So is there good money in Storm Chasing?

[Chieficus]

Originally Posted by Jerm

I've always been intrigued by the idea of storm chasing and doing it, like genuinely interested in the science of it and how tornadoes form, move, work, etc.

What areas do you normally go to the most...? Or is it just kind of you're always prepared and go when something pops up.

I live in western MO and have a job which provides some degree of flexibility, so I usually just go when something pops up (or is about to pop up) within a hundred mile radius or so. Yet, I'm very picky anymore about when I go on "distance" chases each year (mostly b/c of the cost of gas), meaning more than 200-300 miles roundtrip.

I do keep an eye on the Storm Prediction Center and if they are forecasting a good setup, I'll wait until the day before and look at various models and such and do my own forecast to see if and where I want to go the next day (for personal forecasting, I love the tools the College of DuPage has at weather.cod.edu).

I typically try to aim for east to central KS, southeast NE, or northeast OK--all places I could drive to and drive back in a single day. So the I-35, I-135, Hwy 81 line in KS is typically as far west as I'll plan to go.

In recent years I've had some really good chases going down to Bartlesville, OK; Salina, KS; and the Beloit, Jewell, Burr Oak area of KS, as part of my one or two longer trips each year.

A lifelong buddy of mine (who has chased with me quite a bit) and I have planned a couple of chase vacations in the past, but we usually have to pick a week a couple of months in advanced b/c of his job, and they don't pan out well (like--one storm in TX at the start of the week and that's it), so we quit doing that.

The pic I attached is from a chase near Salina/Abilene, KS, back in April 2012. It's one of my favorite tornado pics I've taken b/c of it's classic stove-pipe shape, the backlighting that makes it stand out, and the fact that it was over fields and doing very little damage to property. I think we were about 2-3 miles away at the time.

We watched it form on backroads with hardly anyone around, took that pic right before we hopped onto I-70 (where most of the people we encountered were), and then watched it die out when we were on the backroads again.