A NEW KIND OF VACATION? Storm Chasing Tours Vacations?

Forget the cruise style vacations. Forget the long driving into the mountains type vacation. Hell, forget even for a moment about going to Grandma and Grandpa's house for vacation.

We are talking about going on a Storm Chasing Tours Vacation.....the kind of vacation where you drive all across "Tornado Alley" and search foe the elusive tornado. Sound exciting? Read on.....

Storm Chasing Tour guest, Lori, taking a "Tornado Selfie" in front of an f EF-4 Tornado

 

Happy Storm Chasing Tour guests with Extreme Chase Tours

Storm Chasing Tours are almost a religious experience in a way - once you are in front of a 50,000ft supercell that is producing a tornado, it kind of puts thing into perspective in the great big world we live in. And that's just one part of it. Of course there any many different people who chose to go storm chasing every year and some even make a habit out of going on a Storm chasing Vacation. For them, this is their vacation - and the icing on the cake of their vacation is the tornado and supercell/severe weather. While there are many different storm chasing tour companies out there to chose from, there is only one company that is truly personal. The kind of personal that checks your hotel room every evening after the chase before you check in. The kind of personal that teaches you about severe weather, radar, storm structure, how to read radar while you are looking at the storm structure and answers any questions you might have. I'm talking about our company - Extreme Chase Tours LLC www.extremechasetours.com

Biased? Of course I am biased, but that's because the personal attention given and mentioned above is factual. As a small business owner (a small tour owner who believes in quality versus quantity like all the big tour companies) I believe in the a personal one on one approach with education and aiding in the warning process while we are chasing. It is how I started chasing and after 26 years and 516 tornadoes later - it is how I continue to chase and operate my business.

If you are looking for a vacation adventure of a lifetime, one that is filled with excitement, fun and education then I would encourage you to take a look at going on a storm chasing vacation instead of the normal cruise or trip out west in 2018.

I started the business in 1999 and went full time seasonal in 2007 due to the high demand. Storm Chasing is and has been in the mainstream for years, pretty much since the movie Twister came out.
But storm chasing isn't like Twister.....sometimes there is much more REAL excitement, and other times, there is not. But the two things that makes going on a storm tour vacation different is the lifelong friends you will make and the memories that last a lifetime!

If this sounds like a vacation you might be interested in feel free to watch the video below to get a taste of what our storm chasing tours are like....and then hurry and reserve your seat today!
www.extremechasetours.com
www.stormchasingvacations.com

Lightning photography near Tulsa

Nice little cell produced some good photography opportunities early this morning west of Tulsa. I didn't have my camera settings correct exactly (in my haste to get set up) but it worked. This lightning pic with structure was probably the best of the pictures that I took. Hoping for more weather like this in the future!

Extreme Chase Tours 2017 schedule and storm chasing tours trailer

As is usual this time of year, our storm chasing tours are filling up fast! No doubt we will be booked full early again - I suspect we will have all 2017 seats full before the summer ends. So if you are interested in going on the most affordable and personal storm chasing tour, hurry and reserve your seat for the 2017 season now! Feel free to check out our chase tours dates on the website or here:


https://www.extremechasetours.com


Below is a small trailer of our tornado tours during the 2016 season to give you an idea of what you might experience during a storm chasing tour with Extreme Chase Tours. Hope everyone enjoys!








         

Extreme Chase Tours 2017 schedule and storm chasing tours trailer

As is usual this time of year, our storm chasing tours are filling up fast! No doubt we will be booked full early again - I suspect we will have all 2017 seats full before the summer ends. So if you are interested in going on the most affordable and personal storm chasing tour, hurry and reserve your seat for the 2017 season now! Feel free to check out our chase tours dates on the website or here:


www.extremechasetours.com


Below is a small trailer of our tornado tours during the 2016 season to give you an idea of what you might experience during a storm chasing tour with Extreme Chase Tours. Hope everyone enjoys!








         

Extreme Chase Tours 2016 schedule

After our annual weather retreat, we have received so much interest for our 2016 storm chasing tours its crazy!!! I realize its hard to think about severe weather season and tornadoes but the severe weather season is really just around the corner for many. That being said, we are just now getting back into the swing of things but we have very limited seating on just a few tours and most of the others tours are already filled up. Soooo if you are interested in going on a real storm chasing tour now is thee time to reserve and book your seat! Link to our website below:
www.extremechasetours.com


And remember, if you are a photographer or interested in photography, we offer full photography tours so feel free to check those out by clicking the link below:
https://www.extremechasetours.com/photography-tours.html


Also feel free to follow and or like us on Facebook and Twitter and please interact with us! During our tours I am usually twitting or on Facebook posting updates and or pictures and I would love the interaction. And don't forget to check out our Youtube page below:


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr9g0auchzw33XJygByLeRw/videos?view_as=public

2014 Storm Chasing Tours, Tornado Tours & Photography Vacations

As is usual this time of year, we have booked most of our seats for our 2014 storm chasing tours. We currently have a total of 4 seats only available for the entire season! If you are interested in going on a real storm chasing tour adventure or a photography tour, don't miss your opportunity! Come see more at our website: www.extremechasetours.com Check out our 2013 tornado tours trailer below to see what its like to go on a storm chasing tour with us!

