ExtremeInstability.com It started out as a storm chaser, with no plans.
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Extreme Instability
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I should have redone this page looooonnnngggg ago. So, here we go. I'm a storm chaser. No duh eh? Name is Mike Hollingshead. Born and raised in Blair Nebraska way back when(76 for the age curious out there). One day I'll have a decent pic of myself and I'll put it above. This will have to do for now(current as of May 25, 2005). Yes I know I need to shave. So anyway to the nitty gritty to get this over with. I've always loved severe weather, or just interesting weather in general. Most chasers have some long ago memory of a tornado or storm they can fall back on as their first interest; I can't. All I can come up with is one day in a park, maybe age 7 or so, thinking I was controlling the wind. I'd wait and think I could make it blow stronger. Very thrilling eh? I'd always have to stay up during storms and watch the lightning out the window. It all just grew and grew, especially after my first tornado video "Tornado-The Entity"....or was it "The Enemy Wind"? Ok my history is pretty sad since I can't recall such IMPORTANT details. Anyway, whichever video it was I was impressed, but it didn't make me a chaser. The more images of supercells I started seeing online(MUCH later) made me become an actuall chaser. I just had to see them for myself. This would be about 8 years after those first tornado videos, after the internet had been around for a few years.
In 1999 I set out on my first chase where I actually took some maps with me and planned to go as long as I could. Up until this date my only "chasing" consisted of storms in town viewed from a hilltop, often with my dad. To see a tornado on your first chase is pretty silly. It came a bit too easy and I just figured I was goooooood. Wrong. It would be over a year before I was "good" again. Though at the same time it was probably a good thing it happened on my first chase as then there was little chance I'd quit because of excessive "failures". That isn't saying non-tornado days are failures, as they certainly aren't. The early goal though was to see a tornado for the first time. Something so rare you just sort of want to be one of the few.
1999 would have been a good year to know what you were doing in. I really didn't. I watched enough videos and read a few things to get by. I'd been an ethusiastic home observer for long enough. I was never one that worried if it was ok for me to head out and see what happens. I wanted to chase and that was all that mattered. Some people in this hobby let what others think guide them a bit much I think. In other words I was ok learning the hard way at the risk of myself. And learn the hard way I did. I had a somewhat close call that very first chase and another on my first chase vacation to TX in 2000. Being forced to take shelter isn't really the way to go when doing this. Being able to get to a road that leads you out of bad situations is really important. Since those 2 encounters I've never had to take shelter. I never really had to in either of those earlier cases either but they felt like the safest thing to do when you don't trust your own knowledge. They sound like a good idea at the time, but believe me the second you are in them you no longer think this. Your brain starts coming up with what is about to happen to you. It is nice to be 'beyond' that place now. Both those instances large F3s passed just south of my location. A person can get killed quite easily taking shelter and it is important to remember this when you are new at chasing. It is worth mentioning in both cases I had managed to get myself lost at thee worst possible time. The second one scared me bad enough that I didn't ever want to chase again, lol. I was out on the next chase option. I was a lot more careful however.
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