Leaving Catoosa

The morning after the tornado. Watching Hollywood movies and YouTube videos really doesn’t prepare you for the emotional impact of being at the mercy of Mother Nature. This was a dramatic reminder that survival is pure chance, all the time. Was I stupid and selfish to deliberately put myself in the firing line, pushing my […]

Joplin, Missouri

My first storm chase took me 385 miles in the wrong direction, racing a line of storms that always managed to keep ahead of me. I was close enough to melt virgin hail on the highways, but a comedy reel of obstacles slowed my progress: school buses, tractors, a ‘Welcome to Missouri’ sign that had […]

The Jailhouse Motel, Ely, Nevada

The only light came from dust and cigarette smoke, lit by the spring sunshine through a crack in the curtain. The only sound was Jean, the barmaid, stacking whiskey glasses. Her back was turned and stayed that way. It was two in the afternoon, and outside the sun felt hot despite the shafts of snow […]

Tulsa, Part 2: The Storm

I left the casino and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 3pm, check-in time at the Holiday Inn. I stopped dead, right outside the doors. It was hot – seriously hot. Not three hours ago I’d entered this warped behemoth in a jacket and jumper, and this morning had shivered with plumes of breath in a freezing […]

Escaping Yosemite

I unwrapped my box of wine from three plastic carrier bags – YHA doesn’t allow alcohol, even in Yosemite – and proudly decanted a cupful of warm Chardonnay. The art of sneaking alcohol runs deep and true in my family genes, fine-tuned over generations of Test Match Cricket. It’d been a long and uneventful drive […]

Tulsa, Part One

I saw it from ten miles away, a flashing red beacon amid the dull iron skies. From Joplin there was nothing to see for a hundred miles but a billion little trees in their naked winter frames. But then that red dot poked above the horizon. And it did something funny to my foot, it […]