AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach shares stories about storm chasing and what it's like to come face to face with deadly weather.
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00:00Welcome to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts, I'm your host Jeff Cornish, and whether you
00:16nerd out on it or just want to know more about it, we talk to some of the best minds in meteorology,
00:21space and science to get answers on everything you've wanted to ask, and in today's show
00:26we explore the art of storm chasing, what it's like to come face to face with potentially deadly
00:32weather, the process, the risks and also some of the big benefits. So joining us now is AccuWeather
00:37meteorologist and longtime storm chaser Tony Laubach. Tony, thanks so much for making time
00:41for us today. Jeff, it is my pleasure and I am happy to be nerding out with you today.
00:48Excellent. Well, I love working with you, Tony, and typically you're not in the friendly confines
00:52of your home, but we know that you joined AccuWeather back in June of 2021. Remember one
00:57of your first stories was out in Death Valley and you had the oven mitts on initially as a field
01:02meteorologist and storm chaser, and you've moved through the past three plus years here with a lot
01:08of different exciting stories. So we want to get back to the early days of how all this got started.
01:13So let's get down to it, Tony. When did you first know you wanted to chase tornadoes in severe weather?
01:19Well, I think my parents said I was kind of born with the disease of wanting to be a weather nerd.
01:23I always had an interest in weather growing up, but I was exposed to storm chasing in the early
01:2790s after the Andover, Kansas tornado back in 1991, and they did numerous specials on that event
01:34and was introduced to the concept of storm chasing through all of that. And I really kind of thought,
01:39man, it would be really cool to actually go out and see weather growing up in Ohio. There wasn't
01:44a lot of it to really experience, but when storm chasing kind of came into the picture, I was only
01:5011, so I still had some time before I actually was able to even drive a car, but I finally got
01:55into it in the late 90s and I've been doing it ever since. And when you look at all you've done
02:00being part of research teams, being an on-air meteorologist and also producing and starring
02:04in many storm and weather related series, it seems everything you did early on put you in
02:10Well, I think it's just really the experience and then having such a wide range. You mentioned I
02:15was with research groups. I've done TV. I worked with a tour group for a time being. I've done
02:20just about every possible occupation that can be done in storm chasing and probably one of the few
02:27that actually can say they make a living, a legit living storm chasing. It's been something like
02:34I've been very proud to be doing for the better part of the last two decades, so it is certainly
02:38really, really cool to not only be doing it for you guys here at AccuWeather, but to have
02:43such a wide range of things I've done with it in the past.
02:47And Tony, do you have any idea the number of storms and maybe tornadoes that you have seen and chased?
02:55I couldn't tell you the number of storms. It's been countless.
02:59But tornadoes, I'm over 400 heading into this portion of my career, so about 400 tornadoes
03:06over the course of 20 years. And that's a number that has been adding up more quickly as I've gone
03:12later into my career as it took a long time before I really started accumulating tornadoes
03:16because I was very green and had no idea what I was doing back then.
03:20We certainly do now. And you've gone back and forth in your career,
03:23at times chasing storms with others, and at other times solo. I know that you're often teamed up
03:28in recent years with Ed Grubb. So which do you prefer, solo or chasing with somebody else?
03:36Well, naturally, having somebody with you is always the preference. Not only is it a safer
03:41option for you, but it is something that there's a lot of time on the road and you want good people
03:46with you. And Ed's certainly been a great example of that.
03:50There's a lot of time on the road and you want good people with you. And Ed's certainly one of
03:54the best. He and I have been chasing together for well over 10 years. We started back in the
03:59mid-2000s and I've chased off and on with Twistex. You see him here. We're constantly
04:05working together. And it helps having a chase partner that you have a good chemistry, a good
04:09rapport with. And Ed and I have just, we've gelled since day one. And it's always, always a pleasure
04:16to be out with him. Again, just having the company for the long times on the road is a huge
04:21perk. And again, the safety, having a second set of eyes, there's countless safety reasons for that.
04:26But you know, I listen to eclectic music and sometimes it's nice to be on my own because
04:30that eclectic music can be an earworm for most people if they're stuck in the car with me for a
04:35while. That's pretty good. Sometimes we get a tiny window into that when you send your raw video in.
04:41So let's talk about the process. I've talked to some like yourself who have been chasing
04:45since the 90s and you know, we didn't just have the ability to bring up radar easily on our phone.
04:51Things have changed a ton, made it much more accessible. So how do you start
04:54planning for a storm chase and where do you get your planning information?
