Summary: I was finishing up college and had over 100 pages of papers to write during the spring chase season. I was also busy courting my future wife, so I mixed the best of both worlds: I brought her with us (when she could)!. We saw our first Virginia tornadoes and decided that my wife was a good luck charm.
In May, my dad, uncle, and I headed out west again to try our luck. Unfortunately all the action happened precisely before and after we left. Nice.

15 May - SE Colorado

After arriving in Oklahoma City at 4:30am after driving all night from Houston, Texas (long story), we headed out towards Colorado to a 5% chance of severe weather. We only saw a short-lived wall cloud, but as the storm moved away the setting sun lit up the anvil quite nicely.

16 May - SW Nebraska

After drying through the land that God forgot, we played catch-up with a storm on hilly dirt roads that exhibited beautiful mammatus and tons of rotation.

17 May - Central Kansas

We unwittingly met up with a couple of my buddies from OU in Hays, KS and chased together. We originally went west to chase a storm, but that didn’t do much. We heard reports of tornadoes to the east so we screamed towards them on I-70. For those of you who don’t know what “core-punching” is, it’s when you drive through the heavy rain, hail, and wind, to enter the area of rotation where a tornado would be. This area could be really small or a mile or so wide. Going into it, there is no telling.

My uncle, not knowing this, tensed up as he was driving us through this and breathed a sigh of relief after getting through it. However, once we went through the mess, my dad and I tensed up because we knew that we could be driving into something worse.

We stayed ahead of the storm for some distance and watched a vigorous wall cloud try to drop something, but nothing happened. We did get worried though, as several large hail stones fell out of nowhere while standing and watching the storm. We never saw them - we just heard them. There weren’t enough to force in the car, but just enough to keep us on our toes.

18 May - Central/Southern Kansas

Saw a few towers with possible wall clouds. The highlight of the trip was getting lost (with my dad navigating!) in farm fields at night, in the middle of nowhere, with hundreds of cows around us in open range.

19 May - Eastern Nebraska/Western Iowa

The SPC issued a moderate risk with a 15% chance of strong tornadoes. The moderate risk was downgraded to a slight risk and didn’t see anything. BUST.

20 May - Eastern Nebraska/Northwestern Missouri

We had a great position on a day with great potential, but alas, only saw a few towers that quickly died. In disgust we headed back to the airport in Oklahoma City. We flew home on the 22nd, the day of a huge outbreak of tornadoes.
16 June - Fredericksburg, VA

My dad and I watched some sort of lowering and rotation out of a small storm in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The clouds caught the attention of several shoppers and we called the cloud in to the National Weather Service. However, the storm died in the next few minutes.

5 July - Orange County, VA

Kristen and I drove separately from my parents for a family event in the town of Orange. As we were leaving, we stopped on a hilltop outside of town to watch a gust front with some interesting rotation. We stayed ahead of the front for a bit, but never saw a wall cloud.

30 August - Middle Peninsula, VA

The remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston invaded Virginia. We had a 5% chance of tornadoes, and I met my dad in Port Royal. We did not see too much, but heard of rotation closer to Richmond. We refrained from heading in that direction after hearing reports of the incredible rainfall rates (14 inches) which flooded the city.

8 September - Caroline and Spotsylvania County, VA

I was on my way home after visiting Kristen in Richmond and noticed a couple storms around me with wall clouds. I did not have a map and was totally unprepared for a chase. I picked one storm and headed through Caroline County. I had several views of a great wall cloud that had some promise. However, once I oriented myself and got back on the main road, visibility was low with the trees and I lost valuable time. I arrived at the clearing around the town of Bowling Green and saw the top of a tornado that had gone through town.

I called in a report to the National Weather Service, but had difficulty following the storm as roads were closed. Complicating the matter was there were only two roads north out of town with a military base in between, meaning I was stuck with whatever I picked. I determined the storm was splitting the two roads and I picked Route 2 which would take me back to Fredericksburg. I drove through the area where the tornado crossed and called my mom, realizing the tornado could hit our house. The tornado went towards the east, sparing our house, but for a day in which I was not prepared to chase, I think I did quite well.

17 September - Fauquier and Culpeper counties, VA

My wife and I rode together and convoyed with my dad. The remnants of Hurricane Ivan were going through Virginia and we headed towards Warrenton. We stopped on the way there and observed a fantastic looking supercell and what appeared to be the top of a large tornado. Turns out that tornado hit the small town of Remington as an F3.

Kristen navigated us away from the heavy traffic and as we approached Warrenton from the east, we noted debris around us and closed roads as police cars swarmed in. We then popped out on US 29 and watched a tornado cross Route 29 not even a half mile away. We wanted to follow the storm more, but traffic was insane and we gave up.

However, we heard of another storm and decided to head in a direction away from traffic. We drove through heavy rain and unwittingly core-punched and saw a funnel less than 500 yards that was a tornado just minutes before

Turns out there were several tornadoes in Virginia that day, including one only a mile from my house.