whitty-southwest-uk

Since a little lad I’m talking I’d say since the age of 8, my old man used to take me out overlooking the English Channel watching the thunderstorms roll in from France.

It’s always intrigued me to see the sights of Mother Nature explode into action. If fact, I can’t actually explain what it is. It’s just a beautiful thing to see with a naked eye. For me and many other storm chasers, the thrill isn't about the danger, it's about seeing the atmosphere producing these amazing sights. I enjoy the whole experience, from analysing the data and working out where to go, to standing outdoors and witnessing the power of the natural world.

Since being a photographer it’s given me a whole new journey to be able to catch storms and really dive in to learn more.

It seems easy to become a storm chaser these days, with no specialist equipment needed other than a smartphone, perhaps a laptop with mobile internet, and a car. There are numerous sites where people teach themselves to read weather data, and more famous storm chasers have written guides. Others discuss upcoming storms on online forums.

We have between 30 and 50 tornadoes a year in the UK but they tend to be shortlived, rapid, and more tricky in some ways to predict. I’ve seen two produce in Devon in my time but they are nothing like they are in the US.

In the summer, you see hot air in France and Spain, which could create thunderstorms, so you get yourself on standby. Then you arrange to meet up with people, check the data on the day, pick a target area and chase the storm. It's that easy. Most people can do it now.

Now my goal, as many people know is to go to America and chase storms. One day it will happen. Yes they are very dangerous to life and over there the storm chasing scene is a complete different ball game. Vast majority of chasers don’t just do it for the thrill but to capture these events for public awareness along with many other alerts to warn people to get to safety. And when lemon hits the fan it’s about pulling together as a team and helping those who have been effected. We then look at the science, to learn more and more about Mother Nature, how it behaves and all the aspects capturing patterns and so on.

I want to go over to witness the whole journey of it, if it means we came across a tornado that hit a town and getting involved by getting out and pulling people to safety then so be it. No of course I don’t and won’t find it thrilling in a good way to see someone’s house being ripped up but I can’t explain that feeling due to not doing it but given what I’ve been told it’s an emotion that changes.

The power of social media has also given me that chance to connect with some top chasers in the states and building a great relationship and talking about various things and I’m grateful for that. 

For now I’ll keep to the small stuff in the UK, learn more and chase more.