So, you want to go on a tornado chasing tour?  We'll you have come to the right place because we go to the right places. No, we don't go everywhere. We concentrate on tornado chasing in the upper midwest including Nebraska, South Dakota, Eastern Colorado, and Northern Kansas.

And we have a couple of very good reasons. If you are interested in tornado chasing, you have probably seen the movie "Twister" a couple of times. Remember the first time they planned to deploy Dorothy? They were on a two lane road going up a hill. You could see the nasty clouds. You could see the tornado dropping in and out above them. But they could not. What fun is that?  We want you to study the torndoes. We want you to watch convection turn into super cell monsters. We want you to see the shelf cloud and hail cores form. We want you to look for wall clouds. We want you to see the sky below just as the air starts to turn. We want you to see the funnel cloud form and hopefully, a tornado drop from the sky. That's fun tornado chasing and you won't see that in hilly tree country.

But you're saying..."Hey, Oklahoma and Texas are not that way. Why don't you go storm chasing there?" The answer is distance and congestion. Perhaps you noticed some of the Vortex 2 footage from the Weather Channel when they were around Norman and Oklahoma City. They had plenty of company. In fact, the roads were so congested that fire and rescue crews couldn't get through. That's our brand of tornado chasing. We don't want to be part of the problem. We want you to experience the weather and not be a victim of it. That's a great tornado chasing tour. Right?

We chase in places where it is safe and where you can see, and we can see, what's going on. Even then, there is no guarantee that you will get to see a tornado. Don't let anyone kid you, tornados are rare events. Here's the truth. And many of those tornados happen when it is dark so unless you get a power link to arc or some lightning to light it up for a millisecond, chances are pretty good you won't see anything until it is over.

Sometimes, over doesn't mean over. Things often just start when the tornado ropes out. If that happens when we come by, we help. People need help and lots of it after a tornado stops by for a visit. Check out the Ford F-150 in the picture above. It was actually sitting on the right side when the tornado, a "small" F-2 touched down in an Omaha neighborhood. The tornado picked it up and flipped it and destroyed it as it smashed it into the left side of the driveway. Incredible. The house lost a few shingles and the glass was blown out of the garage door. If a tornado strikes, we'll stop and help out. If that's not what you are looking for, there are plenty of tours that keep on driving.

We take time to help.

What is the tour like?

We use conversion vans with 4 captains chairs plus the front passenger seat. Everyone has a job on our tour and those jobs rotate daily so each person has a chance to do different things. The jobs:

Front Passenger
        The front passenger helps with the maps, GPS, and storm spotting.
2 Back Passengers NEAREST the driver
        These passengers run the radar computer and alalyze data.
2 Back Passengers
        The two other passengers write our "live log" on Facebook and Twitter.

Your friends and family can follow your journey with us if you want and you will have a great record when you get home.

Feel free to bring your own cameras, too. There will be plenty of things to see if the weather doesn't cooperate. We don't sit around in a hotel when the sun is out. There are all kinds of attractions from one side of the alley to the other. The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore are within range when we are in Northwest Nebraska and Western South Dakota. So is the famous Devil's Tower. The majestic Nebraska Sandhills are full of adventure and beauty. We can tube down the beatiful Niobrara River as it runs through Dances With Wolves country. There is also Car Henge and Denver offers all kind of interesting places, not to mention the majestic Colorado Rockies. Hopefully, you'll get to see a tornado from start to rope-out finish but even if you don't, we'll send you off with a lot of fun memories. We'll let you know what's close and you can tell us where to go!

Nebraska's Chimney Rock

Do you have a qualified driver?

Not all tour companies have tour professional van qualified drivers. Many times, they have weather geeks in the front seats who look at the sky and not at the road.

Here's our driver's credentials:
        Professionally trained by Smith Systems.        
        No tickets or accidents in the last 40 years.                 
        Over 40,000 miles as a professional driver for two of America's biggest railroads.
        A trained storm spotter with emergency management experience.
        A professional jet pilot with world-wide flying experience.         
        A trained Red Cross disaster worker and medic.
        A ham radio operator.
        Trained in CERT rescue techniques.

Plus, he is fun to be around and knows the area.

Your tour guide tornado chasing in the great American West

What does the tour cost?

Our tour lasts seven days and six nights. They start and end in Lincoln, Nebraska. There are five people plus the driver on each tour. The cost is $1946 with a $746 deposit due two weeks before the start of the tour. The balance is due on the Friday before the tour starts. All payments must be made through PayPal. If you need to cancel your tour, you must do so no later than the Friday one week before your tour start date. If we should have to cancel a tour, you will be rescheduled for another storm chasing tour date or we will issue a refund. All refunds are made by certified check.

We pay for:
        Hotel rooms
        Transportation and gas
        State park fees if necessary
        The driver

You pay for:
        Your food
        Tickets for special events
        Your personal items
        Your hotel room charges

Fire House Tour
Occasionally, the National Weather Service will issue a tornado outbreak alert. If that alert is for our area, we may schedule a special four day/three night tour for $1000 per person. Please note: must be able to get to Lincoln very quickly to take advantage of this storm chasing tour.