Seeing a Tornado is not like buying a ticket for a 7:00 pm movie at a local movie theatre. Contrary to popular belief, and the plethora of internet and social media images and videos depicting tornadoes in the wild, capturing Tornadoes is an incredibly difficult hobby. Intercepting a Tornado requires A LOT of skill, patience, & instinct. Storm chasing involves 80% driving / 20% storms and with careful forecasting, and many years of experience navigating each state’s geography, topography, road network & and a little bit of luck, we can catch catch a Tornado.
Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes. On this particular day, many storm chasers including ourselves nailed the forecast. Below is an example of a best case scenario from a Tornado chase on 4/26/2024 in Lincoln, Nebraska where we intercepted this later rated EF-4 low precipitation, highly visible Tornado at a close range distance of only 1.5 miles away!
We can also expect to see tornadoes such as the two examples below. Sometimes, these small, weak, visible tornadoes last only a few seconds, and then become larger damaging tornadoes afterwards. These same small tornadoes can also dissipate or lift with the storm not producing another Tornado for the rest of it’s storm life. Your Tornado tour guide will always work effortlessly to put you in the best position possible to view Tornadoes.
In both cases, each of these tornadoes pictured lasted only 1 to 2 minutes before they lifted and disappeared. The Tornado pictured in black and white quickly lifted and got swallowed up into a rain wrapped circulation shortly after touching down in Magee, Mississippi on 3/15/2025. 50 miles Northeast later, it would would touch back down as an EF-1 Tornado in Newton, Mississippi. The Tornado pictured with the orange background spun a short lived dirt whirl that spun itself out for a couple of minutes before completely disappearing. The parent supercell that spawned this dusty Tornado however, would later drop 3 more Tornadoes in the evening over the same area, and at one point two Tornadoes touched down at the same time, with the largest being an EF-2 Tornado that spent almost an hour on the ground after dark into the night.
Tornado Chasing Requires Patience…
Depending on the types of storms that spawn during our Tornado chase, and at what point of the storm’s lifecycle it’s in, you will see experience a mixture of photogenic & unphotogenic storms with and without Tornadoes inside of them.
The close range storm pictured (May, 2024 in Grandfield, Oklahoma) had a large tornado inside of it that crossed over our location. Unfortunately, due to it’s rain wrapped nature, although we were treated to quite a picturesque supercell, it’s Tornado was buried inside of the rain, large hail, and damaging winds. The Tornado was not visible to us. Your Tornado tour guides will stay ahead and in front of these storms in an effort to get the best angle to view the Tornado. The storm pictured at long range (June, 2022 in Lycan, Colorado) was Severe warned with no Tornado. Not every storm becomes tornadic, or severe. Your Tornado tour guides will use their many years of experience to put you in the best position to see the best storms. However, Tornadoes are NOT guaranteed.
Tornado Chasing Can Feel Impatient…