I woke up early and excited for my first storm chasing tour to begin in Oklahoma City. The group was scheduled to meet in the conference room of the hotel at 930 AM. When I poked my head in the door at 9 it was completely deserted. I had not heard anything from the tour leader except information about the tour with my initial payment and notice of final payment by the April due date. I began to wonder if my crazy adventures had finally caught up to me and I was being scammed. 

Luckily, when I poked my head in at 915, there were a few others in the room. There were a total of 15 storm chasers for the 6 day tour; 4 tour leaders and 11 eager people ready to see what Mother Nature had to offer. I was surprised that the majority of people were from out of the country. I quickly developed conversation with people from Australia, London, and Dubai. There were 3 pilots in our crew, a nurse, teacher, and several photographers. The best part was the guy at the end who said he was an astronaut. Everyone looked so intrigued before he giggled and said he just wanted to get others’ interest. 🙂 

After a briefing for the day’s plans and a couple quick informative videos on storm formation and safety, we were off chasing the storm! We divided the group in half and split up into 2 large size vans with bags placed in the rear and cameras in hand.

The group in the van with me were a lot of fun before we had even pulled out of the hotel. I knew this was going to be a fun trip! We took a quick trip to Walmart for last minute essentials and snacks before heading off on our adventure. Basically, all you need to bring on a storm chasing tour is water and something to snack on during the drive.

(Disclaimer: As you have noticed in Day 1, there are not a lot of photos today. I made a HUGE mistake that I want to share with you so you don’t do the same thing. Each evening, I backed up to an external hard drive so that I would have plenty of room for more photos. Unfortunately, my hard drive kicked the bucket and I lost ALL of my photos and video for the trip (and for the 6 months of trips we had taken for the year!!!). After a lot of research on what to do, I now back up to Smugmug so that I have online access any where I go. I also back up to a Western Digital hard drive AND a Western Digital SSD once I get home (I won’t use any other brand!). I never want this to happen again!

We started out heading towards Guymon, Texas. Along the way, we stopped a few times for bathroom breaks and around lunch stopped at a McDonald’s in Shamrock.

When the storms looked to be developing a super cell, we were on the road chasing! I felt my adrenaline surge as I quietly wondered how I would react if I was very close to a tornado. 

Unfortunately, the conditions for a severe storm decreased and the clouds flattened and disappeared before our eyes.

After realizing that we weren’t going to see any storms in Texas, Todd made the decision to head north to Colorado. 

We stopped in a town called Lamar for the evening. We stayed at the Quality Inn which was pretty nice for a hotel of its type. 

There were several places to eat close to the hotel. I went to Pizza Hut with several others and then walked back to the hotel as I enjoyed the sunset.

When I got back to my room, it was getting close to 930 and I quickly began charging all my batteries for the next day. I don’t remember even trying to fall asleep that night. 

Miles drove: 473.3

I started the day watching the weather for the forecast of where I thought we would be heading. The news showed a good prediction of some storm and tornado activity near northern Colorado and Nebraska. Some of the other members of the group had joined together for breakfast but I decided to stay in and eat leftover pizza. 

After Todd gave us the briefing for the day’s plans and a stop at a nearby gas station for snacks, we were on our way chasing storms to the north of us.

We drove north and then headed east towards Goodland, Kansas. On the way, we stopped at the Colorado/Kansas border for a photo op.

Then, we stopped for lunch at a fast food restaurant in Kansas while waiting to see what the weather conditions were going to be like. 

After a couple hours, we headed back towards Colorado. Here, we met up with other storm chasers and the conditions started to change quickly back towards Goodland. So, we headed in that direction and watched an amazing storm cell cloud develop.

I was so pumped as the cloud got bigger right before my eyes. It was like something I had never seen before. The thunderhead grew almost like watching popcorn pop in slow motion. 

We stopped for some pictures as we grew closer to the storm. The storm cell did produce a funnel cloud that caused a tornado warning to go out on our phones.

It didn’t develop into a full tornado because the cold air we felt got sucked into the cloud and cooled it off before it became so unstable that it produced one.

(However, there were other storm companies in the area that started posting pictures of a double tornado in the area. Todd said there was no evidence of rotation in the storm and that most tornado warnings released are fake.)

So, we headed west again towards another developing storm cell. We stopped along the side of an interstate off ramp to get amazing views of the clouds. This cell had some rotation for a bit but still no cigar. 

Here we are, a bunch of storm chasers with cameras, checking out the clouds.

The news anchor hopped out of the beast truck and inquired what we were doing. After a few moments, she asked if she could interview someone. Everyone pointed at me since I was the blogger. So, I was interviewed about what I thought of the storm cell and what we were doing. I probably sounded like a redneck from Tennessee when it aired! 🙂

Once we realized the storm cell was not going to produce a tornado, we headed towards our hotel for the evening. We stayed at the Burlington Inn, which looked worse on the outside than it did on he inside.

After quickly washing up for supper, I made my way to meet everyone for supper.

We ate at the Dish Room and the food was so delicious! I was in bed by 10 pm. I could hear loud thunder and rain during the night.

