As of today, 8/16, I sit at 30,991 miles, which currently sits at 8th highest all time. With what likely will be a 1000-1500 mile round trip after Monday/Tuesday, I will likely break into my top 5 highest single-season miles. And while unlikely I reach upper 30K, a Top 3 ending is definitely plausible. Below are the season stats for the years that rank ahead of 2026..
#8 – 2026: 30,991
#7 – 2025: 31,018 (28 away)
#6 – 2010: 31,676 (686 away)
#5 – 2016: 31,835 (845 away)
#4 – 2022: 33,387 (2,397 away)
#3 – 2007: 33, 934 (2,944 away)
#2 – 2011: 36, 404 (5,414 away)
#1 – 2023: 42,360 (11,370 away)
Obviously I could jump to #7 with a roll around the block for a storm locally, but with an easy 1,000 mile ahead of me, I foresee sitting at #5 by midweek. And from there, probably only a single, multi-day long-distance trip to get into 4th.
An interesting note; four of the six seasons with AccuWeather have cracked the top 10 (2022, 2023, 2025, 2026), with 2021 being a half-season split between Wichita and Colorado. The 2024 season was my lowest of the group, so that basically means 4 of the 5 FULL TIME AccuWeather chasing seasons have made it into the top 10. A lot of that likely being contributed to by the amount of long-distance, southeast region chases I embarked on, but a heavy emphasis on storm chasing has definitely helped rack up the miles, and 2026 will likely be in the top half of the AccuWeather era years.
As for the rest of this season, I would put money on a top 3 finish. It is HIGHLY unlikely I hit #1 as by this time in 2023, I was sitting at 38,704 miles, well ahead of where I am same time this year, a nearly 8,000 mile advantage. However, the #2 2011 season, I was at 32,690 at this point, and it was due to a busy fall season I added to that. Worth noting as well that I was also residing in Colorado back that year as well, so the out-and-back would be very similar to now. And for the record to wrap up the top 3, I am nearly 3,000 miles ahead the 2007 pace, which also saw a high-amount of September/October chasing, including two 1,000 mile ventures.
Career-total-wise… I will eclipse 570,000 miles, which means I will be within a long-shot of cracking 600K career-miles next year, which will be season 31, and in May, will be 30 years to the day from my first chasing in 1997. Anything I can do to exceed 570K the rest of the year will definitely make 600K next year much more attainable, so we’ll see how the rest of this year goes. On the calendar, I still have four FULL months, plus the back-half of August, but things will calm down considerably heading into the fall, so most of the rest of the year’s miles after August winds down will likely come from a couple spot chases and/or a few Midwest/Mid-South ventures.
Another thing to note, the many back-and-forth from Colorado the Midwest (primarily Illinois), which definitely put the miles-per-log much higher than many of the other top seasons. The log total up til this point in the year, 47, is about 10-12 logs LESS than the other seasons ahead of this that are roughly the same mileage. That puts my average-miles-per-log at 659, with only three other seasons ahead of me sitting above 600. This year’s average-per-log is third most, behind 2022 and 2023, both those again being AccuWeather years. That translates to a lot of long-distance driving this year, more so than other years prior.
One last fun note… I moved to Wichita, Kansas in March 2018 and left in early May of 2021. During that time, I logged a TOTAL of 30,309 miles, which includes the three 2021 chases that were started in Wichita prior to my relocation. I have done more miles this year than I did my entire time in Wichita. Yes, part of that was because I didn’t have to drive as far for chasing, but that was also largely due to the fact I was mainly restricted to Kansas, which as we all remember, had some of the slowest severe weather seasons in history when I was there. But the heavy presence in Kansas with little out-of-state ventures factored VERY heavily into that equation. But regardless, for the third season since leaving Kansas, I have put on more miles in a single year than I did my entire stint in Wichita.
So yeah, expect a top 5 ranking upon my return home mid-week… a true testament to the work that’s gone into this year. And again, if you’re just looking at the paper, seeing the numbers, you’d think I’m having a career year, but the results have been anything but. We’ll see how the last part of 2026 shakes out, and it’s still up in the air as to whether the run at 500 tornadoes can happen before the calendar turns over to 2027.
