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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Western IL
1,251 Miles | SPC Outlook: Enhanced

Played the Illinois warm front and intercepted a wicked looking monster HP supercell that put on a visual show despite missing a weak, brief tornado on the storm to our east.

TORNADOES: 0
MAX HAIL: None
FLOODING: Not Observed
LIGHTNING: Captured

Chase Log: April 2, 2026

Eastern IA/Western IL (954 Miles)
TORNADOES: 2
MAX HAIL: 0.5"
FLOODING: Not Observed

Chase Log: March 10, 2026

Northern Illinois (2,148 Miles)
TORNADOES: 2
MAX HAIL: 5.25"
FLOODING: Not Observed

Chase Log: March 5, 2026

Northwest Texas (910 Miles)
TORNADOES: 0
MAX HAIL: 1.75"
FLOODING: Not Observed

Chase Log: February 19, 2026

Southeast Illinois (1,689 Miles)
TORNADOES: 0
MAX HAIL: 0.88"
FLOODING: Observed

Chase Log: September 9, 2025

Eastern CO/Western KS (792 Miles)
TORNADOES: 0
MAX HAIL: 2.00"
FLOODING: Observed

Chase Log: August 10, 2025

Northern Colorado (150 Miles)
TORNADOES: 0
MAX HAIL: 1.00"
FLOODING: Observed

Tony's Blogbach, Between the Isobars

Latest Blog Entries

Busy Week Ahead, Iowa-Bound Today

April 12, 2026 | Forecast Thoughts

The weekend setups became a wash for me, despite Saturday giving some play to pretty every place I targeted at one point or another.  The issue for me was that despite an early alarm that would’ve allowed me to hit any target, including the further east target, I had a low-end kitty cat emergency that I had to tend to, which by the time it wrapped up and I returned the kitty home, it was already after noon, and thus pretty well ended any hope I had to get on anything reasonable.  The good news, the kitty is at home…

Hays to Salina Saturday

April 11, 2026 | Forecast Thoughts

Quick evening note; will travel my way out I-70 tomorrow, leaving a bit earlier in the morning than I would for a typical ‘travel day’ just in case a storm can get going in central Kansas in the afternoon; not expecting a ton out of it, but given the Sunday setup, this sets me up well.   Initially thought about cruising into Burlington mid-afternoon to see if the storms in Colorado would be worth anything, and I am just not convinced they’ll amount to enough to dedicate missing any central Kansas potential, nor sacrificing a full day’s drive out east.  Some…

Wheels Up Tomorrow Through Mid-Week

Looks like things will kick off for me tomorrow… I sat out yesterday and today, and while I am not formally planning to chase tomorrow as I am playing it as a positioning day, there are some potential storm interactions I could have in far eastern Colorado tomorrow afternoon, so I’m not writing off tomorrow yet, but it’ll likely be a ‘just cause I’m there’ type of thing. As I eluded to in my previous entry, nothing in the coming days looks ‘HISTORIC’, or end of the world.  As is typical with these things, there is a lot of click-bait…

A New Stint To Begin?

Busy stretch looks to shape up heading into this coming weekend, and it may extend well into next week.  Saturday through Monday look like high-likelihood chase days, with Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday also presenting some opportunity.  Still working out the details and logistics on what days will be my focus, and when I would depart to set up for them, so plenty left to uncover as the days go on.  Depending on where you get your weather information, this could be the ‘tornado outbreak of the year’?  Yeah, I don’t speculate on the high-side potential of these events.  As we’ve…

Thoughts From The Road

Thanks to Ed for taking the wheel early this grey Saturday morning… we’ve wrapped up a busy three days of chasing and have just left Peoria, Illinois to begin our long haul back home to Colorado.  It was a pretty packed slate of storms for us, although nothing terribly big, despite some high-ceiling setups.  I’ll have those inked out in the coming days, so be sure to check out the chase logs for those.  While we did see a couple birdfart tornadoes on Thursday in Iowa, I think Friday was actually my favorite of the three chase days as the…

Wheels Up Today For Multi-Day Chase Trip

March 31, 2026 | Forecast Thoughts

As my cute, new little widget over there on the right shows, I’ve got several chase days lined up starting tomorrow.  Spent most of the afternoon yesterday getting the ride ready to rock.  She’s been dormant since returning from Illinois, so almost two weeks.  Actually managed to keep the driving limited to a single full tank of gas during that stretch, nice cause the 87 octane here is the mid-grade, so it’s $4+ right now here in northern Colorado without fuel points chipping away at some of that.  Fortunately the 87 octane becomes regular unleaded across the border, so that’ll…

Tony's 10-Day Chase Outlook

TODAY APR 12
No Chase Planned
TOMORROW APR 13
Likely Chase Day
Northeast IA/Southeast MN
TUESDAY APR 14
Likely Chase Day
Midwest
WEDNESDAY APR 15
Likely Chase Day
Midwest/Mid-South
THURSDAY APR 16
Possible Chase Day
TBD
FRIDAY APR 17
Likely Chase Day
TBD
SATURDAY APR 18
No Chase Planned
SUNDAY APR 19
No Chase Planned
MONDAY APR 20
No Chase Planned
TUESDAY APR 21
Watching
TBD

Career Stats

Stat Keeping Started in 2002
Career Miles: 546,382
Career Chases: 555
Career Tornadoes: 478
Career Tornado Days: 199
Career Tornado Average: 0.359
Career Work Logs: 403
Career Total Logs: 958
Career 1K Mile Chases: 141
Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment
Chase Log: May 23, 2011
Central Oklahoma
Tornadoes: 2
Chase Log: May 22, 2007
Northern Kansas
Tornadoes: 1
Chase Log: May 23, 2008
Northwest Kansas
Tornadoes: 7
Chase Log: April 23, 2007
Southern Kansas
Tornadoes: 1
Chase Log: May 24, 2011
Central Oklahoma
Tornadoes: 2
Chase Log: April 24, 2007
Central Kansas
Tornadoes: 3

HAIL CHASES

Chase Log: May 24, 2020
Southern Kansas
Max Hail: 2.75"
Chase Log: June 13, 2021
Northern Colorado
Max Hail: 1.75"
Chase Log: April 29, 2003
Northeast Colorado
Max Hail: 1.25"
Chase Log: May 5, 2006
Western Texas
Max Hail: 3.00"

FLOOD CHASES

Chase Log: April 15, 2016
TX/OK Panhandles
Flooding: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: July 8, 2011
Northeast Colorado
Flooding: Urban Flooding
Chase Log: June 16, 2019
Southern Kansas
Flooding: Street Flooding
Chase Log: June 26, 2004
Northeast Colorado
Flooding: Urban Flooding

LIGHTNING CHASES

Chase Log: August 11, 2011
Northeast CO/Southwest NE
Lightning: Captured
Chase Log: April 12, 2007
Texas Panhandle
Lightning: Captured
Chase Log: September 9, 2025
Eastern CO/Western KS
Lightning: Captured
Chase Log: April 19, 2023
Southwest Iowa
Lightning: Captured

MY CHASING HISTORY

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…