Miles: 346.5

Early in the morning I was woken up by the sound of heavy rain beating against my window. While it alarmed me for a moment, I was snoozing before I ever really woke up fully. When I met the others at our scheduled 9 AM meeting time, they mentioned a tornado siren had went off early that morning. I never even heard it! 

We enjoyed a nice sit down breakfast before getting our weather briefing for the day. Todd explained the information he had gathered for his prediction where the storms would be for the day.

He suggested that storms would be developing along the Kansas/Oklahoma border. So, we all hopped in the vans and headed that direction.

We passed through the countryside looking at field after field. Because the storms were developing, we had a quick stop at a gas station for lunch before heading back on the road.

Shortly after, we were chasing a super cell near Freedom, Oklahoma and along the state border. This thing was huge! I could see the clouds spinning. As the storm formed, it appeared to have an updraft on one side of the storm and a possibly rain on the other. As it formed and developed more, it began to be more obvious.

Other storm chasers started to line the roads checking out the storm. This moment made me think back to the movie Twister with all the storm chasers trying to get in on the same storm. 

We saw a “tornado truck” among the other storm chasers watching this storm cell.

There was a moment when the storm cell produced a wall cloud and other storm chasers were heard in the distance yelling with excitement! (It almost looked like a tornado to me.)

So, we headed down the road to a new location to avoid the possibility of damage to the vehicles. When we stopped, we had the most amazing view of the storm above a red dirt road.

Out of no where a huge flash of lightning occurred. There was a loud clap of thunder. We watched as smoke rose into the air. One of our tour drivers called in the incident and shortly after crews passed us with sirens blaring to put out the fire. (We were later told lightning had hit an oil storage tank.)

In the middle of the storm I could see a teal color that one of our tour guides explained was caused by the hail. It was such a beautiful sight to see and other storm chasers said they have never seen it look that bright before.

It was reported the storm had 70+mph winds and 3 inch hail. I was amazed by what I was looking at and the strong rotation in the clouds.

Then, all of a sudden, the air temperature went from hot to cool within a split second! The wind was blowing so hard. There were times the gusts of wind blew so hard that I lost my balance. I went from wanting to be in shorts to wishing I had brought a coat! Todd said this cold air cooled the storm down and it would eventually die out instead of developing a tornado. We ourselves did not see a visible tornado in the cell.

We headed to a downtown restaurant in the town of Woodward called Magg’s BBQ. The food was quite delicious.

After supper, we walked out to the most spectacular cloud display that went from pink to orange with streaks of lightning.

We stayed the night at Northwest Inn that was conveniently located across from a Walmart. The hotel has supper and made to order breakfast in the price of the room. The room was nice and clean. I was definitely impressed with it.

Miles: 377.4

We were told to meet at 10 AM and be ready to go. So, I started a load of laundry while I ate some breakfast and packed. 

While watching the news, I discovered the area we are in is in the direct path of today’s storms. So, I headed to our van for our briefing for the day.

Since we had time to kill before the storms started developing, we went to the town of Shattuck to see some windmills that date back to the 1800s at the Shattuck Windmill Museum.

I’m not a big fan of windmills but it was interesting to see the different styles used over the years. I have to admit, I have a new perspective on windmills now that I visited the museum. It’s an interesting, off the wall stop if you are in the area. I love the replica dug out home where the early settlers would have lived. There’s a small farmhouse available to check out as well.

Unsure of where the storms may originate, we headed down the road until we got to the highway intersection of 83 and 412 near Balko. Here we stopped for lunch at Kevin’s Corner Kitchen. 

The food was delicious, but the best part was meeting the locals in the town. We met a rancher that said he is a 6 generation rancher. It was interesting hearing about his life as a rancher. He was very curious to know the whereabouts of the storms because he had just finished fixing the mess the storms from the prior year had caused.

As we drove along, we pulled over for a quick photo stop of this house that looked to have been damaged by strong winds. It reminds me of Dorothy’s house from the Wizard of Oz.

Still not knowing where the storms would pop up, we waited outside under a tree for around 4 hours. Then, when the conditions were right, the chase was on!

The storms were not going to produce a tornado but we were set to chase an amazing super cell. We could see the hail and the different striations if the clouds. The storm was heading straight towards us!

To avoid the hail, we hopped back into the van and headed south of the storm. We stopped at an area with giant windmills. 

We could see the updraft and down draft the storm was producing.

All of a sudden, the wind picked up and we could see dust clouds coming for us. We were being chased by the storm!

As we drove away, we passed a windmill that had been torn up by the wind. 

We kept driving alongside the dust storm until we got ahead of it for a better view of the storm. Todd told us to get some quick pictures as the dust storm would catch up with us in about 5 minutes. We quickly hopped out of the van where we found wind gusts up to 65 mph. 

It was so fun to see the dust coming at us with the strong winds that about blew me over. The lightning in the clouds was amazing to watch. Todd told us that only 3% of lightning was visible during daytime hours. 

