My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of 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.
Models indicate a return to western upper troughing for at least 5 days starting this weekend, with attendant Gulf moisture return northward into the Great Plains.
GFS 500mb forecast for 7pm Sunday evening
A sharpening dryline is shown by Sunday the 12th as the first of several shortwaves ejects out over the Plains/Midwest. Following this, another shortwave-driven Plains dryline setup is indicated for Tuesday the 14th. 5-7 days is a lot of time for the details to get ironed out (for better or worse), but it's possible these two events will be at least moderately trip-worthy.
Models seem to show the potential for an active pattern to persist beyond next week. I don't see any epic blockbusters yet, but anything is possible as things come more into focus with time.
Again, my resources for chase trips are limited this season, so while this system might have prompted a trip in previous years, it unfortunately might not this season. To maintain consistency with previous year's probabilities, I'm keeping my criteria the same (as if I had the same resources to make trips as I did in seasons past). So, in essence, these are "base" probability values reflecting my optimism for a trip as if it were a normal year. With this year's stolen video/copyright-infringement-imposed restrictions, you can subtract roughly 30 to 35 percentage points from these to get an idea on what the impact of the infringement-caused income diversions are, and what my current effective probabilities of actually making a trip are as a result.
The following table plots the probabilities* of a Great Plains chase expedition taking place for the date ranges shown:
2026 Plains Chase Expeditions - Probabilities as of April 7*
April 7-10
0%
April 12-15
55%
April 16-20
45%
*Base/normal-season probability values are shown. Subtract 30 to 35 percentage points for effectivecopyright-infringement imposed probability values.
My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of 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.
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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.
Before continuing, check each box to agree to and acknowledge these two statements:
Click this button to finalize this acknowledgement:
This chase was a routine television assignment in my role as a cameraman. As a result, many of these don't have a dedicated chase log.
This chase was only recorded in my mileage reports, no detailed log was written for it.
