Give us a brief background on yourself and your chase career?

I was born in New Jersey, we moved to Beulah, Colorado when I was 3. I later moved to Norman, Oklahoma in 1997, to attend the University of Oklahoma to study meteorology; life turned another way and I did not finish my degree there. I lived there for 10 years, before moving back to Pueblo County in 2008. I have chased since 1996 and have been a weather hobbyist for practically my entire life. I maintain a weather station in Beulah that will reach 11 full years of record this spring. I’ve been married to Jenn for 10 ½ years and we have daughters Emily, 8, and Abigail, 5.
 

Where does this love for weather come from?

Honestly, I have no idea! No one else in my family has any involvement in the meteorological field. Yet I was making forecasts for my kindergarten class at age 5/6, and continued to do so on occasion throughout elementary school. Basically, for lack of a better explanation, it was placed in my blood. For some reason, I hated thunderstorms when I was a kid. I remember diving under my bed more than once when the lightning got intense. Which leads to…..
 

How did you get into storm chasing?

June 6, 1990. A huge supercell developed just east of Colorado Springs and eventually hit Limon with a high-end F3 tornado. I saw the images of that storm on live TV and thought “that is too cool!” That was the day I stopped being fearful of storms and actually started to enjoy the images of supercells and tornadoes, rare on TV as they were at the time. After that day, I’m trying to catch every tornado show I can find on TV. A storm on July 14, 1993 produced two brief tornadoes just northeast/east of Beulah which were not visible to me in the valley. My dad came home (after driving through the storm) and took us back out to see hail drifts 10 feet deep and rampant flash flooding. By then, I was hooked. It would be 2 years before I got my license at that point but I was awaiting my first available spring of chasing, 1996.
 

When/where was your first chase?

May 30, 1996, eastern Colorado. Going off a map I saw on TWC about the severe probabilities for that day which covered all of eastern CO, I told my dad that I was leaving work to go chase. All I had was a huge old cellphone (that didn’t work in the boonies), a household weather radio (that also didn’t work in many rural areas) and Rand McNally. (I should add that I’m incredibly fortunate to have parents that would let me go off on my own at age 16, especially with such limited equipment.) I left and drove east toward La Junta. At Manzanola, I stop for gas and a snack and notice active storms waaaaay north. So 16-year-old me says “screw it” and drives north (as there were no active cells visually evident.) 2 ½ hours later, I’m jumping around as a F3 touches down about 10 miles in front of me, near Elba, CO. I’d see another tornado a few minutes later out of the same storm.

Those storms were 160 miles or so north of me and had produced earlier tornadoes near Fort Morgan, CO, yet held off on a big show until right when I got there. Luckiest chase of my life, but I can always say I was 1-for-1 once.

Where/when was your favorite chase?

May 31, 1999, western/southwest Oklahoma. That day had a little bit of everything, from a huge wall cloud near Erick to a brief tornado… then a truncated cone near Brinkman… then big hail as we drove south through Greer County followed by a heat blast – and a tornado well to our east from another storm. The day ended with us parked under the awning of a hardware store in Lawton after dark as the resulting linear complex blasted the city with winds gusting into triple digits not far away from where we were.  

What is your most important piece of equipment while chasing?

My eyes. Anyone can go out there with a whole bunch of stuff and that’s fine. I still use paper maps (and nowadays, I will carry the laptop and/or cellphone for data, as that data is certainly much more available today than in 2000.) Otherwise, I’m pretty much incognito. Someone can have all the equipment in the world but if they don’t know how to interpret what’s going on around them in real time, they simply won’t see tornadoes and could get themselves into big trouble.

What is the most dangerous situation you have been in?  
Tie.
May 27, 2001, near Montezuma, KS. I caravanned with David Drummond that day and we ended up driving into one of the most memorable daytime derecho events that many old-timer chasers can remember. We were going south; a huge black dust plume moving right to left kicked up so we turned east… 15 seconds later another huge black dust plume blows in right in front of us from left to right (from the north.) I ended up driving through part of a plowed field because I couldn’t see past the hood of my truck but was able to get back on the road as the plume cleared. David measured a wind gust to 106mph from his van. DOW was nearby and measured 100mph.
 

