The heat of July continues, the doldrums, as we like to call them, and aside from the lightning/hail venture on the first day of the month, there has been ZERO to chase, and I’m not all too upset by it. The time off has been nice, and I can gradually feel the itch starting to return, but it doesn’t look as if Ma-Nature’s itch to get me out is on the same level. So…
I figured I would look back on the first half of the year and offer up my awards to this point. I will include the July 1 venture, even as it technically falls in the second-half of the year, but seeing as it’s been a couple weeks since and with nothing on the horizon, I will include it..
2026 TORNADO CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. APRIL 13, 2026
I went back and forth between this and June 25 in Oklahoma; and while Oklahoma did ‘save the season’, I have to give it to Minnesota on April 13. It gets the edge because this was my first real good tornado in the state, and it happened VERY early in the year, basically knocking the monkey off the back to get that first real legit tornado. Any other year, I would imagine this wouldn’t get this award, but given the lack of quality tornado intercepts this year, I had to give it this time around. Oklahoma offered some incredible structure and a couple nice tornadoes, but they probably sat just below Minnesota in terms of photogenic. I also fully documented the Minnesota chase, which worked out real nice and made for a good vlog.
2026 TORNADO/STRUCTURE COMBO OF THE YEAR (so far)… June 25, 2026
With that said, I will give a different award to acknowledge June 25. I would also give it the Season Achievement Award for saving 2026 for me. The issue being, the tornado part of this chase was so brief, less than 20 minutes; so one could argue this to be an overall chase that happened to include a great tornado. But this would certainly also win structure of the year, and probably a career-award for tornado/structure for me. A lot happened on this chase OUTSIDE the tornado, too, so while it was a tornado chase, the limited time window prevented this from otherwise taking that tornado chase of the year for me.
2026 HAIL CHASE OF THE YEAR.. MARCH 10, 2026
This will probably hold as one of the top 3 hail chases of my career, hence the lack of ‘so far’ in the title. I cannot imagine this chase being topped for hail, even with a couple months of the Colorado season remaining. But state-record hail, documented/measured 5″+, and the AMOUNT of it just blows away most of my previous hail chases. I actively gave up the tornado to document this hail, which I was able to go live with moments after it cleared out. Not to mention the time of year (early March) and WHERE it fell (northern Illinois), makes this all a slam-dunk for hail chase of the year. Easiest award ever!
2026 LIGHTNING CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. JULY 1, 2026
Another no-doubter for an award… up until this evening, I was clamoring for a good lightning outing, and I got that and then some late on the first day of July about an hour north of my home. This was the evening I had wanted all year, and easily was among my best in the last few years. What started out pretty slow and meh turned into the show of the year for lightning. I had two windows of shooting, both offering up some terrific shots. Once midnight hit and the calendar turned over, it became an overnight hail chase, but the lightning on the front side of it was what I wanted most, and it’s exactly what I got! This gave me some of my favorite lightning images taken in the last few years. Hopefully, this wasn’t an all-in-one thing, and a few more opportunities await. But even if those do not get up to the level this did, I will be VERY happy with this night.
2026 BEST NON-TORNADO CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. JUNE 13, 2026
One of those rare opportunities where I had some friends along for the ride, and it made for one of the more enjoyable chases of the season for me! Not to mention the storm we chased (or chased us) was hamming it up well for the cameras from start to finish. We were among the first ones on the storm, and because it was moving so slow, we were able to make multiple long stops along the way to take in the sights. Many thanks to Lindsey and Erin for being along for this, as they were a joy to chase with and we had a great time following this highly-dramatic storm across northeast Kansas. We got the hurricane treatment on the back end as the line overtook us near Kansas City, but none-the-less, easily one of the most fun chases of the season.
2026 MOST INTENSE CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. JUNE 22, 2026
This day had a little bit of everything, but a whole lot of intensity. Easily the most intense storm of the season for me, including multiple high-end hail intercepts, some of the most intense supercell wind I had seen in years, plus structure that dropped your jaw. This day started up near Kimball with a storm that dumped the first round of large hail, then followed it into Colorado where smaller, but more wind-driven hail came down outside Brush, then the hurricane of wind on my drive into Akron where they measured 113mph gusts moments after I got ahead of the storm, so it’s not a stretch to say I was in 100mph+ winds for part of that drive. Once I got ahead of the storm (FINALLY), it was structure-fest all the way to Cope before I finally called it a day. Easily the most intense storm I encountered during the year. And yes, I did catch a glimpse of a brief tornado outside Akron, which was nothing more than a stat-padder, but just adds another point to this day.
2026 SURPRISE CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. MAY 9, 2026
This marginal risk day in eastern Colorado takes the award for biggest surprise of the season so far. I had VERY little expectations for this day, and basically left the house with the thought this would be nothing more than a low-end day with some scenic skies. Turns out, it was a pretty beefy day with plentiful opportunities to document an amazing storm in northeast Colorado. Got into some low-end severe hail, awesome structure, and some decent daytime lightning. It was a very casual, low-end, low-stress chase that I very much enjoyed. Was easily among the VERY few highlights from a very slow May.
2026 BUST CHASE OF THE YEAR (so far).. APRIL 23, 2026
This day I think set the tone for most of the season for me… one of the few opportunities at a solid chase that was absolutely thrown away. We made the fatal mistake of splitting two target areas, and managed to leave too late and leave too early all at the same time. We played with the north storms in Kansas, were patient with them until we weren’t, and they would produce a series of landspouts we missed by about 30 minutes. At the same time, we didn’t leave soon enough to get into northern Oklahoma, missing big tornadoes near Braman and Enid. Not much to show for our efforts, in fact, so little that aside from the picture above, I haven’t even put the file folder on my main drive from this day. May 18 in northeast Kansas would get the runner-up, and was the day all the chaser traffic peaked, and we missed a couple birdfarts due to not being able to navigate terribly freely. Ultimately we got a good windbag intercept down near I-70, but that day still felt like a knuckleball to the nuts. June 24 in Colorado took third in this category, but I think mainly cause by this point in the season, I was pretty well over the whole year haha
2026 SONG OF THE YEAR.. DEATH COMES AT MIDNIGHT by MIDNIGHT DANGER
A pandora find on a channel I have that isn’t terribly hard in terms of music, but this snuck in and turned me on to Synthwave, and it made the rotation just about all year. I could argue it wasn’t the luckiest song to listen to, but it didn’t keep me from enjoying the hell out of it.
So those are my mid-season awards to this point… I expect most the rest of July to slide past without much fanfare, hoping the monsoon offers a couple lightning photo opportunities, and I am flirting with the idea of a southwest monsoon trip, albeit not sure the logistics will work out for me, but we’ll see. My car has been in and out of shops for the last week and change, so hopefully upon its return today, she is up to speed and ready to go. I have about a week left in my time off before I return to work, and while there are a few bigger stories going on Nationally, I don’t imagine any of them will involve any kind of travel for me at this point, but we’ll see what comes about. Monday, unfortunately, is a hard off for me, meaning I cannot move that day, so I won’t free up til Tuesday the 21st. Nothing in the longer-range points to any chasing, minus some northwest flow in the Midwest, but I don’t know how much interest myself or any relevant parties have in that. We shall see… til then, I will continue to enjoy the intermission and see what awaits me at the end of it.