Storm Chasing

L. Frank Baum lived in various places across the United States, including New York, South Dakota, Chicago and Hollywood. Research for my biography has involved travelling all over the US, digging around in obscure archives and visiting the many places Baum lived. In the summer of 2007 I went to South Dakota to explore the western landscapes Baum inhabited, which had such a big influence on his stories. The Great Plains of the Dakotas, rather than Kansas, is the place of origin of the twisting tornado that whirls Dorothy away to the Land of Oz. The west has the most powerful electric storms anywhere in the world; tornadoes can follow a big thunder storm. I wanted to get up close to this weather system, so I could write about it from the inside. I decided to go storm chasing, and met up with a group of chasers in Denver, Colorado.

Todd Thorn has been fascinated by storms since he was six years old. ‘My nights were spent watching vivid lightning from my bedroom window as the sound of thunder shook the house,’ he says. He began storm-chasing in the early 1990s and in 1997 transformed a personal obsession into a business by setting up a storm-chasing tour company. From early May to late June (the storm season) Todd follows rapidly changing weather systems through Tornado Alley, a swathe of the West and Midwest stretching all the way from New Mexico to Wisconsin.

The roof of Todd's SUV is covered in aerials, each one connected to a different satellite source of weather information. A laptop sits on the dash synthesising meteorological data, which is updated every six minutes. Todd and his assistant, Bill, compile different weather data to predict where storms are likely to break. But they also apply their experience. 'To be a storm chaser,' says Todd, 'you must be able to read the sky and see the visual clues for severe weather, such as the meaning of distant towering cumulus clouds.' As a complete novice, I learnt why this region has such an extreme climate. In Tornado Alley, weather systems from different sides of the continent collide; cold dry polar air meets warm moist tropical air.

The tour can include up to four SUVs that travel in convoy communicating by walkie-talkies. We set off early on day one of the six-day tour, travelling north into Wyoming. This is what they call Big Sky country. The world was suddenly in widescreen. We drove along empty, straight highways that reached ahead into the vanishing point, through Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota and on to North Dakota. Passing through places with names such as Thunder Basin and Lightning Creek, I could see how the weather has been written into the landscape.

After 600 miles we pulled off the highway to the edge of a lake, whose silvery surface rippled in the strong wind. The windscreen was covered in a layer of insects; the yellow streaks, Todd said, were honey bees. The sky had darkened and the air was thick with humidity. Storm chasing is a bit like fishing. It's goal-orientated but involves a lot of waiting around and patience. But staring at the sky is strangely meditative. I began to see it as a series of moving layers where clouds shape-shift in rolling Rorschach patterns. On this occasion the storm threatened but failed to break.

When we checked into a motel in Minot, North Dakota, that night we were told that a tornado watch had been issued. If sirens sounded we were to proceed to the basement. 'If you get stuck,' advised Todd, 'jump into the bath and pull a mattress over you.'

I collapsed exhausted into bed; every time I closed my eyes I saw the highway rushing towards me. I was woken in the night by lightning flickering across the room, lighting up for a split-second the TV, the mirror, the flowery wallpaper. I later found out that seven tornados had passed to the north of the town.

Each morning, after breakfast of pancakes dripping in maple syrup, we'd head off in search of storms, stopping for gas in small towns along the way. During the middle of the week the weather stabilised and the clear blue skies were empty. While we waited for the weather to change, we visited sites closer to the ground in South Dakota, including Mount Rushmore and the much bigger Crazy Horse monument, fifteen miles down the road, an unfinished gigantic rock sculpture of the Sioux Indian leader which is in the process of being dynamited out of Thunderhead Mountain. We explored the Badlands, a pre-historic ocean bed that looks like a Martian landscape, and stayed on the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation next to it. Then, at last, the weather seemed to get worse.

It was evening when bright lights began to flash in the cloudy sky. We couldn't hear thunder so we knew the storm was far away. We set off fast, driving towards it across the reservation. By the time we pulled over and got out of the car to watch the building storm, it was pitch dark. Each explosion of light was like an enormous camera flash that lit the towering, rising clouds. Forked lightning began to cut violently across the sky both horizontally and vertically down to the ground. Branches of bright silver electricity twisted and leapt through the sky. It was the most incredible sight, mesmerising and frightening at the same time. And the thunder began to boom and crack, roll and echo. The storm was moving towards us.

We decided to get to safety by driving to our hotel. Horizontal hail was soon lashing the car, reducing visibility to ten feet. My awe and amazement soon turned to fear. As we drove through the hail at five miles per hour, the road was lit by the now almost constant flashes of lightning. The flashes lit the vulnerable-looking houses dotted across the grasslands, and the rugged silhouette of the Badlands appeared behind them. After forty minutes the flashes and booming began to move away. The colossal power of the storm took me by surprise. The rush of adrenalin was thrilling and I saw how storm-chasing could become an addiction.

After six days on the road, I returned to Denver with boots full of plains dust and a head full of sky.

Back to top ^