That's a Wrap - 2019 Storm Season Highlights!

To date, 2019 was by far my most active. I put on about 40000km between 35 chase days in Canada, and 8 in the US. I logged 12 tornadoes, and got intimate with tennis ball hail near Vulcan. There were some memorable chases, with my favourite one being in Saskatchewan on my birthday (June 27) with friends.

A good chase in Saskatchewan is MONEY, as storms are big, skies are huge, and there are plentiful foreground elements of antiquity for photography. Never turn one down if you get the chance - especially in the south and southwest!

We provided lots of live coverage of storms this season, and documented the aftermath of 3 tornadoes and one straight-line wind event.

Check out these clips if you want to see video of the best stuff:
Highlight Reel and Personal Reflections
2019 Alberta Storm Season Recap

There are numerous considerations that go into determining the value of a given chase, including the rarity of what is seen, storm aesthetics, the amount of time spent taking in those moments, and those you share it with, to name a few. Here are my top 10 chases of 2019, with only one photo from each event selected to represent the day!

#10: Spruce View, AB - July 31. This cyclic supercell had some promising moments, with strong low level rotation in its best cycle. This beefy meso was also one of the better ones of the numerous I saw this summer along the foothills. I'm surprised this one didn't produce a tornado. A weak spinup did occur later in the evening, even though I couldn't see the ground circulation from my location. 

#9: Rainier, AB - July 7. This day over-performed. I began along the Porcupines west of Nanton and tracked it due east, encountering tennis ball hail and a large tornado west of Lomond. One of the best things about this storm was that it tracked through my favourite chase terrain in Alberta - Vulcan County. Open skies, rolling terrain, pristine cropland, and a lack of power poles along many grid roads. 

#8: Dogpound, AB - June 18. Similar to July 21, 2015, but better. All the barber poles you could eat rolled off the foothills NW of Calgary that evening, lined up one after the other. I documented 5 supercells that day, beginning near Eden Valley in the afternoon, and ending near Didsbury. 

#7: Crossfield, AB - July 14. This was a special day, because not only did the storm pop right in our target, but we watched it form from the initial cumuli to the moment it produced a tornado, and beyond. It was really nice sharing that moment with friends. I share this photo because this was really cool to behold - a narrow swath through maturing barley and wheat looked amazing from the air, revealing the snaky tornado track toward our viewing location to the southeast. 

#6: McCook, NE - May 17. We targeted this storm for days, so it was satisfying to see it go. One of the most photogenic tornadoes I've witnessed. 

#5: Carmangay, AB - July 18. I'm glad I told my buddy Glen to go check out the boundary in southern Alberta, as I had a mandatory dance rehearsal for our big Salsa performance at Festival in Calgary, causing me to be late to the party by about an hour. Of course, I was miffed. However, while documenting the aftermath of the tornado, we were able to rescue a kitten from under some sketchy debris and reunite it with a little boy who thought it was a goner. That, and the successful dance performance later made the day more than worth it. 

#4: Alder Flats, AB - July 23. There are a few days each season that really ring the wow meter, and this was one of them. To date, I have never quite seen anything else quite like this. You can almost get a sense of the vacuum-like motion in the storm here even in the still photo - a scene that was impeccably timed and lit by the setting sun. Even though the clouds visually appear to be screaming, it was dead silent aside from the concerned cattle that were bellowing out in the field.

#3: Follett, TX to Laverne, OK - May 23. We thought we had missed the boat on this day, as a large wedge occurred near Canadian on an earlier cycle that was seen by a few chasers to our west. However, it made sense to get ahead of it to see if it would go again, and that it did. Before dark, it became a prolific, long-track tornado producer that dropped more tornadoes of all shapes and sizes than we could accurately count. 

#2: Altus, OK - May 8. This was a "day after the day" chase, with low-topped storms firing in crisp, dry mid and upper levels. At sunset, this made for wonderful scenes - especially after we stumbled upon the Navajo Mountains of southwest Oklahoma. It took Jo and I a long time to pick our jaws up off the fields after seeing this structure. 

#1: Val Marie, SK - June 27. No, not a tornado. We made the decision stick ahead of this linear MCS as it charged east across far southern Saskatchewan at a blistering pace, and boy did it pay. A thick, stratified shelf that looked like it was chiseled out of marble atop marvellous foreground...what more could you ask for?

What were your top chases this year?