Conditions are finally becoming a bit more favorable across the High Plains for severe weather. However, the past few weeks have been extremely limited due to lack of flow, lack of moisture and you guessed it – lack of quality storms. We had been reduced to being extremely happy with rainbows lately – it’s not what we’re here for, but they still make a great photo!

So what do storm chasers do when the weather is horrible (that is sunny with a light breeze)? They drive around and take artsy photos of anything that they can pass the time with. I snapped a few shots of a wind turbine in NE Kansas last week and made this composite image from them.

We started the day off in the southern portion of the Texas Panhandle and drove all day without much stopping to get back into Oklahoma. We witnessed convective initiation on the southern end of the boundary, just north of Watonga and stayed with this cell all evening long.

You know how you can tell when your tour customers are happy? They smile! And, these guys should be smiling after witnessing awe-inspiring storm structure in none other than the roadless Nebraska Sandhills on May 20th (Tour 4). Not too mention we just drove through that dark precip area in the background a few minutes before this was taken.

Tour 4 was a rough week for storms, we only had a single chase day – Wednesday May 20th. We intercepted a supercell near Hyannis, NE that is otherwise known as the “Mullin Storm”.

Just a few photos of some storms during the first half of May 2009.

It seems that storm chasers and musicians pretty much live the same road life…

If there is a tornado, I sure hope someone has it covered! There were hundreds of storm chasers covering a severe thunderstorm on May 5th near Breckenridge, Texas. After all, it was the only storm in the entire state so there wasn’t a lot to choose from.