We have had the opportunity to chase with veteran and skilled storm chasers and have also had the opportunity to bring people chasing who have never had the chance to before.

This year our friend, former classmate, and current colleague at The Weather Network, Matt Grinter, will be chasing with us! We've chased with Matt in southern Ontario before but this will be his first trip to Tornado Alley. Matt attended York University with myself and Brad Rousseau. He graduated a couple of years after us with honours with a BSc in Atmospheric Science as well as a Certificate in Meteorology. Matt currently works as a meteorologist at The Weather Network. He is also an adventurer and avid photographer. We're really excited to have him along on the trip and hopefully we can get him some tornadoes (if the pattern cooperates)!

We've made good progress on the chase preps. We figured out a mount for the HAM radio so now it's just a matter of wiring it to the car battery which Brad will do next weekend. The laptop stand was a bit of trouble... Unfortunately there are no mounts for Brad's truck so we've been retrofitting our current one to fit into the cup holder as a mount. Brad has had some luck with it and will continue working on it next weekend as well.

There are no power outlets in Brad's truck but there are several 12V ports as well as several USB outlets. We purchased a 300W inverter that plugs into the 12V port and have two outlet plugs to plug in. This should be okay for power and we don't forsee running into any power issues such as blown fuses. The inverter would mostly be used to keep our chasing laptop charged. To charge our phones we can pop them into the USB ports. We didn't have an issue with fuses blowing in my vehicle and one laptop should not draw more than 300W. 

The long range pattern has been a tough one to nail down! You can't say with any confidence past five days whether there are going to be tornadoes on not but at this point you can get a general idea of where the models are going with the overall pattern. Big troughs, it was we want! Unfortunately the long range models are very "muddy", as Brad puts it, with no real discernable solution. It's frustrating but not abnormal to have outlooks like these that aren't as clear cut. It does look more promising that it did at this time last year for May so there's that... We're coming out of an active pattern after the next few days of severe weather followed by a slow period. After that, things look to pick back up again. The earliest day we can leave due to work commitments is May 7 and we need to return by June 5 so any three week period in there will work.