Storm Chasing Tours Photography Tours 2014 Extreme Chase Tours

We currently have our 2014 storm chasing tours and weather photography tours schedule up. If your interested in going on a severe weather photography tour hurry and reserve your seat today! You can view our schedule by clicking on the link below:
https://www.extremechasetours.com/Schedule.html

Storm Chasing Tours, Tornado Tours Adventure

Just fully completed the 2014 storm chasing tours schedule and seats are already filling fast. Hurry and reserve your seat today! https://www.extremechasetours.com/Schedule.html

And for those that have not already seen our 2013 storm chasing tours and tornado tours trailer you can check it our below:

MAYHEM TOURS 3 & 4 SOLD OUT

As expected, our MAYhem 4 storm tour is now sold out. Even after re-opening it, we have sold all seats. Our MAYhem 3 tour is also sold out and at this time we have very limited seating on most other tours. If you are interested in going on an exciting vacation and have always wanted to go storm chasing, now is the time to reserve your seats before we book full! Feel free to watch and feel what a storm chasing tour is really like by clicking on the video link below.




If you are interested in the vaction of a lifetime please hurry and reserve your seat today at
www.extremechasetours.com or you may contact us directly at 918-859-0248 or email at:
lannydean@extremechasetours.com

The Shorty Awards

Hey folks, we  graciously got nominated for a Shorty Award and we are asking all of our friends and family to go vote for us for a Shorty Award in #Travel Voting is easy and fast. You can for us vote by going to www.shortyawards.com  and selecting ExtrmChaseTours for #travel. We would certainly appreciate it.

Nominate Extreme Chase Tours for a social media award in the Shorty Awards

Been A While....

Looks like it has been a bit since my last blog and with much happening I figured what the heck....I can't sleep so I might as well post on the blog. So currently the reason I cannot sleep is because I broke my leg in 3 places and chipped it as well. This accident happened about almost a week and a half ago, and was caused by nothing more than a trip on some cables but it has certainly caused some major pain! You can see exactly where all three breaks are at in the X-Ray below, and of course, the resulting full cast. Not Fun times at all.




I am just thankful that it did not happen in the middle of May during chase season! Hopefully it heals very soon and the pain stops so I can get back in the tree stand doing some hunting. Looks like bow season will be a short one for me due to the injury.

Nothing to really report on the weather as of yet.....although it does look like the November 5-7Th time frame we could see some severe, that is if the models are to believed this far out. I am always very skeptical when using certain models this time of the year. Experience has taught me that some models do not do well during this time of year VS other models, especially with moisture return. So for now I will only mention the possibility of some weather during that time frame. Per the GFS 00z for oz Sunday (graphic below) it is painting a pretty decent area of low pressure and some decent moisture return through the central and southern plains. Not real sure I am good with this as I just do not think we will see those kind of dew point returns. But anything is likely and it is a 7 days out....something to keep an eye on for sure though.







With a broken leg I have not had a chance to really do anything except take some pics here and there....nothing real fancy or great but decent fall colors starting here in Oklahoma as can be seen below:





I plan on posting more pics as I get time and hopefully better pictures as well.

Nikon D7000 Silver Award Winner!

Interestingly enough the new Nikon D7000 has won the Silver award through DPREVIEW.
As most people know I am a die hard Nikon shooter and was stoked when I heard of the D7000 press release. This camera was/is supposed to be an upgrade for Nikon D5000, D3000 and D90 shooters. See the link below for camera specs and more info.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond7000/

However, after doing much research on the 7000 compared to some of the other mid range "prosumer" cameras in this class it became very clear that the D7000 is not such a big upgrade at least from the D90.

Currently I have a D90 which I love shooting with. I usually use the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 as my base lens and then the 18-105mm kit as an all around general everyday lens. I don't feel like going into much detail as I will let you do the homework on it but suffice it to say, that if you are shooting with a D90 currently, before you make the upgrade to the D7000 take a look at the specs and rating that Popphoto gave it versus the Canon 60D.

For now I will stick with my D90 and wait until Nikon can figure out the Hot pixel and new sensor issue they have before I make any upgrade. It stands to reason that if you do well with a Sony sensor like Nikon has for many years then stay with what is going good!
Just my two cents!

Latest photoshoot

Just a few pics from my latest photoshoot. Nikon D90 with MB-D80 pack, Nikkor 50mm 1.8 with CP filter.

