Yeah, that was a mistake… unfortunately I kinda wussed out as I wasn’t feeling 100%, and as the day drew on, I lost the energy and motivation, so by 3pm, when things started to fire in the Black Hills (despite the models saying otherwise), I was already too far gone. That storm ended up being a long-track supercell that produced 3″ hail, awesome lightning, and yes, even a damn tornado near Potter, Nebraska near I-80, which I could’ve made even leaving later when it became apparent that storm was in it for the long haul. That storm tracked due south from border-to-border in Nebraska, then made it to Sterling, with tornado warnings on it for over an hour, with one confirmed near Potter. The lightning was top-notch from what I saw as well. So big wiff on me there. Unfortunately having been on the road the four days prior, and the ongoing gut issues, I just ran out of gas. Had I committed earlier in the day, I probably would’ve been fine just sucking it up, but I let it catch me, and by then, it was easier to commit to not going. Oh well… can’t make ’em all.
Storm chances today and tomorrow locally, nothing too noteworthy, but its there. No major plans to chase, but should something play nearby, I will give it a go.
An answer, that as one of my current favorite songs by Harem Scarem is titled, is ‘Slowly Slipping Away’. Truthfully, what a great album they did there in the early 90s at the tail end of the hair band era (damn you, grunge)… anywoo, I digress…
It was about 36 hours ago when today looked like a sure-fire chase day, but similar to just about every day this past week, things just unraveled, this day a bit slower than the earlier days this week. Honestly, if I had it to do over again, I would’ve chased yesterday and sat out today as yesterday fell into the over-performing mode compared to the models, which have had an ass time resolving the convective potential of every day this past week. Last night, there were glimmers of intent to fire storms late afternoon, perhaps after 4pm, across the Black Hills and slide them southeast into northern Nebraska, but suddenly overnight convection popped into chat and that has thrown a huge wrench into things for today. Now, as the last few morning runs have indicated, nothing is certain with the morning showers and storms which are currently ongoing from North Platte northward and even new development near Julesburg, all of which does nothing but prolong the recovery time, and thus delay storm initiation further and further into the day, and possibly into the night.
Shown above are the latest HRRR models runs for 8PM and 2AM MDT (9PM/3AM CDT) when models start to initiate the two rounds of storms. The first, which if you eliminate the time, is great due to its location there just north of I-80 in the southern Nebraska Panhandle, meaning it’s less than a 3 hour shot to get up there. The bad news, it’s 8pm. Optimistically, storms COULD fire at or just before sunset, leaving a short daylight window available before darkness sets in. Now, if you’re hunting lightning, which I will not rule out as being Main Mission #1, that may not be a bad thing, and could offer some decent lightning photography opportunities, which if I am being honest is the sole reason I am even keeping this scenario in mind. Right now, there is little to NO indication of initiation closer to say 6pm, which does put a big hurt on potential to head up that way. But the lightning scenario, and perhaps some quicker than expected recovery could still yield a reason to make the run up there come about 3pm, which right now, is slated as my cut-off.
The second round of storms, which likely does not come into play, would be the overnight round, likely the stronger of the two rounds, developing after midnight and sliding southeast toward I-80. Given the after-midnight timing, it’s highly unlikely that factors into my plans, other than the chance such a system is far enough west to impact, say North Platte, where I would probably hunker down for the night. Even in that scenario, history teaches me that I would unlikely put forth any major effort to do anything with those storms, meaning they’d have to actually awaken me from slumber to where I would go out in my pajamas and shoot from the hotel cover out front. Not something I would put any money on me doing.
So right now as of this writing, it’s just after 10am; waiting for the 1630z SPC outlook to probably tell me nothing, but as of now, I sit at a GENEROUS 50% chance to go. Every hour the CAMs continue to lack initiation before 8pm is another 10% drop; by 3pm, that chance will sit at zero. I will need a solid sign of convection ongoing BEFORE 7pm to keep my hopes alive… right now, that’s not happening. 21z runs will be the final ones to convince me.
First blog entry using my phone, so forgive.. well, whatever happens that is odd with this entry haha I’m at Starbucks while my car is in the shop. With about 233 miles left on my 100K warranty, I drove straight in from last night’s hotel to the shop to address a few items to be covered before I turn over 100K. With some non-covered items to tend to, I’m gonna get about $3000 worth of work for ~$1100, so I’ll take it!
Two quick notes… first, yesterday’s chase was pretty damn good. I saw what was easily the most dramatic display of hail fog I had ever seen. While I did capture it, I spent about half the time the display was in peak just gawking over it. I’ll write more of it the log, but that was easily the highlight of what was otherwise a pretty meh series of days. I had barely any real motivation to chase yesterday, almost to the point of cutting my losses and heading straight home, but I stuck it out and got what was arguably one of the best scenes of the season. It’s amazing to me that even after 30 years of doing, I can still see stuff that not only just leaves me in awe, but is something I have not seen before.
Tomorrow is on my radar, although the runtime runs have kinda stomped on the central Nebraska setup. It is the last ‘real’ chase opportunity of this stint, which may carry more weight than it should, so we’ll see if I pull the trigger. Given the length of time I was on the road this week, I may not be so inclined to roll out. But we’ll see. It is on the outer edge of my day-of driving bubble, so I can sit on it til morning.
My car should be ready here in a couple hours, so I’m gonna hoof around, walk off the Starbies treat I just sipped down, and head home to rest the week’s laundry and enjoy an evening at home and see what direction tomorrow leans.
Yesterday provided the goods, but I let impatience get the best of me as storms out west eventually did fire, some packing quite the punch, but the storm of the day blew up around sunset about 90 minutes and change north of Kearney, becoming an impressive supercell that did carry a tornado warning for the better part of an hour or so. Unfortunately, it was far enough from me here in Kearney where I knew the likelihood of it maintaining itself as a supercell was unlikely, so I opted for the lightning consolation prize from about 40 miles or so south, which provided some great imagery. I had the thought that I could meet it in Grand Island, but it got pretty strung out as other storms began to develop across central Nebraska. I didn’t do much else with it after the lightning. I didn’t miss much, a few significant wind reports back west of North Platte (where I spent a majority of my afternoon waiting hours), but I basically found myself in the storm hole and was too far from any of the action areas to salvage the evening, so the lightning was it for me.
Today has fallen apart, tomorrow not looking so great, either. It’s up for debate how and IF I even play today. I could cut my losses and return home, which would still allow me the eastern Colorado play tomorrow. I could also lean into the long-shot northern Kansas play this afternoon, which would dump me on I-70, also giving me the Colorado play tomorrow. Few models are doing ANYTHING with today, and if you go by those alone, they would give more potential to western Nebraska (and that’s a low-bar ‘more’, BTW). Again, ending up in North Platte tonight would not be the end of the world for tomorrow, a simple two-hour drop into Wednesday’s target, so it’s a valid target to play out west today. But honestly, I could see today being down, maybe just point myself down to Hays, hunker down there this afternoon and if something fires in northern Kansas, you’re pretty set for positioning, then see how Wednesday shakes out.
That being said, today is a definite milk-the-checkout, which will include a shower and gear reset, then decide from there how to play today into tomorrow. Right now, I’m not completely writing off today, certainly ‘more excited’ about tomorrow, so I am leaning heavily into the position for tomorrow while keeping today’s slim chances a float.
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..
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.
Current Chase Annual/Lifetime Statistics Ending August 15, 2026
