Tony Laubach is a veteran storm chaser and degreed Meteorologist who has pursued severe weather across the United States since his first tornado in 1997. Over three decades on the road, he has documented hundreds of tornadoes, contributed to field research with projects such as TWISTEX, and shared extreme weather stories through broadcast, digital media, and national reporting. Today, Tony continues his work with AccuWeather, tracking, explaining, and experiencing the storms firsthand.
→ Learn about Tony
Northern Colorado (9 Miles)
SPC OUTLOOK: Marginal

Storm over the foothills flickered for a while before putting on the show of the year, me capturing multiple INCREDIBLY detailed shots! Including what I would easily consider my lightning shot of the year!

Tornadoes: 0
Max Hail: None
Flooding: None
Lightning: Captured
Chase Log: August 27, 2026
Western Nebraska (476 Miles)
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 25, 2026
Nebraska Panhandle (389 Miles)
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 22, 2026
Northeast Colorado (117 Miles)
TORNADOES
1
MAX HAIL
1.25"
FLOODING
Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 19, 2026
Eastern Colorado (898 Miles)
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
1.75"
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 17, 2026
Central Nebraska (396 Miles)
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured

Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

Latest Blog Entries

But, It’s a Really Big But

September 14, 2026 | Forecast Thoughts

Waking up this morning in Grand Island after yesterday’s football-filled drive (Washington lost to the Eagles by 2 in a more competitive game than I figured, but a loss is a loss), about 2-3 hours from my early afternoon target.  As usual, I will land in that target by 3pm, which probably oughta be more than enough time to settle and wait for the afternoon show. I probably should post a current grab of the radar, but that’s more effort than this Monday morning is going to get out of me.  Trust me when I say there is a LOT…

Monday is the Target

September 13, 2026 | Forecast Thoughts

Monday is the target day, the start of the ‘Second Season’ of chasing… while unlikely the last chase of the season, this will mark the home stretch of this season minus whatever El Nino has to serve up, particularly across the south/southeast through the winter. It’s an all-hazards setup, but with multiple caveats.  In fact, this has been highlighted in the SPC 15% since the Day 5, and we awakened this morning to the 15% dropped to an all-marginal, only for the SLIGHT to come back in the afternoon Day 3.  I don’t know why they opted to drop the…

Polished Up Front Page, All Log Types Live

September 11, 2026 | Website News

Been a busy stretch behind-the-scenes as I continued to bring the website up to spec.  I spent several hours yesterday evening polishing up the front page after adding the remaining post types to the site.  I’m about 90% of the way to finally making it so all that’s left to do is content generation, getting decades of weather logs up and running.  I have a lot of placeholders up to help me as I tweak site layouts, but soon I will begin to finally get all the archive content polished up and posted!  It’s super exciting! After building out all…

My Watermarking Journey

September 8, 2026 | Gear and Gadgets

I am SOOO EXCITED to finally have a pet-project completed!  Earlier this year, I created a watermarking app that I’ve been using on my phone so I could quick turn phone pictures for social, applying my watermark to those photos in a simple app.  After some small changes, I was using this with great success and ease through the season.  But one issue remained for me, and that was having this for my computers.  My PC workflow all consisted of one-by-one exports in Premiere, where I had a motion graphics locator and a separate PNG file placed in a timeline…

My Lightning Shots of the YEAR!!!!

September 7, 2026 | Post-Mortem

9 miles round trip was all it took to secure my best lightning photos of 2026!  And the one above EASILY the best of the bunch, maybe the best I’ve shot in the last couple years!  Holy cow, what an evening!  I posted all the shots on my chase log; go check them out!

New Sections Are Now Live!

September 5, 2026 | Website News

As mentioned earlier this week, I did some backend work on the site and have launched the Tropical Weather and Celestial Event sections!  The content of the logs is not populated yet, but I have finally got the landing pages for those sections coded out and posted.  Wildfires and Winter will be coming up the pipe in the coming days, which should round out all the remaining sections.  Obviously populating a lot of these will be the biggest project, but now those logs have places to live. Excited to finally expand the site with these new sections!  Looking forward to…

DURING THIS WEEK IN LAUBACH HISTORY

Sep 14 – Sep 20
Sep 16, 2023 - 3 Years Ago
Tropical Log
Hurricane Lee
Sep 16, 2006 - 20 Years Ago
Tornado
September 16, 2006 – Huntimer, SD

Tony's 10-Day Chase Outlook

TODAY SEP 14
Chase Day
ACTIVE
Southeast NE/Western IA
TOMORROW SEP 15
Watching
20%
Northern Missouri
WEDNESDAY SEP 16
No Chase Planned
<5%
THURSDAY SEP 17
No Chase Planned
<5%
FRIDAY SEP 18
No Chase Planned
<5%
SATURDAY SEP 19
No Chase Planned
<5%
SUNDAY SEP 20
No Chase Planned
<5%
MONDAY SEP 21
No Chase Planned
<5%
TUESDAY SEP 22
No Chase Planned
<5%
WEDNESDAY SEP 23
No Chase Planned
<5%
May 29, 2004 - Southern Kansas - 15 Tornadoes

For nearly 20 years, this was my number 1 chase! Over a dozen tornadoes across southern Kansas, including the Conway Springs sequence which included my first ever nationally televised tornado video!