New Sigma lens and "Stacked Plates"

After painfully doing a lot of "homework" and speaking to some who have some great experience(thanks Dick M.) on various telephoto lenses for DSLRs including all of the "third party" glasses like Tamron, Sigma and Tokina, as well as most of the Nikons I have made my mind up and will soon be getting the Sigma APO 70-300mm for my D80.


Shooting mostly with the Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5 - 5.6 kit that came with my camera and I am very happy with it for the most part excluding with the wider end (18mm) in which it does get a little "dirty" but again, it does a great job for a kit.


Dick McGowan also shoots some with a Sigma and you can see some of his pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stackedplates/

He has taken some incredible pictures including some great stormscape shots like the one below of the Hill City "Mothership" also shot with a Sigma lens!


Copyright Dick McGowan (please contact him for copyright usage at: http://www.tornadolive.com/)


For the price and quality, (as you can see from above) Sigma seems to have great products that produce great results. This is why I am going to choose the Sigma brand in the future.
I plan on posting some new pics as soon as I can which include a few HDR shots.

Some new/old pics

Just got done batch processing a few photos....some are "new" and some go all the way back to 2005. Most of these were shot while I was still using the Nikon D50 of course I have upgraded since then to the D80 and I am looking at possibly upgrading to the D300 or even the D3.

PLEASE NOTE: ALL PICTURES ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED AND WATERMARKED.
PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY PHOTOS! IF YOU WOULD LIKE ONE JUST SEND MEAN E-MAIL!

HDR photography: the good, the bad, definitely not ugly!

Below are a couple of shots in raw with my Nikon D80. The first pic I adjusted the curves and levels in photoshop CS3. The second shot is the same as the first only bracketed by 0.7 to 1.3.
I took a total of 6 shots and used photoshop CS3 HDR format to bring all photos together. I then adjusted the curves to what I thought looked good. After saving my 32 bit file to a 16 bit tiff, I then brought it down to an 8 bit jpeg and what you see is what you get.
I purposely did not "edit" the images much simply because I wanted to see what kind of results I would get by just doing the basics.....simply amazing in my book!!!! HDR is the way to go if you have the time and equipment to bracket properly.

Before



After


As you can see, I did not even clean up the artifacts but the HDR is an amazingly better picture.
while most of us chasers chase run and gun style which would make HDR photography very difficult, there are a few who actually take the time to set up equipment and such. For those that do, HDR is a "new" option that will take storm photography to the next level.
If you have not tried out this new style of photography.....give it a chance.... I think you will love it, Iknow I do and I plan on doing it more and more.

Severe Weather and HDR?

As seen in the radar grab from my StormLab, the SPC/NWS has issued tornado watches for most of the state of Florida. Most of this convection looks elevated in nature but there could be a few tornadoes embedded with in the line. If you live in these area please pay attention to the weather today.

Also of real concern is the heavy snow and severe winter weather in the North today. Seen below is a radar grab from Grand Rapids MI which you can clearly see the snow starting.

This area is also an area to keep an eye on as they could see up to a feet of snow or even more in some places.

I have not really shot any pics as of late because I just have not had the time. I am going to try to get out this week and shoot some and may even try a little HDR stuff. I have been reading up on this "new" type of photography and I am really getting into it. I say "new" but HDR is really not new, I remember hearing of HDR a few years back but it seems that it is just now making it into the main stream photography world.....should be exciting to see what kind of images we can make. I will try to post a few links and maybe even a few pics with my next post regarding HDR photography....stay tuned.

More Pictures

With no real weather so to speak, I have been shooting more and more pictures trying my off camera flash at different angles with and without my light kit. This picture of my wifes rose plant was taken in my backyard with the flash unit. Nikon D-80 f/ 5.6 1/100, ISO 100 with spot meter on.

Possible Tornadoes and swimming pools!

Later today looks like it could get interesting in Nebraska with a few tornadoes possible. Latest model runs(WRF, GFS) are painting some "decent" shear in the order of 25-35kts in this area with CAPE values EXTREME (4000-5000j/kg) per the WRF as seen below.
It also looks like the area from Northern KS to ND will remain active for the next few days as the front slides South. I would not be surprised to see a few reports of tornadoes with such instability. Right about now I am wishing I was already up there and it seems like I think that same thought every year about this time...something about the end of the season blues I think.
Much like trying to squeeze the very last drop of toothpaste out of the tube, that seems to me what my mind is trying to tell me to do. I think thats kinda what every chaser is dealing with these last few weeks and it sucks! The only good things about the end of the season is that every year I find myself shooting more pictures and spending the quality time with the family that they missed so much while I was on the road. Some of that quality time latley was spent putting the pool up. I have posted about it just recently and said I would post some pictures of the kids in the pool when time allowed so:

Nikon D-80 f/ 5.6 at 1/250 ISO 100



Nikon D-80 f/5.6 at 1/60 ISO 100, 85 A warming filter and circular polarizer