May 5, 2002, near Lesley, TX. Jenn and I had caught the very end of the 2^nd Happy, TX tornado and followed that storm east for a few hours. We ended up flanking it along a state highway west of Memphis, TX, when right at the very edge of darkness the storm cycled and threw a huge RFD with zero visibility in blowing dust as the power lines on the opposite (north) side of the highway were blown down. Other chasers reported a tornado nearby but I don’t think we were in that directly, but we experienced winds of around 100mph. This event disabled several chase vehicles ahead of us and there was one chaser report of a wind gust to 130mph.  

What do your wife/friends/family think about you doing this?  

I met Jenn through storm chasing; first met her at a storm chaser party in 2001 in Arkansas. I’ve met most of my friends via shared interest in storm chasing as well. Those of my friends that are not chasers have never given me guff about it (i.e. “that stuff is dangerous, mister!”) and some have expressed interest in going along with me. And as I mentioned before, I’m incredibly lucky to have parents that supported me driving 600 miles in a day on my own to chase tornadoes from such a young age. (Granted, I did have to check in every couple hours.) I don’t see that happening very often anymore, if ever. 

What is the most frustrating aspect of chasing?  

The crowds. There’s not much anyone can do about that, though. If 200 chasers converge on the storm of the day, it’s just the way it is. It’ll be crowded and stressful, especially if you’re the one driving, but that’s the nature of chasing today especially in certain areas. Adaptation is a must. Busts don’t bother me, as there are many other neat things to see on the Plains besides the storms, and it’s always fun to see old (and new) friends out there no matter how things go.  

Do you have a day job? If so, does it hinder your chasing?

I am the general manager and CFO at Pine Drive Telephone in Beulah. There are only maybe 1-2 days of the month where I couldn’t leave to chase, but family matters often take precedence.

What lessons have you learned from storm chasing that bring you back to other aspects of your life?

That Mother Nature always has a way of evening herself out over time, and that a steady approach to any difficult situation will often prove to be the best one long-term. Extreme actions or behavior might get someone a tornado at very close range one time, but where are those chasers when they bust the other 10 times? Probably griping about anything and everything/everyone else except themselves. Take the good with the bad and enjoy the people around you for who they are regardless of what happens. (That applies to any life situation.)
 

What advice would you give to a new storm chaser?

Don’t be an idiot on social media sites. Go out there, chase, be respectful of those that have chased far longer. Research, learn, etc. Accept constructive criticism without getting all up in a wad about it. (Hateful criticism is another deal and I, and you, won’t tolerate that.) The tornadoes will always be out there to chase; if life happens and gets in the way of a chase opportunity, it happens and accept that as well. Just because you miss an outbreak shouldn’t mean the end of the world or an opportunity to become a negative Nancy toward any other chasers and/or setups. Watch your finances and chase accordingly – don’t punch a hail core when you know a new windshield and/or replacement windows could put you out for the rest of the season. Hone your photography skills in the offseason, mainly so that you get to know your camera well enough to be able to adjust settings in a hurry when that tornado does occur. And lastly – don’t get too close to those first tornadoes. 3-5 miles is just fine. (And if you’ve picked up the right still-cam lens and gotten more photography experience, you’ll know how to set it up for that distance!) You’re not Reed Timmer or the late Andy Gabrielson. Sit back and enjoy!
 

How do you think the 2013 chase season will turn out?

At this point, much like 2012. The ongoing drought in the central and southern Rockies will contribute higher temperatures at mid-levels, strengthening the cap once advected E/NE. Compared to a moist year like 2010, the ongoing drought will make bust days out of what would have been isolated supercell days in 2010 while the strong systems in the right area could be quite strong and produce strong scattered supercells, similar to April 14, 2012, when they could have become a grungy mess in a moist year. If things change in the next 4-6 weeks, my opinion could change, but at this point it does not look good unless you catch Ma Nature on the right day.
         

Will you ever stop chasing?

No. I might not get out all the time, but no.
 

Where can we find your pictures and video?
I link pics on my Facebook page all the time. I do have a website but it’s essentially a shell at this point.