I'm a photographer, videographer, writer and storm chaser. I love capturing rare and/or severe natural events. So far, I have witnessed supercell thunderstorms, flash floods, tornadoes, got to experience the beauty of a total solar eclipse and recently spent two months documenting wildlife in South Africa. I have yet to capture the aurora borealis, a volcano, and intercept a hurricane. Twitter/Instagram - @jadevajna.
Today was a bit of a bust. Didn't see much. We drove from Miles City over to Lewistown (the furthest west we travelled) and had a little mini chaser convergence, where we ran into Daniel Shaw and one of my favourite photographers, Mike Olbinski. I had never met him before. His does the most amazing timelapses. Then we decided to chase a severe-warned cell off to the East but it died off. Now we're in Glendive. Going to have an early start tomorrow and head over to North Dakota for the Enhanced risk.
I'm glad to have an early night tonight. So happy to be staying at a Days Inn! It feels like the Fairmont Empress compared to the Motel 6.
Today was a travel and laundry day. We are now in Miles City, Montana and we stopped at Mount Rushmore on our way here. The last time I was in Montana was 25 years ago, when my parents and I drove to BC from Toronto via the US. We've been through 9 states in the last 8 days! The drive here from South Dakota via Wyoming was so beautiful.
I felt so content and relaxed today. I haven't felt this relaxed, happy, and present in a really long time. It took me a whole week to unwind/de-stress and forget about work and busy, overcrowded Vancouver. This cold is clearing up. I'm more comfortable with my cameras again. I'm finally in chase mode and feel completely myself. As much as Vancouver is comfortable because it's familiar, I feel more "at home" on the road with fellow weather nerds. In general, I think I've just always felt more at alive and present when I'm travelling.
Enjoying some ice cream at Mount Rushmore. They only had one size..
Today was a travel day. We stopped at Niobrara state park in Nebraska, which I thought was beautiful. It really did look like the default Windows XP wallpaper.
We also stopped at this little town called Wall in South Dakota. A weird little place. Tonight we're in Rapid City. This is the first city we've stayed in, as opposed to the little tiny towns. There's no free Wi-Fi so I can't upload much. There's also a hint of cigarette smoke coming into my room so my allergies are acting up. Going to knock myself out with some Benadryl.
Today's chase involved adventures in Nebraska. I got some amazing photos. There was no rotation on these storms, but we got to see some quarter sized hail. We took shelter at a bank in the little town of Bassett. Then, a resident invited us to a fundraser at a senior's center nearby, which was awesome. Super nice people. It was kind of surreal seeing a guy wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat. I was definitely in America's heartland.
Then we were off and we saw the most amazing mammatus I had ever witnessed. There was lightning in the distance, but none nearby. Everything was peaceful as I filmed a timelapse. Then, suddenly, Ray was like, "Your hair is standing up!" And I just asked, "Are you sure? It's probably just messy" and he's like, "there's electricity running through you, it's lifting up." I instantly thought, "Shit!, I'm about to be struck by lightning." I thought I should run back to the van.. But then I wanted to verify if that was indeed the case (I.e. I needed to take a photo). I could see other people's hair standing up a bit too. I checked my arm hairs but then remembered that I recently waxed my arms. No one seemed to be panicking.. So I just kept taking selfies and videos, even though, in the back of my mind, I kind of felt like I was playing with fire. I remember as a kid going to the Ontario Science Center and touching that big static orb that makes your hair stand up and I used to purposely rub my shoes on the carpet and shock people. Electricity always fascinated me. I am literally like a moth to a flame when it comes to this kind of stuff. My curiosity and fascination overrode any sense of personal safety. I guess I also just figured that if no one else is freaking out, then why should I? I also thought it might have been something else and not lightning, since it was happening to everyone and not just me and there was no lightning nearby. Though, after speaking to another chaser and doing some Googling, I learned that we probably were in the danger zone.
Here are a few of the selfies.
Despite the lightning danger, the mammatus we saw that night was absolutely breathtaking.
There was A LOT of lightning on this storm so we were out late taking photos.
When I booked this trip, the only thing I kept wishing for was to see a tornado on my birthday.
Well.. I can honestly say that this was probably my best birthday ever. We saw 5 tornadoes (that was the agreed upon final number) and we enjoyed a well earned steak dinner. The restaurant was packed with chasers. I had a margarita that I could barely finish (seriously, do Americans even measure drinks or is it all free-pour? 😂).
Those tornadoes happened so fast. The whole thing was over in about 40 minutes. That cell popped up and it was wham, bam, thank you ma'am. It got the job done and was out of there.
The only bummer is that I feel myself coming down with a cold. Probably from the lack of sleep and stress leading up to the trip. This happened in 2015 as well.
I *really* want to go though my photos and videos and update my blog but we're meeting at 9am (it's just past midnight) so I have to sleep if I'm to fight off this cold. Tomorrow is another chase day.
We didn't have huge hopes for today so we were pleasantly surprised by a really nice cell on the Kansas/Colorado border, in Kanorado. At one point it became tornado warned and had a lot of lightning. We *may* have seen a tornado on two separate occasions, but it was very hard to tell because it was getting dark and it was low contrast.
Here are my best pics of the day.
Of course I had to include my post chase hair.
Oh and I also have to mention.. I ended up clocking a 60km/hr wind gust with my Kestrel! I love this
thing.
On a side note, I'm technically in Mountain Time, but my phone is still picking up a signal from a tower on Central Time.. So according to my phone, it's already my birthday! But according to my location.. It's not. I've lost the concept of time at this point. I don't even know if I'm jetlagged or not. Time feels like it's completely slowed down. I can't believe I only got here yesterday
I did some live streaming over Periscope. After the whole Jeff Piotrowski's popularity with the #blueshed during Hurricane Harvey, I figured live streaming was where it was at. And I guess it can be, if you have good reception, but my stream ended up having no sound.. and I didn't realize the streams get deleted after 24 hours. The unfortunate situation was that I ended up streaming more than I did shooting with my actual camera. I got a lot of newsworthy shots of flooding on the roads and in and around people's homes, but it was with the Periscope stream -which had no sound and was deleted a day later.
All in all though, I picked a good spot, since I got barely and precip. The only water I was hit with was seawater.
What was unique about this situation was that I took a date with me. He said he wanted to "do something out in nature", so I brought him along for the ride. Even though he likes thunderstorms (and even sort of chased a tornado last year near his hometown in Alberta), I don't think he knew the extent of what he was signing up for when I picked him up at 5am this morning. He hadn't eaten. He wasn't dressed warm enough or wearing anything water resistant. He took it like a champ though.
There were times where I could tell he was physically uncomfortable and wanted it to be over.. But he didn't explicitly tell me to stop, so I kept going because it felt good. Though, this was the reason I actually didn't take any photos and didn't shoot that much video with my good camera -because I was so aware of him just standing there, covering his ears with this pained expression on his face as the wind cut through him. He was a good sport though. At one point, he held my gear for me while I was live streaming. I appreciated that.
When I bought him breakfast afterwards and then drove him home, he was like.. "That was fun.. Though I guess I just didn't realize we were going to be out in it for that long.." I kind of laughed and was like.. "I cut it short for you. I could have spent all day out there."
I guess the lesson here is, storm chasing is like sex; if you don't have the right partner, it's way more satisfying to just do it alone.
