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We’re making the most of the storms, such as they are. On our first real chase day of 2022, we visited the World’s Largest Ball of Sisal Twine in Cawker City, Kansas. The delightful Linda Clover, caretaker of the twine, happened to be in the pavilion in the center of town helping a pair of newlyweds add twine to this roadside landmark. So I squealed in delight because we had a chance to add twine, too!

I’ve added twine to the ball before, many years ago. So it was a thrill to do it again – even “setting the record” for a brief time. And Alethea, on her first visit, got to add twine, too. This seemed like a good omen! There’s also a delightful restored vintage gas station across the street now where you can book a night’s stay.

From there, we headed up into western Nebraska, making a stop in Sutherland. There’s a huge pedestrian walkway structure built over the many train tracks that go through here, so we climbed up and watched the clouds and hoped for a train. And we got one! I waved, and the conductor tooted the whistle, as you can see in the video.

Then we traveled on to Lake McConaughy for a pretty view of storms as they rolled over the lake. Beauty and zen and lightning – it’s all in the video. We ended the day in Ogallala, Nebraska, where the awesome UFO water tower would be a great foreground for lightning, if only the lightning had hung together. Oh, well. It was a really fun day.

Roll over an image to see its caption, or click on any photo to start a slide show.

It’s time for Storm Chasing 2022! Even if we missed all the amazing storms at the end of April and the very start of May.

Alethea Kontis and I took a couple of days to travel out to Tornado Alley from Florida – realizing halfway through the journey that the weather pattern had changed from promising for storms to a much more challenging one.

We decided to press on anyway since hope springs eternal and all of that.

With occasional stops for food and gas, we drove about 1547 miles in the first two days. Our plan is to pursue photography and writing when the storms aren’t cooperating.

Here’s a video of us crossing the Mississippi in Arkansas – the official entry into the West.

I’m literally on the eve of heading to Tornado Alley for the annual storm chasing trip, which means I dropped my Honda CR-V at the dealership for an oil change. Hubby picked me up, and I immediately saw that the fast-growing cumulus tower I’d been watching had something under it – a funnel cloud! The late, great chaser Jim Leonard always said to look for waterspouts under such clouds.

The funnel, which I first saw at 11:10 a.m., persisted, proving itself a legitimate funnel. But was it a tornado? Or perhaps a waterspout? We were in Cocoa, Florida, driving east toward the Indian River Lagoon. When we finally got through all the traffic and trees and stores to the riverbank, the funnel was in the last moments of roping out.

Later, the National Weather Service office in Melbourne confirmed they had a report of a waterspout by the 528 causeway. So it did “touch down,” but not on land. That said, it looked tornadic to me. My chaser friends say I should count it as this season’s first tornado.

Regardless of what you call it, this was a pretty rare sight for this part of Florida. It didn’t look like much on radar, but the funnel just proves that surprises happen all the time. Here’s the video.

All of a sudden I’m caught in a whirlwind of preparations for storm chasing and probably leaving much earlier than I’d thought. Alethea Kontis and I will discuss our options and may be hitting the road later this week.

Work obligations have prevented me from leaving Florida so far this year. It’s always hard to miss big events like the mind-blowing Andover, Kansas, tornado, but that’s the way it works when you don’t live in Tornado Alley and can’t chase every day. And the thing a lot of people don’t understand about storm chasing is that even if you ARE out on a particular day, there’s an excellent chance you won’t see the “storm of the day.” There are a million variables, and luck plays as much of a role as skill.

Believe me, I could fill a book with missed opportunities and bad choices. Sometimes even when you think you’ve made a great choice, ten minutes later you see someone else’s video of the same tornado and want to cry because you weren’t in the same position. The healthiest thing to do is not worry so much about it … but we can’t help a little comparisonitis.

Anyway, I’m testing and preparing gear and sorting out equipment that hasn’t been used for some time. I’m also testing the only new purchase I allowed myself for this year’s chase – a GoPro Hero 10. This video is a timelapse filmed in “night lapse” mode with the Hero 10. I had a lot of luck with beautiful lightning night lapses like the one in this video, filmed on a Hero 8, during last year’s storm chase. I also expect to use this as a dash cam.

For now, here’s the video of night falling at Port Canaveral, Florida, with swirling clouds and the colorful lights of Exploration Tower, seen reflected in the water. I had to do a little processing to minimize noise in the image. Partly I think the noise is a product of me shooting at a more zoomed-in “narrow” view because I was shooting through a deck railing and even had to crop the video a bit in the edit. My experience with GoPros is that shooting wide and cropping in later (if necessary) produces a higher-quality image. But I still think this is a very pretty and meditative little video.

See you on the road soon!

My storm-chasing partner Alethea Kontis and I had a wonderful chase expedition last year, with lots of beautiful storms, funny moments and all the things that come with an intense few weeks on the road.

There were so many beautiful storms this past year. If we get half as many, it’ll be a good year … but I always hope for more! As well as a safe and healthy trip.

We talk about last year’s adventures in this video I just posted – Chris & Alethea look back at STORM CHASING 2021! And here it is.

If you go to YouTube to see the video, please hit that subscribe button for Chris – and also subscribe to Princess Alethea’s channel!

