2018 Chase Season Summary

The 2018 spring storm chase season was decidedly poor. As usual, I chased as tour director for Tempest Tours for most days from late April though June. I went back home on a weekend in May and a weekend in June for my other work requirements. I missed a few good events and I caught several very nice events! There were no major tornado outbreaks on the Plains during the spring. The nice tornado events were largely isolated, some easily forecasted and some not so much.

This SPC page shows (through November 17, 2018) that only one of the ten top tornado days of 2018 occurred from late April through June. That day was May 28, when we witnessed a handful of tornadoes in eastern Colorado. The Great Plains states posted very poor tornado numbers during the spring. Oklahoma has had only 22 tornadoes in all of 2018, so far, and Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas are all at 45 or fewer. Sometimes these states can have these numbers of tornadoes on ONE DAY during outbreaks! For the most part, the best forecastable, chase-able, and photogenic tornadoes during the spring and early summer were on the High Plains.

Anyway, you get the idea. The number of high-end chase days in 2018 was on the low side. I had about four good tornado chase days, plus several other great supercell chase days when tornadoes may have occurred but were hidden by precipitation. The awesome June 28 tornado outbreak near the Montana and South Dakota border (near Capitol, Montana) really salvaged my chase season and put an exclamation point at the end. This Stormbruiser entry provides links to the better chase days, and it showcases some of my photography during the chase season.

These are quick links to the posts for April, May and June.

This link will send you to the links for previous annual storm chase summaries.

May 1 A grand supercell in central Kansas was abandoned an hour or two before it started to produce a large tornado — oops!