Breaking the Misconceptions: What Storm Chasing is Really Like

Storm chasing is perhaps unlike any other hobby in the United States. No other hobby requires such intricate knowledge of not only severe thunderstorms, but the forecast processes behind them, photography, and navigation. Since more light was shed on the hobby in the mid-late 90 there have been more and more folks entering the hobby with preconceived notions. This post is simply to expose three of the misconceptions people have coming in to help them determine if they really want to make the financial and physical commitment to chasing storms.


1. Storm chasing is a thrilling, action packed adventure. This is probably the biggest fallacy people come in hearing. About 85% of storm chasing is driving to get to a target for storms. An average chase will usually only have about 1-2 hours of excitement on a storm (note that's an average). Compare this with the 5-10 hours of driving both ways just to get there and you sometimes have a very dull experience, especially when the setup ends up busting and you're sitting in Great Bend, Kansas with 90/65 spread looking at clear blue skies. This is why having chase partners who you get along well with and who you can have fun with even on busts is extremely important. Storms are only part of the equation to having fun on a chase.

2. I will see lots of tornadoes my first season. Coming in with this mindset will most likely lead you to serious frustration in your inaugural season. Very few chasers see even one tornado their first season, let alone a lot of them. For example, it took me four seasons to see my first tornado. When most people start out, they tend not to have a wide enough knowledge base in forecasting and storm evolution to bag a tornado. This is why coming in with lower expectations and just learning from your first season is so critical. Even if you don't see a tornado, there's a good chance for learning important things that will aid you in later seasons.

3. Being a meteorology major gives me an edge. I hate to say it, but I see a lot of this at OU. Some of the freshman seem to suffer from the delusion that being OU meteorology students gives them some special status. This ties in directly to the second point: No matter how much you think you know, there will be vast amounts you still need to learn. Other chasers don't care if you're a meteorology student so don't wear it on your arm.

A Brief Look at Instability on Soundings

So recently I've noticed people have been having problems understanding how to "see" instability/buoyancy on an observed sounding so I though I'd shed a little light on the subject. The amount of instability (CAPE) on a sounding can be eyeballed by looking at the parcel path relative to the temperature line. The parcel path of a sounding is the theoretical path any given parcel (imagine a box) of air would take in the environment. The temperature line is simply displaying the temperature on an X/Y axis throughout the atmosphere (millibars on the Y-axis and temperature values on the X-axis). Below is an example of a sounding with very high ML/SBCAPE values from June 29, 2012, a day that would produce a derecho that caused extensive damage from Ohio to Maryland:

The parcel path is represented with the dashed brown line and the temperature line is the red line. There is a large area in between the two indicating an extremely unstable environment and positively buoyant parcels (tendency to rise). The larger the area in between the parcel path and temperature line indicates high instability. Be wary though, there was also a thermal inversion at 850 mb which can put a damper on rising parcels due to the parcels not being warmer than the surrounding air at 850 mb (i.e. not having positive buoyancy).

While the thermodynamics for this sounding are very favorable for severe thunderstorms, the shear environment isn't favorable for discrete severe thunderstorms i.e. supercells. This sounding however does show a favorable environment for linear thunderstorms, especially organized bows/derechos.

So when looking at soundings in the future, you can always eyeball it if the nice CAPE values below aren't available!

Official End of the Season

Well after a series of false posts, I can now say that the 2012 chase season is over. After a fun bust in south-central Kanas yesterday it looks like the pattern should go zonal with the gulf closing for the foreseeable future. Had a great season with roughly 5100 miles, 6 tornadoes and a lot of new friends. Looking forward to chase season 2013, roughly 108 days left until March 1st!