Tornado Chasing Day 1: Blue Skies and Budget Airlines

Hi everybody! This week, I’ll be doing something I (surprisingly) haven’t done before: tornado chasing! I’ll be chasing with Joey Sipos, a computer programmer/game designer (check out his latest VR game, “Glider Island”) and a fellow severe weather geek. Joey’s been chasing once, so I’m counting on him to get us perfectly positioned to follow some awesome storms. I don’t know if he’s counting on me to provide longwinded explanations of CAPE, helicity, and drylines to keep us busy while driving across the plains, but that’s what he’ll get!

Today was travel day. Joey and his mother picked me up at my house bright and early at 7 am, and we headed off to Sea-Tac airport to catch a flight to Denver. But being the cheapskate millenials we are, we decided to take a disjointed but cheaper route aboard “Spirit Airlines,” which Wikipedia bills as the U.S.’s largest ultra low-cost-carrier. We flew from Seattle to LA, and then LA to Denver, with a 9-hour layover in between. As such, we had some time to explore the city of LA, a city I have never been to!

We took an Uber (with a VERY loquacious driver, I might add) from the airport to Santa Monica pier, which is a 100-year-old world famous pier that puts Seattle’s piers to shame. It had everything you could ever need on a pier… a Ferris wheel run on solar power, tons of expensive (but surprisingly not too expensive) food, street performers galore, carnival games, and even a host of fishermen catching Spanish Mackerel schooling by the pilings below. But as awesome as the pier was, there were irresistibly sunny beaches to both our right and our left, so we decided to get some Mexican food and stroll down to the beach, luggage and all.

After talking extensively about the future of augmented reality, our excitement about the week ahead, and cracking jokes about the bluebird skies on our tornado chasing vacation, we picked it up and went for a stroll south along nearby Venice Beach. One of the highlights was walking past a section of the beach that was essentially an outdoor gym – it bore a stunning resemblence to “Mussel Beach” from Spongebob Squarepants. Continuing our walk north, we came across a flurry of shops right along the paved pathway, and at one point stopped to get some delicious gelato. Again, at 6 bucks for three small scoops, it wasn’t cheap, but neither is the rent on Southern Californian Beach.

After walking a little while more, we saw a large huddle of spectactors in the distance, so we decided to head over and investigate. It turns out that Venice Beach also has a deluxe skate park with incredibly talented skateboarders. Though some of the skateboarders were dudes in their 20s who looked very “skateboardy,” a substantial portion of the skateboarders were actually young girls, the oldest of which was 8 years old. These girls were absolutely incredible – I couldn’t believe how much air they were catching and how fast they were zipping around the park.

After one last look at surfers catching some seabreeze-driven waves near a rock jetty, Joey and I got another Uber back to the airport. Though this driver was a little less talkative than our driver 6 hours before, he was absolutely hilarious, joking that he had a “boat” when in reality he was just referring to the plastic boats that his kids fly around like airplanes. After a wait, we headed onto our flight for Denver and arrived in the Mile High City at 1 am on Sunday. After getting a rental car (with hefty insurance) and a cheap motel, we crashed for the night, with dreams of the supercell storms to come later this week.

On Sunday, we’ll meet up with a friend in Denver and head over to the plains. Conditions aren’t looking superb for tornado formation tomorrow, but that just means we’ll have more time on our hands to position us for an upcoming tornado outbreak on Wednesday!

Because tornadoes generally strike in the evening, my daily blogs will be a review of the day before, and I’ll try and get them out by around 3 pm at the latest. Wish me and Joey luck as we head out on the adventure of a lifetime!