Minnesota Storm Chasing Convention
In the past few weeks, Rapid Rotation Tours has been doing some traveling! On January 26, Chris McBee and Rachel Sager traveled to Big Lake, MN for the 5th annual Minnesota Storm Chasing Convention. Many chasers from all over the U.S. were there, including filmographer and TIV I & II creator Sean Casey, attending as the keynote speaker. It certainly was cold, but it was a great convention.
The trip home proved pretty arduous, as a large crippling winter storm was plaguing the Northern Plains. The snow in Minneapolis resulted in long airline delays for our flight back to Denver. Chris didn’t arrive back to Norman, OK until nearly 3 a.m.
15th Annual Chasercon!
Cut to a few weeks later when Chris, Damon Bearden, and Rachel attended the 15th annual National Storm Chasers Convention (Chasercon) in Denver from February 15-17. It was a great time as always, storm chasers from around the world were in attendance. Some of the many speakers included Dr. Greg Forbes from The Weather Channel, Tim Samaras of Team TWISTEX and Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers, engineer and legendary chaser Tim Marshall, and Brandon Sullivan of Tornado Titans. We took a look back at the 2012 storm season, learned more about chasing safety, were informed and entertained by Tim Marshall’s Star Trek-themed presentation (the latest in a line of movie- and TV-themed hilarity), and listened to a very well-done overview of sounding data by Brandon Sullivan.
The culmination of Chasercon is always Video Night, held late on Saturday night when chasers can submit their best videos of the previous year for everyone to see. It’s the best time before storm season to view up-close high-quality tornado footage, and is looked forward to by everyone.
Rapid Rotation Tours was a part of Chasercon for the first time! We rented booth space in the vendor area among some of the most well-known companies in the storm chasing world (ChaserTV, KDR Media, Tornado Titans, Baron Services, and more). Below is a picture of Rapid Rotation tour guides Chris (right) and Damon (center). On the left is Kansas storm chaser Dillon Killoren, a friend of ours who volunteered to help us out with the booth. A big thanks to everyone who stopped by! We met some great people, got to talk with lots of severe weather enthusiasts, and of course got to socialize with other storm chasers! Can’t wait for next year!
Some pictures from Chasercon:
Tim Marshall, as Spock’s brother Spark, giving a very logical account of his 2012 season.
Brandon Sullivan of Tornado Titans, analyzing sounding data.
Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel, speaking about the 2012 severe weather season.
