The grind that is 2026 continues… brief tastes of success, but so much left on the table. The story continued this past weekend. Seems every year I hit a slump, and it grinds the season to a halt, and I wait for something to finally push me forward. In 2024, that grind largely held all season. But most years, I get a break. This weekend was another grind, another tornado closer to 500, but plenty left on the table. Monday was the headliner day, and of course, I did everything possible to avoid tornadoes. I won’t end up writing up a log for it, so quick ‘n’ dirty was we got on the first tornadic storm of the day, then abandoned it when traffic got too clustered to keep up. The storm would go on to produce a tornado 15 minutes later. Next storm south we got on, similar thing, we left, it tornado’d. Third storm did the same, and we basically gave up and got down on I-70 to get rolled by the severe line of storms that did produce 70-80mph winds on us in Wamego.
Sunday, I did get enough imagery of the EF-3 tornado north of Grand Island, but definitely missed out on any good imagery of it. Fortunately the rope out exposed itself long enough where I could get video on it for a few seconds to pull out an image to say “hey look, I saw it too!”. Traffic again was a nightmare, and played a big role in my navigation. Later that night, likely the highlight of the trio of days I chased, was awesome sunset skies and my first time capturing lightning this season, so that was a nice way to end what was otherwise a slightly frustrating tornado day.
Friday was largely underwhelming… a couple tornadoes did drop from the storms I was on, nothing to write home about, but added to the list of missed ones for the year. Got some 2″ hail and a few good lightning clips out of Saturday.
The common thread, at least Sunday and Monday, was the INCREDIBLE amount of chasers… and for the first time in my career, adversely affected my ability to do my job. There are a lot of thoughts and opinions swirling around social, and believe me, I have my share, but I’ll reserve those for it’s own thing. But after the taste of it in Minnesota in April, it became a major issue this weekend. Lots to say on that, but for another time.
So quick and dirty… I’m home as of Tuesday evening and will kinda reset. Some low-end potential in the region Thursday into Friday, but I will sit on that for the night and set my chase outlook and we’ll go from there!