As dark grew closer, lightning started to pop up all around us. We drove for a bit until the sky was completely dark and watched as the lightning lit up the sky in an almost constant display. 

It’s hard to come up with words for how amazing the lightning show was. There were so many lightning bolts streak across the sky and towards the ground. 

I was taking pictures one after another in hopes that I might capture a streak as it crossed the sky. Then, Alan, one of the tour guides, told me about an app called iLightningCam. For a couple bucks, it would take pictures of the lightning before my eye could register it was lightning and snap the pic. 

We didn’t get into our hotel until just after 12:30 in the morning. Todd had booked us our hotel rooms in Woodward, Oklahoma again at the Northwest Inn.

Miles: 339.0

A couple of my favorite storm chasing photos from the day!

I woke up to a beautiful day in Woodward. After breakfast, I met with the group to determine what our plans would be for the day. 

Todd explained that the storms were going to be lacking and we would be heading to Wichita to the Tornado Museum. I was ok with this because I heard the best tornado shirts were sold there. After some discussion with the group, we instead decided to head down the road to a shooting range.

Not far from our hotel was Butch’s Gun Range. Mike helped me pick out a gun to shoot. I was super nervous shooting a glock but I made myself do it just in case I ever needed to use it at home.

After working up an appetite, we went to Ramiro’s Mexican restaurant for lunch. 

Sometime after lunch the decision was made to head towards Amarillo. It was quite the drive to get there and we had worked up an appetite. 

We checked into the Days Inn in Amarillo. This was the first hotel that I stayed in that I was unhappy with. The room smelled like smoke and nothing I did made it any better. When I asked if anything could be done I was told I could come down to the desk to get some air freshener. I did this but it didn’t help the problem. (I have to say this was my only complaint the whole trip!)

That night we went to the Big Texan restaurant, home of the 72 Oz steak. The Big Texan is a fun restaurant with a souvenir shop and a shooting game to keep busy while waiting for a table.

The hallway towards the bathroom is a must see. The pictures on the walls change from a photo of a person to a scary skeleton when walked past. It definitely gave me a scare!

I thought I could totally participate in the food challenge (eating the huge steak with all sides within 1 hour) but after thinking about how bad it would be on my body (and another fellow chaser talking me out of it), I chickened out. 🙂

I had a delicious ribeye as we all chatted with each other and gathered contact information. Todd had played a joke on us during this time and I decided I was going to return the favor! So, I told the waitress it was his birthday so I would pay for his meal and cake but requested that we all sing to him. So, when we finished eating, the waitress carried over a huge chunk of chocolate cake and we all started singing “Happy Birthday!” He kept trying to say it wasn’t his birthday but I acted as if he had simply forgotten. Oh, good times! 🙂 

After dinner, we went back to our rooms and prepared for the last day of our tour.

Miles: 197.8

It is our last day of the storm chasing adventure. Our set time to meet to determine our plans for the day was at 10.  When our whole group gathered, Todd explained there was a possible chance of a super cell developing close to Amarillo and towards the border of Texas and Oklahoma. 

To start the day and kill a little time, we headed to Cadillac Ranch. I was thrilled we were stopping there because I had always wanted to go. Our first stop was to a nearby Walmart to pick up some spray paint. Then, we were on our way to make our mark in the famous art structure.

When we arrived, I was surprised to find it was so close to the road. It was fun spray painting designs in the Cadillacs. You can read more about my trip to Cadillac Ranch here.

After we visited Cadillac Ranch, we headed north towards the town of Shamrock. At this point, we still were not sure whether the weather was going to cooperate to build a super cell. 

We found a rather delicious restaurant in Shamrock called The Roost. The place itself was decorated in a cute way to represent its name. Even the bathroom was painted with cute designs.

Next, we stopped at the nearby Conoco station which was made famous by the movie “Cars.” Some of us browsed for souvenirs while others took photos of the area. I purchased a cool globe that when swirled produced a tornado.

After waiting around Shamrock for a while, Todd decided the cap was not cooperating and storms would not be developing. I noticed the clouds were flattening out when they reached the warm air. 

So, back to Oklahoma City we went. After checking into our own rooms. We met downstairs and walked over to Zios Italian restaurant for our last meal together.

It was bittersweet parting ways with some that needed to settle in early for the evening. Most of us went right next door to a place called Cowboys. Cowboys had been talked about the entire week for its bull riding. 

I was amazed by all the wonderful line dancers. Some of the men even picked their ladies up over their head with one hand while dancing! 

At 11:00 the bull riding event began. Growing up this was something I watched with my parents on television. This was my first time watching it happen in person. It was quite exciting watching the cowboys try to hang on for 8 seconds and after failing, run from the bull.

Just after midnight, I parted ways with those who were left at Cowboys. I have to admit, when I got to my room I cried a little. I really enjoyed everyone in the group. Being crammed in a van for long periods of time over the course of a total 2017 miles made us all have to get to know each other. We all had our own stories and personalities to share. While storm chasing is fun, I went to bed on my last night of the tour thankful for the friendships I had developed over the week.

Miles: 282.7

Total miles for the trip: 1976.7