IanM

Great stuff, thanks Arron

I told you it would happen, I'm going to start charging counties $10K a day to visit and keep them under blue skies, regardless of the SPC forecast, I'll make a fortune! You can take the tour guests anywhere other than where I am for some decent storms too, it's a win/win situation.....

I know the feeling Pete, it looks an incredible set up today. lets hope that whatever happens stays out on the plains and gives the guys plenty of action from the safety of tarmac roads. I'd love to be there to chase, but if I was I suspect the models would change just as we reach the target area.... Safe chasing to you all, we'll be watching from the comfort of home Ian

I'd relax in Norman ready to head north east later if need be. Avoiding any chance of staying in Oklahoma city, at all costs.....

apparently they had just shy of 20 minutes warning, so double the normal 7-10 mins. Hopefully most people found decent shelter.

That's the place Ed, you were in the iHop car park : Joplin iHop How did yesterday go? I guess with the luxury seats you had on the flight you were well rested and stayed awake for the rest of the day.......

That is the Ihop Mark. I had a flat there on tour 2, and the Goodyear where I had it repaired was a block or so north, which from the pictures no longer exists. The pictures from the walmart car park towards 20th show where it should be. It is almost unbelievable to see these images

It's absolutely devastating, to put it into context an area from where we didn't go on the amusement park, through to a half mile beyond the Ihop and shopping mall has been destroyed. Sadly the main residential area of Joplin is based slap bang in the middle of this zone. The death toll is expected to top 100, we can only hope that this turns out to be an overestimate. As an example of the power of this storm, Xrays from St Johns Hospital have been found up to 70 miles away. It is very sobering to think we stayed two nights here, and that the Ihop and Goodyear where I had my tyre repaired are very likely to be heavily damaged at the least.

A few from yesterday, following around 50 miles on unmade county roads, the sight of an isolated cell made up for the gritted teeth as we tried to avoid the 6th puncture of tour 2.... Simply a stunning sky to end the day Ian

Lol You think you have problems, we have sent 1 car upto the Tornado warned storm with Tom, Paul S & Ian Michaelwaite and Arron are trying to change a tyre in a developing Hailstorm with rotation at the tail end of the line, bad place to be Pmsl

Mine were taken in a similar way to Mark, but with no tripod. So the car roof shot was low iso, low f number and long exposure. The big lightning shot was handheld, low iso and f8, around 0.3 secs exposure I think Ian

With just 3 hours sleep and a 2am start, it didn't smell like it was going to be a good morning, but sometimes things just happen..... Lucky shots, hand held (or balanced on the car roof for the first one, as I was either driving, getting ready to drive or fixing the gps gateway so didn't dig the tripod out. Ian

Saturday finds us heading for Mount Pleasant as the warm area, after a calm bimble we check the charts and see that Dallas is being battered by hail storms as we sit and contemplate where our system will spring from. Something was helping us, as new cells kicked off a few miles south west, making for a quick ssw blast for 30 miles to intercept. The area is heavily forested, but by more luck than planning we found our selves at an intersection with clear skies around to watch a rapidly developing rotating storm descend to the tree line. It seemed almost in touching distance as we pulled the cameras for the first proper opportunity. I decided to stand on the side of the car and shoot back accross the roof, not me best decision as it turns out. A huge bolt of lightning struck close by, sending the powerlines into a crackling frenzy, and my insides nearly beat me back into the drivers seat! The storm meanwhile looked like it was about to lift its skirts and rush over us, so we jumped back on the road and headed the way we had come as the rotating cloud pushed to keep up, we found another clear area and watched as the cloud and CG lightning pushed past us and back into the forested area. By now it was starting to get dark, and with half an eye on the next days risk zone and the chance for some lightning shots, we headed for Texarkana (which isn't a theme park with stetsons as rides). The weather decided otherwise and new storms blasted out of the night skies leaving us with a night chase option, which rapidly became a night run away option as small tornadic cell crossed in front of us after a second cell had led us into a cul de sac and started dropping CG like candy on halloween. Finally we followed the lightning toward our motel for the night, where the promised lines of storms never materialised, leaving us to get some rest before travelling to the green and pleasant lands of Arkansas the next day. The dat started promisingly with SPC showing good risk along the I30, and us slap bang in the middle of a large warned area. So we pushed on into the tree lined horror show of Arkansas expeciting to get at least some storm action. After many miles, multiple changes of plan and some signs of hope with energy forcing the clouds to grow in front of us, we called it a day, again with the thought that at least that nights storms would bring some lightnting shots. However, the SPC, the weather and the brightly lit car park all conspired against us, so a chinese all you can eat buffet later we hit the sack. Next Episode : Man vs. Food has nothing on us.....

