2025 Storm Chasing Course

  • Mya Stam and Henry Anningson
Students at the University of North Dakota
On our first day of the trip, we took a pit stop at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks to get a tour of their Atmospheric Science Department. We were shown some of their research laboratories, their weather radar, and their broadcast studio for their broadcast meteorology program. Thanks to Dr. Aaron Kennedy for snapping the photo and the tour.
Chasing storms
After some analysis, we determined that there was a storm threat in west-central Montana on day 3 of our trip. Our first stop of the chase was in Big Timber (top), where we got to experience some impressive chinook winds. We continued northwest near Guyser, MT (middle & bottom) to chase after a storm coming off the mountains, which also produced some strong cold wind gusts. The highlight of this part of the trip was seeing storms with the mountains as the backdrop and seeing orographic influence in action.
storm
clouds

Most people don’t go out of their way to put themselves in the vicinity of tornadoes, but that’s what we were trying to do for a whole week. On the Severe Thunderstorms, Storm Chasing and Field Techniques course, us Atmospheric Science students got to put our in-class learning to the test. The in-class portion of the course ran 0900-1500 each day between April 28 - May 2 to teach students the tools and knowledge needed to forecast tornadic storm environments – Dr. John Hanesiak is the UM professor who leads the course. We then went on an 8-day field trip between May 8 – 15 (see route map below). The trip covered over 7400 km in eight days, the longest trip we have ever done in the course's 20-year history. 2025 marks the 20th year since we first ran the course in 2005. By far, the biggest difference over the years has been the technology changes, apps that allow data access and visualization and the information that is available online to be able to do this activity more efficiently and safely. We saw four tornadoes and several good storms during the trip so students could learn about their structure(s) and evolution.

route

As a passionate group of weather enthusiasts, seeing a tornado has always been on the top of our bucket lists. Our trip was full of highs and lows (pressure systems), which in the first leg of the trip from Winnipeg to Omaha, NE we saw nothing but blue skies thanks to a high-pressure ridge over the plains. After completing some weather analysis that evening, we decided to trek northwest to the mountains of Montana, where we saw our first storm of the trip. We got to experience some extreme winds with gusts of up to 80 km/h, with a backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. The next day, we headed back to Canada to the great province of Saskatchewan, where we got the forecast of a supercell spot on - just north of Fort Qu’Appelle. This was an amazing experience to see all the diagrams in a weather textbook come to life in a real storm. We watched this supercell rotate over our heads, but the environment was too dry to produce a tornado. With a few days left of our trip, we drove all the way back down to South Dakota to reposition for our last day of chasing. We headed down to Nebraska where we watched the ingredients come together and storms started popping up all over the place. Using the insights we gained from class, we ended up making a last-minute decision to head south to the one cell that produced the only tornadoes of the day - where we saw four tornadoes! Overall, this field trip was a great learning experience, and we all made memories and friendships that will last a lifetime.

Planning for the day
After a long night of driving across Montana to Williston, ND, we woke up and got to work on deciding our target for day 4 of our trip. After this, we headed north back into Canada!
Students pointing at storm cloud
Starting in Fort Qu’Appelle, SK, we chased a storm for 5 hours all the way across the Manitoba border near Duck Mountain. While watching this storm form into a textbook supercell, we got hailed on, watched the storm rotate above our heads, and got to visualize the inflow as the storm sucked in dust from the fields below. Unfortunately, the environment was too dry for this storm to produce a tornado. We stayed in Virden, MB for the night and spent all of day 5 of our trip driving back south into the U.S.
Supercell
More photos of the Saskatchewan supercell.
Planning for the day
Day 6 of our trip we woke up bright and early in Chamberlain, SD and got to work on our Miller analysis. We hit the road and headed down to our initial target area of Thedford, NE.
Cows
After arriving in Thedford, NE while waiting for storms to initiate, we decided to look for the local weather radar. We ended up running into a herd for cows blocking our way on Bob’s road.
Storm
Photo of the first storm of the day south of Thedford, NE. This storm did not produce a tornado but had some promising rotation and a nice structure.

We wish to thank Pat McCarthy (retired Head of PASPC), Jay Anderson (retired ECCC meteorologist) and Dave Carlsen (ECCC meteorologist) for their contributions to the course over its 20-year history. We also wish to thank Keane Kokalsky, Chris Stammers, Kyle Ziolkowski and Rose Carlsen (all ECCC meteorologists) for their continued support and assistance with the course.

Tornado
We headed south to North Platte, NE to chase a new storm that popped up on the radar, and we got to witness the supercell that produced 4 tornadoes!
Storm
After the tornado dissipated, we followed the storm north and got a great view of its structure. After the storm began to weaken, we drove to Lincoln, NE for the night.
Clouds
Dining
Our victory steak dinner on our last day of the trip at Texas Roadhouse in Grand Forks, ND.
Dining