Summary: All of these chases were in Virginia. Chasing in the Southern Plains spoiled my dad and I, for visibility was not something to take for granted in the East. We had to work harder not only to see storms through the trees, but to navigate the traffic and curvy roads inherent in central and northern Virginia. Another lesson we learned this year was patience. If we had stayed another half hour in a couple places, we would have seen more.

21 March - Northern Virginia

My dad and I headed northwest on US 17, we ran into sunshine south of Warrenton. We decided to go north where the severe focus was, but were stymied by low level clouds that would not go away. After a data check at a local library, we determined we should have stayed to the south. Overall it was a bust.

29 March - Central Virginia

We drove towards the mountains and observed the leading edges of the cold front. We ended up at Locust Grove and observed a small wall cloud. We went to Wilderness and headed east towards Fredericksburg. We called in a storm report and heard that a tornado warning had been issued for Spotsylvania County, where we were. We observed a funnel and then headed east. We barely could keep in front of the storm. We then hit Route 1 north and observed a wall cloud. That wall cloud dropped stovepipe funnel but we could not keep up with it due to roads and limited visibility. Finally we ran into the Potomac River at Bel Plains and were forced to give up the chase.

8 May - Fredericksburg, VA
I was running errands and noticed a storm following the Rappahannock River. I stopped at Central Park and watched a wall-cloud and called my dad, who was chasing it from the other side of the river. We watched the mesocyclone die off.

10 May - 384 miles - Southern Virginia

A rare moderate risk prompted us to chase. Two storms were severe until they hit the cool marine layer that would not go away on the other side of the Blue Ridge. No severe weather seen.

11 June - Central VA

We headed west but gave up too soon. A severe thunderstorm went up for the storm we just left and a lack of radar updates on the road prevented us from knowing about the storms behind it.

18 July - Spotsylvania County, Va

We headed toward the west part of the county, guessing two storms would merge over top of us. We then went to the east where another round of storms fired, but due to the fact that we were tired, we went home. Had we waited another 30 minutes we would’ve seen a show.