I so appreciate the amazing support we had last year. It was so fantastic, Princess Alethea has started a gas fund for this year’s chase. Want to donate?

Thank you so much for watching and messaging us and sharing the journey!

 
My getaway weekend in Miami Beach at the 2022 Miami Rum Congress was interrupted by a wild windstorm this afternoon. As a cold front pushed a line of storms through Florida, already intense winds were whipped into a frenzy and bowled through the big tasting event at the Hilton Cabana in Miami Beach.

The rum tasting was split between two locations, one at the semi-outdoors bar adjacent to the pool and the other under a big tent on the deck on the third floor. The canopy of the tent acted like a sail, flapping wildly in the high winds as brave rum folk and hotel employees attempted to secure it.

The distillers shut down amazingly quickly and, with teamwork, eventually got the canopy off the tent frame, as you can see in this video. They reset, and the tasting resumed in a ballroom indoors. What a crazy afternoon!

 
I try to put together a roundup of my favorite photos at the end of the year — video will appear separately, maybe! — and it’s always challenging to pick which ones to feature. I didn’t keep the list to a top ten, but I did keep it under twenty, in no particular order. And I’m calling this list my “favorites” instead of my “best,” because there are probably some better photos, whatever that means … and if I spend any more time looking at these and trying to whittle them down to pure gold, half of 2022 will be gone. Ahem.

Storm chasing is always my prime font of images, my biggest inspiration, and not going to the Plains in 2020 (while doing the responsible thing during the plague) really hurt. So I counted on 2021 to do a lot of soul-filling last spring, and it really delivered. Though I didn’t get much in the way of photogenic tornadoes, I had a fantastic chase with Alethea Kontis and other friends, in which we saw so many gorgeous skies and supercells that it was almost impossible for me to pick just a few photos.

I was pleased to have a few other sources of photographic delights in my own backyard. One was all the birds coming to our feeder. Another was an incredibly busy year of rocket launches from here on Florida’s Space Coast, driven by SpaceX’s ambitious schedule. I included just a few of those pictures here.

The world is in rather a sorry spot, so I turn to art and nature to get me through. Capturing moments of beauty is still a pure joy. I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Roll over the images below to see captions, and click on any one to start a slide show of larger images.

A beautiful “mackerel sky” greeted us here on Florida’s Space Coast this afternoon. Like the scales of a fish, these altocumulus clouds create a fluffy pattern across the blue.

I set up the GoPro to film a short timelapse of these clouds as they moved across the sky, right up until sunset.

Back when I published the Storm Seekers novels, I made book trailers for FUNNEL VISION and ZAP BANG – but not for TORNADO PINBALL. And I LOVE this book. I was crazy busy, time went by, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, in spite of the challenges involved in teasing to a book that plays like a big-budget movie in my mind.

Well, while I don’t have a special-effects budget, I have lots of tornado footage! And while I’d love to see this book made into a film someday – because we need more good movies about storm chasers – the books and their trailers will have to suffice.

Without further ado, here is the debut of the book trailer for Book 2, TORNADO PINBALL.

About the book

Just when TV shows about storm chasing can’t get any more extreme, along comes a production company with the ultimate exploit: the Bubble, a manned tornado probe. As the reluctant consultant, expert storm chaser Jack Andreas must get the show’s nervous star, failed tour operator Brad Treat, into a twister. But Jack is losing his customary cool as a comedy of errors unfolds. Distracting him is co-star Saffire, a Hollywood actress who is more than she seems, and producer Wynda, who will do anything to make her documentary succeed. The daring star of another show pursues them, desperate for a shot with his own flying machine. As the disasters mount, will Jack be able to launch their device into a tornado?

The sequel to FUNNEL VISION, a Storm Seekers novel, TORNADO PINBALL delivers an unforgettable adventure with action, humor, romance and stunning storms. Learn more on the books page.

While June 1 wasn’t technically a storm chase, it was our farewell to the 2021 Tornado Alley safari. Alethea Kontis and I didn’t have a whole lot of time for tourism this year, given we were chasing almost the entire trip, so we put aside a few hours on our last day in the Plains for a favorite stop.

First we paused in Hollis, Oklahoma, to grab a couple of photos. I’m fascinated by the old “Busy Corner” gas station there, which still has vintage pumps and a fantastic sign.

 
Then we headed on to visit the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma.

I’ve visited this park a handful of times during my 25 seasons of chasing storms, and I almost always see something new. The visitors’ center was closed (due to Covid, I presume), but the view from Mount Scott is stunning, and over the years, fields of wind turbines have sprouted in the distance. The wildflowers are gorgeous. There are bison and birds. And this was my best visit ever with the prairie dogs, who seemed to be a lot more active on the more accessible side of the road. That doesn’t mean I didn’t cringe when some noisy tourists came and threw junk food at them. Leave the poor prairie dogs be! They’re perfectly happy munching on their flowers and bugs.

I had a nice long lens this time, so I captured some adorable photos, from a single prairie dog enjoying a snack to whole families on alert at their burrows.

 
We ended our park visit with a walk in the Parallel Forest, the remains of a government experiment to plant 20,000 cedar trees in neat rows as a wind block. Time has worn down its angles and lines, but you can still find fascinating views of parallel trees lined along inviting paths.

Goodbye, Tornado Alley, until — I hope — next time.