What word would best describe Year 6 for me? I would say, “consistency.” A year that started off so bleak, with many missed “big shows” in the first month of spring, turned out to be right up there with 1999 as the best season of my short chasing career, as myself and chase partner Shane Adams consistently found ourselves in the midst of all the action in May and June. For a while, we were “unstoppable”... as at one point, we were successful on five straight chases.
We all know that all streaks must come to an end, but there will always be more stuff out there to see. In fact, as Shane and I were successfully chasing down the large barber poles and monstrous HPs, we still ended up missing the signature tornadoes of this spring - the Hoisingtons, White Deers, and Sewards of the world, not to mention the big activity to the north in Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota where the tornadic weather of spring displayed itself in pure photogenic form very early this year and continued to thrill chasers and weather enthusiasts worldwide well into the summer.
One fact became more and more evident as Year 6 went on: Shane and I would always see the tornadoes that hardly anyone else saw. Tornadoes, however, no matter how small or non-photogenic they can be, are still tornadoes, and I wouldn’t trade anything that I saw this year to be able to see the big tornadoes of the spring. Where places like Hoisington, Pratt, Seward, and White Deer stand out in the minds of many chasers (and rightfully so), I have places like Conway, Attica, Walters, and Wilburton. I know that this holds true for any chaser... we all have memories of storms past, but it seems that the fondest memories are those of storms where you were practically the only person around; just you and the storm.
As memorable as all of my spring chases were, Mother Nature decided to spare me the really good stuff until the fall. Every chaser, especially in the southern Plains, hopes for a good fall season... our “second season”, after a long, hot, capped, and weakly-sheared summer. The fall seasons of 1999 and 2000 had been virtually nonexistent, and hope was high for a good fall this year. It began earlier than expected, with a strong system moving through on September 7. That day added one more little town to my memories of good storms and good chases: Helena. With camera rolling, I witnessed the only tornado to strike Oklahoma that day... from only half a mile away. Yet, the season had just begun.
My big show finally happened just 32 days later, as another storm system brought with it a mini-”wedgefest” to Oklahoma and Nebraska. I was a witness to the majestic Foss Lake wedge, as well as four other tornadoes; it was my most prolific chase of the year, tornado-wise, all coming on my last successful chase. Another chase would follow three days later, but this one, although fun, did not result in a tornado sighting. Oklahoma won the “battle” of tornadoes on October 9... 19-9 over Nebraska. Ironically, Nebraska would exact a measure of revenge on Oklahoma on the football field 2 1/2 weeks later, by a very similar score of 20-10. Maybe I should start a new career in sports betting, based on tornado outbreaks? Nah... I’ll stick with storm chasing.
2001, for me, is the first season in which I can attribute one chase to turning the whole season around and giving back my chase confidence. This came on May 2, a typical slight-risk spring chase. After a disappointing start to the season, I chased the storms near Childress that produced one of the most classic wall clouds I have ever seen. Seemingly, that storm sucked away all my disappointment and threw it to points unknown, like a canceled check caught in the updrafts of a violent supercell. I saw no tornadoes that day, but just two days later, Shane and I, on one of the most off-the-wall chases of my career, saw two tornadoes in southwest Oklahoma out of a squall line (with embedded mesos, of course). Why that chase is “off-the-wall” is another story, but I am glad that it happened. That day set the tone for the rest of the season.
You live to chase, and you chase to live. But in either case, you are always learning. Patience has never been a big virtue of mine, but I learned on one chase that patience can pay off (the Attica, KS tornado chase on June 3). I learned on another chase that it is sometimes not a good idea to leave a storm that you had watched rotate for a long time, thinking that another storm to its south would become dominant and kill the first storm (May 5 near Cordell, OK). I also learned that squall lines moving at 70mph are very easy to chase... only if you have a rocket shoved up you-know-where (April 6 in the Oklahoma panhandle). Take any of the 28 times I chased this year, and I can tell you some new bit of knowledge that I gained from any one of those chases.
I take that knowledge, and knowledge gained from previous years, into 2002, as I have for each season since I started. What will Year 7 have in store for me, and for chasers everywhere? No one knows. The long-range computer model forecasts can’t predict the locations of tornadoes that will signify the 2002 chase season. But no matter where they occur (and they inevitably will), we won’t forget those places... and we can only hope that they remain in open fields. One thing is for certain: I will be out there, camera in one hand and Allsup’s burrito in the other... as I continue to seek out and learn about the very weather that first interested me as a kid.
“Storm chasing is life, the rest is just details.”