June 21, 2023 - Northeast Colorado - 19 Tornadoes

The tornado chase of my lifetime, hands-down the all-time number 1! One of the most beautiful tornadoes ever photographed, one of nearly THREE dozen to touch down on this historic Colorado day.

May 24, 2016 - Southwest Kansas - 12 Tornadoes

An incredible, Top 5 all-time tornado intercept chase that included dozens of tornadoes around the Dodge City area in southwest Kansas. Also included my 300th career tornado.

Chase Log: April 10, 2005
Northwest Kansas (0 Miles)
Tornadoes: 5
Chase Log: May 4, 2022
Northwest Texas (873 Miles)
Tornadoes: 2
Chase Log: May 18, 2025
Northwest Kansas (654 Miles)
Tornadoes: 6
Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles (1271 Miles)
Tornadoes: 2
Chase Log: March 31, 2023
Southeast Iowa (755 Miles)
Tornadoes: 1
Chase Log: May 12, 2004
Southern Kansas (386 Miles)
Tornadoes: 7
Chase Log: June 25, 2026
Northwest Oklahoma (607 Miles)
Tornadoes: 2
Chase Log: June 23, 2023
Eastern WY/Western NE (449 Miles)
Tornadoes: 7
Chase Log: June 12, 2017
CO/WY/NE Tri-State Area (1,373 Miles)
Tornadoes: 3
Chase Log: June 16, 2014
Northeast Nebraska (987 Miles)
Tornadoes: 5
Chase Log: April 13, 2007
Northwest Texas (1,270 Miles)
Tornadoes: 1
Chase Log: May 15, 2003
Texas Panhandle (968 Miles)
Tornadoes: 3
Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 24, 2011
Tornadoes: 2 • Central Oklahoma (403 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 23, 2011
Tornadoes: 2 • Central Oklahoma (395 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: April 23, 2007
Tornadoes: 1 • Southern Kansas (522 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 23, 2008
Tornadoes: 7 • Northwest Kansas (275 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 23, 2007
Tornadoes: 2 • Texas Panhandle (899 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 29, 2008
Tornadoes: 16 • Southern NE/Northern KS (1,343 Miles)

HAIL CHASES

Chase Log: May 10, 2004
Northern Colorado (291 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 2.00"
Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles (1271 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 2.00"
Chase Log: April 29, 2003
Northeast Colorado (63 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 1.25"
Chase Log: April 28, 2003
Northeast CO (223 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 1.00"

FLOOD CHASES

Chase Log: July 8, 2011
Northeast Colorado (125 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles (1271 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: June 26, 2004
Northeast Colorado (33 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: June 16, 2019
Southern Kansas (45 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Street Flooding

LIGHTNING CHASES

Chase Log: May 14, 2020
Southeast Kansas (420 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: April 15, 2024
Southeast Nebraska (828 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: September 9, 2025
Eastern CO/Western KS (792 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: July 1, 2026
Northern Colorado (76 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured

Southern Illinois Ice Storm

Southern Illinois, IL
Date: January 6, 2025
Log →

Tropical Storm Edouard

Johnson Bayou, LA
Date: September 1, 2026
Log →

Insane Auroras Over Northern Colorado

Milliken, CO
Date: November 11, 2025
Log →

Palisades Fire

Los Angeles County, CA
Date: January 13, 2025
Log →
Where It All Began

The first chase, the first tornado, the May 14, 1997 Ohio-chase that started it all.

The Story of #81

The number of Washington Redskins great, Art Monk, becomes a storm chasing icon.

The Road to Half-a-Million

In 22 years, 2 months, and 2 days, I drove half-a-million mile chasing storms across the country.

August 26, 1999
Lightning

Weather Journal: August 26, 1999

Morrison, CO
June 12, 1996
Flooding

Weather Journal: June 12, 1996

Circleville, OH
July 15, 1998
Lightning

Weather Journal: July 15, 1998

Littleton, CO
August 18, 1998
Lightning

Weather Journal: August 18, 1998

Littleton, CO