Ever since I was a kid I loved storms, don’t know why, the weather was this miraculous thing I didn’t understand. I loved the cloud formations and how they were different almost every day. When I caught the end of Twister around being 5, this was the first time I’d seen a tornado and didn’t know what it was. Stupid me thought that there was always one coming, little did I know, they don’t happen that much here.

One day I was walking to school on a normal grey sky day with my Dad. I look to the sky and say “tornado” I live in the North East, there was no tornado. Nobody thought anything of it. That night I get shouted downstairs by my Dad thinking I was in trouble. A tornado hit Birmingham. He couldn’t believe it, neither could I. That’s where I really got enthralled.

As I got older, I could understand more. Technology had advanced too. That’s when I discovered that people storm chase in the Spring & Summer. It was mysterious and magical. An adrenaline rush of waiting to see what was happening.

I didn’t know till this year that you can watch live streams of chases. Last year there was a prediction that tornado alley was moving east. They weren’t wrong, Dixie Alley has been alive this season. A massive mile wide wedge was outside St Louis, sadly they had no warning thanks to defunding and a lot of damage had been done. It’s not okay at all that people’s lives had been put in danger. No news reports, no sirens, no phone warnings, nothing. People have died as a result.

The reason I’m writing this article is to spread the word about live streams. Max Velocity on YouTube puts out warnings in advance on that platform and social media. He goes live when there’s warning to protect and inform people on where will likely be in the path.

If you want to track tornadoes yourself, it can also be done. There’s a lot of free radars available on app stores. Apple weather has a radar too, what you need is precipitation. A storm on there is blue on the outside, pink inside and lots of yellow in the middle. You have to look for a hook which is the signal for potential rotation however, the app itself isn’t great for spotting hooks.

On traditional radar, I use the app “lightning” it’s blue on the outside, green on the inside and then red in the middle. However, if there’s pink inside of the red, that means it’s more powerful. I have included an example of a storm which as I write this is bordering multiple states, it has a few points of rotation and hooks.

It’s interesting to keep an eye on, especially if you have friends in the area. It means you can warn them, especially if you’re hours ahead and they could be asleep.

Since the start of the month I’ve been exposed to some of the worst weather, I’ve seen new places across America and Canada. Been on a crazy road trip.