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.
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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
SPC Slight Risk - Chase Miles: 476
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 25, 2026 - Nebraska Panhandle
SPC Slight Risk - Chase Miles: 389
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 22, 2026 - Northeast Colorado
SPC Marginal Risk - Chase Miles: 117
TORNADOES
1
MAX HAIL
1.25"
FLOODING
Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 19, 2026 - Eastern Colorado
SPC Marginal Risk - Chase Miles: 898
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
1.75"
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 17, 2026 - Central Nebraska
SPC Slight Risk - Chase Miles: 396
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Captured
Chase Log: August 15, 2026 - Northern Colorado
SPC Slight Risk - Chase Miles: 183
TORNADOES
0
MAX HAIL
None
FLOODING
Not Observed
LIGHTNING
Not Captured

Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

Latest Blog Entries

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…

A Quiet Stretch FINALLY

There are 19 days between August 12 and August 30, and I chased 11 of them.  Three were road travel days, and I flew to Houston on the 30th… 15 of 19 days I was on the road/in the sky… if you factor Edouard and flying home yesterday, that would be 17 of the last 21 days… that’s a lot… So yes, forgive me when I say FINALLY in terms of a quiet stretch… I hadn’t really had any idea I had gone that hard in the last few weeks until I felt it yesterday.  Edouard wasn’t the most exhausting…

Tropical Storm Edouard Intercept

September 2, 2026 | Tropical

Trust me when I say that I wasn’t really have THAT much fun standing in the western eyewall of Edouard near Port Arthur, Texas to start off September; I was attempting to recorded a selfie-style video, but the wind and rain was so overwhelming, I just laughed at the camera.  Made for a great still!  Haha But yes, got back from a one-and-done intercept of Edouard; a small, but mighty storm… got blasted pretty good in the western eyewall, and spent a good chunk of time doing the thing in there, and was back home the following day.  While more…

Early Weather Journals Section Going LIVE!

August 30, 2026 | Website News

https://tonylaubach.net/weather-journals/ This is exciting!  In conjunction with a social media series I am putting together for September, I finally created a space here on my site to include some early-era (pre-chase) weather journals, which cover many events in the mid/late 90s prior to my chase documentation.  This includes a few Ohio-based weather events I experienced and documented in some form, plus my high-school era lightning photography when I moved to Colorado in 1998.  For years, most of this stuff has been scattered about on various pieces of hardware in various forms of archives, many scans of old photos with no…

DURING THIS WEEK IN LAUBACH HISTORY

Sep 11 – Sep 17
Sep 13, 2025 - 1 Year Ago
Storm Chase
Chase Log: September 13, 2025
Sep 16, 2006 - 20 Years Ago
Tornado
September 16, 2006 – Huntimer, SD

Tony's 10-Day Chase Outlook

TODAY SEP 11
Watching
20%
Southern Nebraska
TOMORROW SEP 12
Watching
20%
Central Kansas
SUNDAY SEP 13
No Chase Planned
<5%
MONDAY SEP 14
Watching
40%
East NE into IA
TUESDAY SEP 15
Watching
20%
TBD
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%
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.

Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: June 17, 2009
Tornadoes: 9 • Central Nebraska (645 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: April 24, 2007
Tornadoes: 3 • Central Kansas (874 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: April 23, 2007
Tornadoes: 1 • Southern Kansas (522 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 22, 2007
Tornadoes: 1 • Northern Kansas (545 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 24, 2011
Tornadoes: 2 • Central Oklahoma (403 Miles)
TWISTEX Tornado Chase Log: May 29, 2008
Tornadoes: 16 • Southern NE/Northern KS (1,343 Miles)

HAIL CHASES

Chase Log: August 9, 2011
Southwest Nebraska (784 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 2.25"
Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles (0 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 2.00"
Chase Log: April 28, 2003
Northeast CO (223 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 1.00"
Chase Log: May 24, 2020
Southern Kansas (408 Miles)
Max Hail Size Observed: 2.75"

FLOOD CHASES

Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles (0 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: June 27, 2004
Northeast Colorado (52 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Flash Flooding
Chase Log: June 26, 2004
Northeast Colorado (33 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: July 8, 2011
Northeast Colorado (125 Miles)
Flooding Observed: Urban Flooding

LIGHTNING CHASES

Chase Log: April 12, 2007
Texas Panhandle (798 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: July 1, 2026
Northern Colorado (76 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: September 6, 2026
Northern Colorado (9 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured
Chase Log: May 6, 2016
Northeast Colorado (1,094 Miles)
Lightning Imagery: Captured

MY CHASING HISTORY & JOURNALS

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.