Day One - The Chase begins But before the chase a little highlight show of the past 48 hours.... Heathrow early Thursday and while breakfasting airside the images from Wednesday nights outbreak are flashing round the news screens, a stark reminder of how powerful and dangerous tornadoes can be. With the list of those dead, missing or injured still growing now it is almost too big to contemplate. We can only send our condolences and thoughts to those affected and keep away from the areas involved. Finally our flight is called and the long walk accross T5 gets us to the gate in time to board. We sit, wait and as the plane pulls off the gate it literally stalls. The auxiliary power unit fails, meaning a tow to a different gate for power to be supplied from the ground. Some 45 mins later without air con we finally get the green light and are off again. Only two planes ahead of us on the run way and the pilot announces that he has electrical failure and back we go for spares and repairs. At 15:45 our 11:25 flight finally leaves the ground. Skip forwards 12 hours and we finally hit the hotel. Only to find that they have helpfully rejected the shipment containing the network dongles, so after many calls we have rearranged them to be re delivered on saturday morning. Ok so on with the car installs, streaming works, grl3 works, radios are communicating and Barons......doesn't. Then Barons does work after an hour of tinkering and calling support, cue dancing in the car park. Then it doesn't work anymore, after another 3 or 4 hours of trying everything possible we decide to leave it overnight and rely on the chasing Barons effect - it normally just works again on Day 2. If you don;t know what Barons is, it is a piece of sattelite enabled software that dipslays the latest weather information instantly, including the data vital to getting to track storms, from the starting benign conditions through to actualyl chasing storm structures in the field. Update on that later. Today will see us heading off for ne Texas, and sw Arkansas for the first supercells of the tour, not bad for Day 1 and only travelling a handful of miles. The models finally played ball after a few days of teasing, and now we have 5% warned cells to watch explode into the stratosphere from lunch time today. Catch you later - it's 6am here and I'm off to hit barons with a hammer and see if it works Ian Update - We have Barons!! I will never stress over it on set up day again, it's just not good at getting out of bed quickly I guess

This is it, no more work until I am safely parked outside of the Best Western. Having said that, the packing is still painfully slow, this is the first year I have flown out for the first tour, so the gadget and equipment levels seem to be dominating the suitcase. Thankfully my very understanding and long suffering wife, Sue, has taken charge. I now have multiple packs of 5 days worth of clothes in vacuum bags. The tour t shirts are compressed to wafer thin and somehow we have managed to beat the 23Kg weight limit. The next challenge is hand luggage, two laptops, two cameras and assorted lenses, plus all the usual bits and bobs we seem to need to survive 10 hours - will my life be over if I don't have instant access to any of this stuff? I'm thinking the clear bag of liquids can be junked, the hotel is right next door to a Walmart the size of a small town so a quick shopping trip for toothpaste, mouthwash and deodorant is in order. Failing that, I'm room sharing with Paul the first night, so I'll distract him with talk of supercells, structures and couplets, wait for the lecture to start and then nick his toiletries. Catch you Stateside Ian

That's it, Barons is live, Allison House sub paid for, mobile dongles shipped to the hotel All I need to do now is actually pack something other than gadgets...... See you at Heathrow tomorrow morning

All the bits we need to chase and stream have arrived, and this year we're pushing it a step or two further : Add another PC, the car to car radios, some more antennas, 3 more gps dongles, 2 USA 3g/mobile dongles and that's it. This years new bits of gadgetry are : Cradlepoint MBR1200 wireless router with 2 3g data dongles attached for failover on the fly Mobile phone network dual band amplifier to increase coverage and signal strength when streaming from the back of beyond Effectively Car 2 will be hosting our own wireless network for the streaming, GRL3 and 'Streets and Maps' for navigating. With the new amplifier we should be able to get a signal pretty much anywhere (well I think it increases the range by around 40-50 miles depending on terrain) The new set up will probably fry pigeons who stray too close and give the occupants of Car 2 a decent tan, but field testing has been good so far. Let's hope this years streaming is seamless and of a much higher quality than previous years, oh and the audio seems a lot clearer too, so apologies in advance for those of sensitive natures..... It's a big investment, but worth it to make the Tours go with a bang for those watching online, and to make sure we have the best possible data on the road to keep Paul on track. Ian

Hi All Sorry for the lack of communication, I am trying to get them all delivered to me before I set off next week. I won't bore you with details, but as usual something that got started with plenty of time has ended up in the usual last minute rush to get them printed and delivered. I'll update as soon as I have confirmation Sorry for the delays Ian

I can recommend the Caxton FX card, we have used them for the past 4 tours, no problems at all. Just don't use any pre pay card to for security deposits or reservations (not that you will have to touring with us). They reserve the funds, so you have to wait for the reservation to clear, which can take up to 30 days before the cash is released back to you. For example - reserve a hotel room on line with the card for $100, and they effectively take $100 from you card to honour the reservation, then if you pay as you leavfe with the same card the hotel system takes a debit of $100 and releases the reservation fee, which then takes 30 days to be credited back to your card. Like I say not a problem as we pay for the rooms, car hire etc, but if you ever use one for your own trip, bear this in mind

Ok, it's official - the goodies are available to order now : £10.99, or £17.98 with logo and text on the back - S, M, L, XL, XXL - I can also get a ladies T for an extra £1.99 - the greyness will be blacker. And seriously, this T shirt will actually improve your IQ by 15 points* *I may have made that up. £9.99 - one size fits all known heads, unless you have an exceptional head, then we should probably talk first £9.99 - apparently self stirring owing to the vortex design..... £2.99 - especially designed to withstand 250mph+ winds, grapefruit sized hail and guaranteed to work better than a Ferrari key fob in singles bars globally. Please message me on here, or by email at ian(at)netweather(dot)tv. I'll do my best to attend ot any special requests. just over 5 weeks!!!! Ian

lol, I hid it in the air conditioning intake, can we not go to Walmart in Dallas this year? I've seen CSI, they'll get me.....

Some chasers swear by a sealeable plastic bag for any creams or toiletries that may leak, the air pressure changes can pop them open. Last year I decided to buy new underwear at walmart rather than washing (clothes that is, not me, I showered every 5 days wheter I needed it or not)