guess.

- August 2005, two brief simultaneous F0 tornado touchdowns here in Slovenia few miles away from my home
- May 5th 2006, TX Patricia F0 anticyclonic tornado (30 metres away!)

Lets hope to raise the number during an upcoming May on the Plains.

 

[Richard Halter]

In 6 total weeks of chasing

Since 1995, given that I have to scrape the funds together to fly out from Oregon (and the wife has to have her vacations by herself in all fairness, darn it), I have seen 11, including 8 on May 29, 2004 - 9 for that week in total.

Easy for me to count, too easy.