A Day Tornado Chasers Will Never Forget

It’s one thing to see a photo of a tornado, yet another to encounter one up close.

I grew up in the northeastern part of the U.S. It’s rare for twisters to touch down there. The big worry for northerners is hurricanes, the remnants of which often travel up the coast from the south. These remnants can, and do, do damage, even as far up as New York, and I can only imagine what folks in Florida must deal with on a regular basis.

Perhaps it’s that absence of tornadoes that first fueled my interest in them. I’m also an extreme nature buff, having traveled to Nazare, Portugal, to experience 60-foot waves on a jet ski, helicoptered over the active Hawaiian volcano Kilauea to see molten lava, cross-country skied to the geographic South Pole, and more. So when I discovered that organized storm groups in the southern and midwestern states chase tornadoes, I was intrigued.

In 2023, I joined Raychel Sanner of Tornado Titans for a tour. Over three days in mid-June, we hunted for the elusive beasts in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado. While we saw a number of stunning motherships and super cells, the structures that produce twisters, we never saw the real thing. At the time, I made a mental note to return to try and seal the deal.

Last week, I flew to Dallas, Texas, to join up with Tim Bovasso and Jeff Anderson, veteran storm chasers, to give it another go. First, Anderson took me up near Joplin, Missouri, on a promising day, and we managed to see two rain-wrapped tornadoes, the second of which was fairly weak but trapped us in it (yikes). Both were interesting experiences (story below), but still nothing photogenic had presented itself. Rain-wrapped storms tend to hide their funnels. My main goal, of course, was to see and photograph a classic tornado, one you might see in the popular “Twister” movies.

The forecast for the following few days looked decent again, but this time for West Texas. So early on the morning of April 24, we made our way from Dallas to Silverton. During the six-hour drive, I had a chance to chat with Bovasso. I learned a lot, most of which I will put in a separate interview story. But what stood out most is Bovasso’s cautioning on how rare it is to see a tornado period, especially a photogenic one, so not to get my hopes up too high.

We positioned ourselves near a developing wall cloud at the bottom of a super cell. That’s the dark area most likely to produce a twister. Then it was a waiting game, frustrating at times. Bovasso and Anderson kept getting excited, then shaking their heads in despair, as they watched the wall cloud and the weather apps on their cell phones. It really was hurry up and wait.

After about an hour, the decision was made to reposition ourselves southeast of the super cell to continue to have the best views. As we packed up our cameras and headed south on Highway 207, Bovasso glanced back in the scant hope that our abandoned cell would produce a tornado.

And, surprisingly it began to! Anderson immediately turned the car around, and, as we headed back north, a tiny dark nub at the back of our wall cloud began to drop slowly. “Tornado, tornado,” Bovasso yelled out.

As the vortex snaked further toward the ground, I couldn’t believe what was unfolding. There was no sound, no rain, and no hail as was with the rain-wrapped tornadoes we had witnessed a few days earlier, just a regal white cone forming majestically against the sky. We finally stopped the car and got out, furiously snapping photos.

As quickly as it had appeared, the funnel weakened and evaporated into a thinning rope, then disappeared altogether. Poof. The whole life of the thing was about six minutes. But what a six minutes! The experience reminded me of my encounters with the elusive Northern Lights in Iceland and Alaska. Here one minute, gone the next.

We chased the super cell southeast and continue to watch it, from farther away this time. And, just as with the first twister, a small nub started dropping and circulating from the wall cloud, but was shaped more like a stout stovepipe. Bovasso said that, while not as pretty as our first tornado, it was more powerful, probably classified as “strong” by the weather services.

As we watched it grow, it quickly spread out at its base, eventually morphing into a massive wedge tornado, estimated at over a quarter-mile in width. (A wedge tornado is wider than it is tall.) The structure is rare and serious, Bovasso said. We tracked it until it became rain-wrapped.

After that, we photographed some spectacular lightning, but really were downright giddy. We had seen three photogenic twisters in one day – a anticyclonic laminar cone, a stovepipe and a wedge. Even Bovasso, who has witnessed more than 100 tornadoes, was ecstatic, saying the day had been one of the best in his decades of chasing.

If anybody wants to see Mother Nature in its most raw but beautiful form, find a storm chasing group. There are plenty online. Some charge money, others, like Bovasso, do it for passion and to see the looks on folks’ faces when they experience a tornado for the first time. But do your diligence first. The right guide can keep you safe, but also suss-out the best areas to find tornadoes. High season is April through mid-June.

ForbesStorm Chasers Encounter Damaging Tornadoes And Find Themselves In OneBy Jim Clash