05:01Well, one of the perks to working at AccuWeather is you've got some of the best brains in the
05:05business that you can kind of pick on. And of course, you know, being able to save chase for
05:1020 years, you start to recognize certain patterns that stand out above the others. And I think one
05:14of the things I've gotten better at over the years are choosing the days not to chase because
05:19you look at a pattern and say, you know, this is not going to pan out the way that the forecast
05:23models indicate. So you look at a lot of long range, a lot of big scope patterns, synoptic
05:30scale patterns. These are the larger patterns that move across the country and you pick out,
05:34okay, this looks like a pattern that's favorable for severe weather. And as you start getting
05:37closer to the days of, you can start to hone in on certain areas that have, you know, fronts or
05:43boundaries in play, wind shifts, you know, where the moisture is pooling, all sorts of things that
05:48we look at as meteorologists to say, this is an area that we're going to go to. And of course,
05:52that's gotten so much easier now than it was back in the day. You know, when I started in the late
05:56nineties, I was analyzing paper maps and drawing with colored pencils to identify these features.
06:01Now we have computer models that almost can tell you within a couple hours, this is where you need
06:06to be if you want to go see storms. Antonio, you're very transparent about your plan of action
06:11and sometimes that does change. So we know that flexibility and a key to success being a storm
06:16chaser is adaptability. So how easy is it to get information in the field to make some of these
06:21snap decisions? It's amazing how easy it is to get information in the field. Like you mentioned,
06:29our cell phones are basically computers in our pocket and we have access to so many apps
06:34and have that weather data that's constantly streaming to us. In a way, it's a double-edged
06:39sword because sometimes there's paralysis by analysis is what we used to say in Twistax,
06:43where you look at too many things and then you start to second guess where you're going and what
06:49you're doing. And it's very easy to get to a place where you're supposed to be sometimes hours early.
06:55Then you start looking at data, you start second guessing, and all of a sudden you're driving in
06:59circles in the middle of Kansas. And then you might end up leaving a place that ultimately
07:03you would go back to. So having data is a huge thing, especially when you're in an active chase,
07:08having that radar available to you in the moment to know what's going on. But sometimes having too
07:13much data can be a little bit too much of a good thing. Antonio, I want to get to our first viewer
07:18question. This one comes from James in Arkansas. James writes, what is the biggest tornado you've
07:24personally seen? Well, James, that is an easy and unfortunately a tragic answer. The biggest
07:33tornado I've ever seen was back on May 31st, 2013. The El Reno, Oklahoma tornado was actually
07:40the largest tornado ever recorded, so easily the largest tornado I've ever seen. That tornado was
07:462.6 miles wide and unfortunately resulted in the fatality of three close friends and fellow chasers
07:52of mine on that particular day. But that day was a day unlike any other and will certainly,
07:59hopefully, be the biggest tornado that ever occurs. Again, two and a half miles is unprecedented
08:05for any tornado. So, you know, obviously it's easy to say that's the biggest one I've seen
08:10because it's the biggest one that's ever been recorded. And we noticed that some of the footage
08:14from earlier in this episode here just a few minutes ago we showed you was actually from
08:18Tim's camera there. And I know that had to be a very difficult thing for you, Tony, losing some
08:22good friends through that process. But in a little bit, we're going to talk about some of the
08:27positives that come and the value behind some who do risk their lives in some cases to provide
08:34some of this intel from the ground that you can't get from the radar. Well, Tony, we do have a few
08:38extra questions here. Storm chasing dates back to the 1950s, we believe, but it seems that media
08:43attention over the decades and also the ease of radar on your phone, plus some of the shows that
08:49you and others have been part of, increased the popularity. Some through the 70s and 80s, but then
08:54more recently, movies like Twister in the 90s got a huge explosion in interest. So that combined
08:59with some of the shows of more recent decades, is that good or bad for the art of science and
09:04storm chasing? It's a mixed bag, I think, like with the data. Sometimes it's too much of a good
09:12thing. There are a lot of people that have certainly, like I told you, I was exposed to
09:16storm chasing through a special back in the early days. And as social media has gotten more rampant,
09:20obviously the exposure to storm chasing has certainly exploded, not just with the movies,
09:25but with social media. It's changed a lot in the 20 years I've been, because normally your only
09:31exposure was TV. And now, like you said, we've got data on our phones, we've got that constant
09:35feed of information, and we've got that constant exposure to storm chasing. It's great because
09:40there are a lot of new, inventive, creative, scientific people that are entering the field
09:45and looking at ways to look at storms that we, as older generations, had never thought of and
09:49certainly didn't have the technology to do. But at the same time, you get in places like central
09:54Oklahoma on a holiday weekend in the middle of May, there's too much traffic on a one-lane,
09:59you know, two-lane highway. It makes it very dangerous to navigate some of these storms. So
10:03sometimes there are too many people out there, and, you know, that's just one of the changes
10:08we've had to make as storm chasers. And we sometimes see the icons indicating the location
10:13of various chasers. And again, chaser convergence, I guess, is the phrase that's sometimes used.
