Today I wanted to take some time to post a little bit about my motivations for chasing! It seems to be a subject that comes up alot in the chaser community alot... but what I think people fail to realize is that no matter what their motivation or 'purpose' is, for all of us it started with a very similar experience. Everyone I've ever talked too that chases or spots storms seems to be able to remember that one previous experience, whether it be as a child or adult... that sparked their interest in learning more about thunderstorms and the weather, and documenting it!
I guess an appropriate place to start would be to describe the moment that started it all for me. I remember always watching lightning and enjoying thunderstorms as a kid growing up in the Midwest. Usually though being a child, I always had someone telling me to take cover and what not during storms. I was always somewhat interested in storms, but the experience that truly started it all was when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was coming home from school alone. It was early May towards the end of the school year and I remember them briefly talking about the possibility for severe weather on the news that morning when I was eating breakfast. Later that afternoon, when I went out to get on the bus I remember seeing billowing towers off to the northwest of town. It was very humid and sticky, I briefly got excited at the possibility of storms. I would always call my mom when I got home to let her know I had made the bus, and when I called she let me know there was a tornado watch in effect for the area. I flipped on the tv and they had interrupted broadcasting to talk about a severe thunderstorm that was moving southeast towards us... producing golf ball sized hail. The meteorologist also mentioned some rotation even though there was not a tornado warning and talked about it being a supercell thunderstorm. I looked outside and an anvil with some mammatus had spread over head, it was very dark to the west. I felt the humid air flowing into the storm on a brisk wind, when I went back inside the phone was ringing and my mom was calling just to make sure I was comfortable at home because she had heard about the storm.
I hung up with her and spent about 5 more minutes outside... listening to the distant but constant rumble of thunder to the northwest. I went back inside, the warnings were still scrolling along the bottom of the screen, but soon froze as the news station again broke into programming. As they came on the air they said a tornado warning was being issued in our county because spotters had reported a rotating wall cloud, and radar showed stronger rotation then before. I watched them talk about the 'hook echo' on tv. I stayed inside at first, hearing the tornado sirens outside! Then my curiosity got the better of me and I went outside, at first I couldn't see much. Then after watching tv coverage for a little longer, I noticed it was getting very dark outside... I headed out on my back porch and my jaw dropped. I was witnessing my first supercell. The updraft base was only a couple miles to my west, but I remember the storm having a ton of striations and tiers that were rotating. The remember the green glow to the north of the core of the storm. The structure of the storm just fascinated me, it was almost like a dream with the rotation ripping around the storm and the vivid colors of the clouds. A close cg and instant crackling thunder snapped me out of my stupor and I bolted inside. I remember the storm looking somewhat like the below image... that I took in 2010 on a high risk chase day in Oklahoma.
From that day forward... I used the Internet to learn everything that I could to learn about storms. I used google to search for images to try to identify what I had seen. I found sites from chasers like Mike Hollingshed and Scott Blair. I also read chase accounts from other chasers. I also joined forums like Stormtrack (yes at that time it was actually a good resource and I learned ALOT). I learned about the model runs, parameters chasers used to chase, and reviewed chase accounts. Soon I started to drive, and would go out and observe storms locally with my little Hi-8 Sony video camera. I picked up my first Digital SLR in 2005 and started shooting images of storms, landscapes, and wildlife. Unfortunately I lost all my images from those early years due to a laptop crash. In 2008 I started actually 'chasing' and driving further to witness storms. I didn't catch much that year but I did see some incredible storms, including the images below... from June 11th, 2008, which many may remember is the day that a tornado struck a Boy Scout Camp in Little Sioux, Iowa.
And this storm in early November that despite being rather weak, was incredibly photogenic.
I guess the point of writing the above is to kind of show what shaped the roots of what would become my interest in chasing storms and photography. My motivation is pretty simple to understand. I'm not out there to do any kind of scientific research, I'm not out there to 'save lives' (though I certainly will report what I'm seeing if its affecting a populated area or I know it hasn't already been reported), and I'm not out there to be on any kind of tv show. I simply want to document the incredible forces and skies that these storms provide. Some people think this is the wrong attitude to have... I've been criticized before for not being big on reporting things and not taking certain stances on issues within the community. I can't say I'm suprised and I've never really let it bother me. To me the whole experience is about witnessing something incredible and being able to document that with my cameras, and opening other peoples eyes to that experience, showing them the beauty that happens in nature and especially storms that you have to search out to find. I just want to be there when things like the below happen!
Here are a couple more examples!
In closing I just want to know what your motivation for whatever it is that your hobby is... whether that is photography or chasing storms, or even something else. You can also share that experience that piqued your interest like I shared at the beginning of this post.
