20 years ago tonight I was very excited as the next day marked the day I first went to the central US for a storm chasing trip - at that stage with my late university friend Mark Lowe - who was taken from this world far too early a number of years later.
May 18th, 1998, saw us fly to Dallas and embark on a 3 week odyssey around the Plains - I could barely believe it when we got onto the road and we were driving past places I'd read about, or seen on tornado videos.
Of course, over the years the feelings as chase time approaches are always those of excitement, but that first year was really something special for me.
Did we see much? Well, there was no in-car internet. and indeed not too much internet anyway (at least that we could find at that time!), our experience was pretty much nil despite reading a lot beforehand, and so we tended to head to areas we could determine from TV forecasts, used weather radio, and our eyes. We got some nice storms, but no tornadoes.
Our best chase day was June 7th when we hooked up with a few other chasers and caught a supercell near Clovis, New Mexico - I was in awe of it, despite difficult hazy viewing conditions. We did also get some baseball hail, which was really cool to see.
So as we gear up for what will be my 18th chase vacation I'm minded of that excitement about the unknown 20 years ago
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