10:19Many traffic jams out there in the middle of seemingly nowhere, very low population areas.
10:24Well, Tony, we're going to be talking more with you coming up. We do appreciate your time here.
10:28But coming up later in the show and weather-wise, we're going to test knowledge, you, the viewer,
10:32your knowledge of tornadoes and some of the numbers and information may make your head spin.
10:38And coming up next, we're going to talk more with our AccuWeather storm chaser extraordinaire,
10:42Tony Laubach, with a look at the scientific benefits and life safety benefits of storm
10:46chasing and ask the question, how close is too close? That and more when Ask the Experts continues.
11:04Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm your host, Jeff Cornish. And in today's show,
11:09we've been talking about storm chasing with one of the best AccuWeather field meteorologists and
11:14longtime storm chaser, Tony Laubach. Tony, let's talk about the science of storm chasing.
11:19What important information comes from the storm chasing community as the weather enterprise is
11:25adapting to severe weather? And when we're seeing severe weather, we're tracking things on radar.
11:29You have a better understanding of storms and impact when you see them up close.
11:36Yeah, I think one of the more important things that storm chasers provide is ground verification,
11:40real time reports, all the data that you receive, radar data, satellite data,
11:45all that is delayed in real time. What isn't delayed is our eyes in the field. We're able to
11:50say this is what's happening right now. This is what is going on. And when you broaden that out a
11:56little bit, when you don't look at just the current, but what we've been able to do scientifically,
12:00you know, we talk about one of the big things is increasing warning time and lead time.
12:04We're providing that verification. And we've been doing that for the better part of years.
12:09That is one thing that's never changed is real time benefits of it. But then you look at some
12:13of the stuff that you're seeing here on your screen, the scientific instruments. You know,
12:16I was with the TWISTEX research team for the better part of five years. And one of our
12:21duties, one of our jobs, we were trying to identify what happens when tornado genesis
12:26occurs. When we talk about tornadoes actually forming, we are measuring the RFD, the rear flank
12:32downdraft of a storm. And we were trying to determine getting our instrumentation in there
12:37as close as we possibly could so we could take measurements of that RFD as it's wrapping around
12:43the tornado and taking those measurements of temperature, the wind speeds, and how everything
12:47changes as a tornado is forming. That was one of my primary missions there with TWISTEX was
12:52get my storm chase vehicle as close as safety permitted to tornadoes. And you've been showing
12:59us some of the footage with specific research. For the day-to-day storm chase where you may not
13:03necessarily be kind of aggregating that kind of information, what are you relying on? I've seen a
13:07lot of computers obviously in your vehicle. Are you dialed in through a satellite connection or
13:14how are you looking at this information? How are you connected?
13:19Good old cell phone day, Jeff. That has certainly been something that has improved dramatically
13:24over the years. Back when we started in the early 2000s, cell phones were just getting started. I
13:29remember when certain companies were finally allowing us the opportunity to get cell phone
13:34data on major highways. That was such a big deal for us. Now with multiple phones, we have
13:40multiple data cards in the car. We are essentially connected non-stop. We're able to stream video
13:45now, live video back to the AccuWeather Network. The National Weather Service is able to keep tabs
13:50on us through GPS tracking. All that information is available in real time thanks to mainly cell
13:56phone data. Satellite data is certainly something that we are utilizing as well. We've got new
14:02technologies that allow us to link to satellites which allow us connection in areas where cell
14:07phone service is pretty sparse. We do run into those holes sometimes in the middle of Tornado
14:11Alley. I saw on some of the footage here also you had a map book there. It looked like some
14:15MapQuest instructions from one city to the next that you may have pre-planned. It's amazing how
14:20much has changed here with cell phone data. Tony, how about your vehicle? Are you using your
14:26own vehicle to chase or a specifically designed vehicle? I don't drive a tank. I don't
14:34think those are very practical. I actually drive just a normal all-wheel drive vehicle out when
14:38I'm storm chasing. I prefer to chase in my own vehicle because it's set up in a way that
14:44I'm comfortable with. I think one of the important things with having your own vehicle is
14:50as opposed to renting a car or using another vehicle, I know the maintenance. I know what is
14:55good with my vehicle. I change the tires regularly, change the wipers regularly, make sure all the
14:58headlights are working. I'm comfortable with how it drives. I understand how it handles in certain
15:03conditions. In my vehicle, having good tires allows me to take roads that kind of keep me
15:08out of crowds or allow me to get closer or allow me better intercept opportunities. So very important
15:14for me to have my own vehicle and I've gone through many of them. I believe seven in the
15:19course of my storm chasing career, many of them minivans, but the all-wheel drives are certainly
15:23helpful for not only mud roads but out here in Colorado where the hail can sometimes accumulate
15:28as deep as snow. Antonio, we have a viewer question here. This one is in video form from
15:33Tyler in Pennsylvania. So Tyler, what would you like to ask the experts? Question for you,
15:39what is your most memorable chase?
