In September of 2025, my work is generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I'm being forced to shut down my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
I've seen enough of medium-range models that I'm confident in declaring that my annual Great Plains tornado season standby period has ended, and will do so without me having made any Plains chases. It's the first time I'll record a zero on the board of spring Plains travel days since 2011 (aside from the obvious 2020 exception). Thankfully, the April 4 Illinois event will prevent me from going tornado-less this year.
While there have been some good storms in the high plains of New Mexico and west Texas this year, those areas are just too far outside of my normal range to consider. They've occurred as diamonds-in-the-rough during mostly-marginal setups that didn't present themselves as trip-worthy, particularly considering almost twice the mileage of the average central/southern Plains trip would have been required. If peak-season storm targets are essentially near Albuquerque, Fort Stockton or Del Rio as they've been, that means they're not your classic Plains dryline days and therefore you're just not going to see me making a trip for them.
Will I miss storms and tornadoes with that stance? Yes, of course I will - but I'm OK with that. I'm unapologetically a classic dryline supercell aficionado during peak tornado season, and normally I'm not going to consider traveling much farther south than the Red River, north of South Dakota or west of the Texas border. If action doesn't happen within those confines in April-June, it usually means it's just a bad year for spring storms and I'm better off saving my money for opportunities later in the year (or even in the next).
So, my focus now pivots to Midwestern summer storms, and it appears we might have some opportunities as the upper jet and deep moisture finally return to our region in the next couple of weeks. This upper jet configuration would have been great for Plains tornadoes had it occurred 2 to 3 weeks earlier - but this late in the season, such a jet usually just brings with it a "thermonuclear" capping inversion from northern Mexico that suppresses storms over the Plains.
I've also made some changes to my high-speed camera rig this month, with a wider lens that I'm hoping will result in some better lightning captures. Stay tuned!
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
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