United States Storm Chasing Tours & Storm Chasing Adventure Trips In United States

When you arrive at the base city hotel we'll hold a pre-tour orientation meeting and explain the current state of the atmosphere along with some general forecasting information about what you can expect from the weather during your storm chasing tours. The following day, we'll head out bright and early in search of Mother Nature's most violent severe weather - tornadoes! On average, we'll travel about 500 miles per day and spend the night in comfortable brand-name hotels. On days when there are no chances of severe weather, we'll take a group vote and visit a national park or monument, or even attend a major league baseball game - there are always plenty of activities to choose from on non-weather days.
We meet in the hotel lobby at 7am while tour director Brian Barnes and key members of the storm chasing team prepare the day's storm forecast by carefully looking over a lot of different types of information and even doing a hand mesoscale analysis (method of identifying key information on printed paper weather maps). Once the chase "focus" target has been identified for the day, Brian will hold a quick briefing to explain the synoptic situation of the atmosphere and where and why we are traveling to that area and what we might expect for the day - and hope to expect.We will then spend the majority of the day in our comfortable passenger vans, equipped with captain seating and lots of storm chasing technology on our way to the target area. For your pleasure, we have even installed satellite television in the van. Brian will be regularly checking updated weather information throughout the day and modifying our focused target area accordingly.On a typical day, the storms will begin to "fire" between 6 and 7pm. We will try to stop for a quick lunch during the day, but we usually have a late dinner after the chase for the day ends and we arrive at our hotel in the nearest town/city of reasonable size (reasonable meaning there are such things as name brand hotels and some food choices).

We are a storm chasing tour company managed by David Gold, a meteorologist with an M.S. in meteorology and nearing completion of a PhD. We have over a decade of storm chasing experience. We had a great time operating tours in 1998, 1999 and 2000, and we look forward to yet another exciting year in 2001. We hope that you will be part of that experience. For a complete schedule listing the available 2001 storm chasing tours, as well as a complete description of what we do, please visit the Silver Lining Tour homepage at:
A typical day:

8:30am: Group breakfast
10:00am: Weather Briefing - where will the storms be?
The tour leader, David Gold, gives a weather briefing
outlining the region that we feel offers the best opportunity for seeing supercell storms. Then our group
will depart for this so-called "target region".

10:30am - 4:00pm: drive to the "target region", stopping for
lunch along the way if there's time.

4:00pm-9:00pm: Chase the storms! If the storms are producing spectacular lightning, then we'll show the group
how to photograph lightning, especially at night!

10-midnite: Turn in and look forward to the next day's
exciting storm chasing!