15:46That's a loaded question. I'm going to go back recently here back to 2023. I'm going to take
15:50you out about two hours from where I lived at the time in northeastern Colorado where I saw a total
15:56of 19 tornadoes on that day, including multiple instances of several tornadoes. And then we talk
16:04about going back even further. We're going to go back to 2004 where we saw 15 tornadoes in
16:11southern Kansas. This was my first big storm chase. This was the first one, kind of my breakout chase
16:19if you will, where I was actually solo. I was not in caravan with anybody and we saw, like I said,
16:2415 over a dozen tornadoes on multiple supercells across south central Kansas. And one of the more
16:29historical outbreaks that we saw in the early 2000s that included this incredible sequence of
16:35tornadoes here near Conway Springs, watching this one just kind of magically appear on the horizon.
16:40And now I'm going to go back over, I guess we're going to fast forward to 2023. Again, that
16:46northeast Colorado chase was certainly my most recent memorable one. And Jeff, you'll remember
16:51this one because this one we put on the AccuWeather network here. These incredible
16:55tornadoes in northeast Colorado. Twins. And again, one of the perks in this particular event,
17:00other than power lines coming down there on the road, this was out in the middle of nowhere
17:04in eastern Colorado. One of the better places to chase in the country because there's not a lot
17:09out there. We saw multiple tornadoes. This multi-vortex tornado, this one we put live on
17:13the AccuWeather network as well, was just an incredible day. The most tornadoes I've ever
17:17seen in a single day. And it moved into the number one spot in my chase career in terms
17:22of my favorite chases. Well, Tony, there's nothing quite like covering live tornadoes on
17:26the air with you. I love working with you and it's so exciting when you have the live footage
17:30and we get to present it live together on the air. And this does wrap up our question and answer
17:35segment. So we want to thank AccuWeather meteorologist and storm chaser Tony Laubach
17:39for joining us. Tony, thanks again so much. My pleasure, Jeff. Well, good stuff. And coming up,
17:46weather by the numbers, things you need to know about tornadoes. We're going to put your tornado
17:50knowledge to the test next. Stay with us. Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts. I'm your
18:07host, Jeff Cornish. It's time for weather wise in a segment we call weather by the numbers.
18:12Today, we look at tornadoes and some surprising statistics. Our first number, 1,200. 1,200.
18:19That's the average number of tornadoes in the United States in a typical year. So according to
18:24NOAA, the U.S. leads with the most tornado activity of any country. Our neighbor to the north, Canada,
18:30also sees quite a few there in the prairie provinces. Our next number, 2.6. That's 2.6
18:37miles. And that's the widest tornado recorded. It happened in El Reno, Oklahoma on May 31st of 2013.
18:45It was a tragic tornado and did claim the lives of a few storm chasers. It beat the and broke the
18:51previous record for widest tornado, which tracked at 2.5 miles across in Howland, Nebraska back in
18:582004. And our last number is 6. That's the number of continents where tornadoes have been observed.
19:05That means there's only one continent where a tornado has not officially been recorded.
19:10And as you might suspect, that's in Antarctica. So twisters generally need a moist, warm climate
19:15to form, which is not likely in the cold and the dryness of the South Pole. And
19:20while no one has ever seen one there, that doesn't necessarily mean that a tornado is
19:24impossible in Antarctica. So thanks so much for joining us here on AccuWeather's Ask the Experts.
19:30I'm Jeff Cornish. And don't forget, when you have a question about weather, space, or science,
19:35you can write us or send us a video question at asktheexperts at accuweather.com. You can also
19:41call us at 888-566-6606. Have a great one!