Storm Before the Podcast Episode 25: Certified Flight Instructor / Storm Chaser Andrew Guidarelli

 Join us as we explore the fascinating world of storm chasing, weather phenomena, and the passions that drive an accomplished pilot and storm chaser. Andrew Guidarelli shares his journey, insights, and memorable experiences that highlight the blend of science, adventure, and personal growth. Andrew shares his journey as a storm chaser, the emotional highs and lows, and lessons learned about obsession, risk, and balancing life. This candid conversation offers insights into the passion and sacrifices involved in storm chasing and how aviation safety principles can be applied to it.

keywords

storm chasing, weather, aviation, tornadoes, meteorology, storm photography, weather forecasting, storm safety, storm chasing tips, weather passion storm chasing, tornadoes, obsession, risk management, aviation safety, mental health, life balance, weather photography

key topics

• Storm chasing techniques and experiences
• The passion for weather and aviation
• Memorable tornado encounters and lessons learned Emotional impact of missing tornadoes
• Risk management and decision-making in storm chasing
• Applying aviation safety principles to storm chasing

guest name

Andrew Guidarelli

key frameworks

• Risk mitigation in storm chasing
• Aviation safety principles applied to weather chasing
• Mental health awareness in high-risk hobbies

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the Storm Before the Calm podcast. I am your host, Lori Grace Bailey. I'm really excited though to bring to you today a friend, Andrew Weidarelli. I hope I said that right, Andrew. Did I say that right? Please tell me. Gutarelli. Thank you. See, I can't even do that. Okay. Yeah. I, I'm terrible with names. So I appreciate you. Andrew, Andrew Gutarelli is here. He is an airplane pilot, storm chaser, weather aficionado. And I've got a lot of, we've already been talking for a long time, so I'm really excited to pick your brain here today. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me. I've seen some of the previous episodes that were really good and I'm excited to be the next one. we are looking to wrap up this first season. I'm really proud to have been able to get past that. And I'm just so glad that you and I could actually connect. One of the first times that I actually talked with you, I don't know if you remember this, you were surprised that I even still had your number, but I was the Encino New Mexico Tornado. And it started off coming off the... 7,000 foot hills of east of Albuquerque near Clines Corner. And I think I texted you like, Andrew, this is where I want to be. And I'm just not feeling the push to go down to Roswell where everybody else is. And you were like, go where you need to be. Go where you think is a good spot. If you're seeing the shear if you're seeing all that. And that gave me the confidence to make sure that I'm going to stick around. That was the boost that I needed and I ended up getting to see this amazing, incredible Encino tornado that had two, right? It was the clockwise and the anti-cyclonic tornado that popped up right in front of me. So it was wonderful. uh it and I didn't. So I helped you see a tornado that I didn't even see myself. were you at at the time when you told me to go for it? I think that was the crazy Clovis week, wasn't it? I think I just stayed in San John, New Mexico and barely moved for about five days, just back and forth between there and Clovis and didn't get any tornadoes that week, but got some nice structure. That was fun. That was a fun week of storm chasing. weren't any like there wasn't one day in specific that was super good, but it was just back to back to back. was a lot of fun. I like New Mexico. I like green chili, so I won't complain about being able to even a bad chase in New Mexico was still a good chase. I love that state. I love, you know, I totally agree. think northeastern and middle northeastern New Mexico is really fantastic. But as you get closer towards like Farmington and some of those Hobbs, that is not very pretty. Yeah, absolutely. It stinks. You smell either cow or you smell oil and it's not very pretty. my goodness. I love the driving from when you cross in from like text line and you end up in New Mexico on, I think it's 287 maybe, 87, through Clayton and all the way up to the Raton Mesa and you got the volcano on the right side there, Capulin volcano. Capulin. drive up into Colorado, that's one of my very favorite places in the world. I love that area so, so much. Capulin is such a like it's magical when you're up there And you get to see, and it's kind of right on the boundary a lot, right? Two of that warm moist air coming in. And then you have those dry westerlies, the EMLs like trying to kick up just garbage and you have that mixture, but then you see the cloud bases are so high, the cumulus, but then as the day progresses, things kind of start, the magic starts to happen there as it goes eventually towards Kim, Colorado and that area where, hmm, you're. terrain effects are interesting. think Capulin Volcano is outside of South Florida, the place with the most frequent lightning in the entire United States. And most people don't realize that. It's a local combination of, because the storms are already uplifted from the Raton Mesa. And then Capulin is another 1,000 foot cinder cone volcano that gives it even more lightning. yeah, it's a cool, one of my like. fantasy shots. I won't call it a dream shot. A dream shot has to be realistic, right? But a fantasy shot would be a tornado right next to the Capulin volcano. That would just be, that would be so cool. Yeah, I actually, we went back the next day and I did a time lapse and it was just storms were kind of murky and stuff. It was still a beautiful time lapse and I've never even shared that time lapse. Maybe in the future I'll share that, but it really is a magical place and, and you know, it's not a bad place to hang out. though. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself for those who don't know you? Yeah. So, I'm kind of a bit of a Jack of all trades in my life. I am a pilot. I'm a certified flight instructor. work here at Ohio university in Athens, Ohio, uh, where I've been working for the past three years, but I've lived in Athens for 11 years now, which is hard to believe. I've been here for that long. I also work part time with another job and then I storm chase. I sit on a city council commission that involves a walk. and bicycles in my city. So I kind of have a bunch of part-time, I don't do anything full-time, but I have a bunch of part-time sources of income and volunteer things that kind of add up to me being, I basically am busy 50 or 60 hours a week, but it's with a bunch of different things. And I'm actually moving to New York City in August. This is my last two weeks here at Ohio University and I'm gonna be getting a master's degree at City University of New York in public administration and hopefully trying to help advocate for more sustainable forms of transportation, whether that be electric airplanes, high speed rail, something like that. So I'm kind of going to combine my passion for the environment. It's fitting we're recording this the day after Earth Day with my passion for flying and kind of try to advocate for a better future in the transportation field. So yeah, I'm kind of all over the place. I do a lot of things. That's pretty ambitious too, to be able to do all those different things. But you have a goal in mind and that's amazing to be able to set a new goal too, because being a pilot, that has to be pretty cool. I've always wanted to be able to fly. I wanted to be a pilot when I was young and then they told me, no, if you have to wear glasses, you can't be a pilot. And of course that was all bunk. I know, I know. What are you rated for as far as planes? I know there's different ratings. obviously my private pilot's rating, my instrument rating, my commercial rating, which is all required to work as a pilot. And then I have my multi-engine rating, my flight instructors rating, my instrument instructors rating. I think when I'm in New York, I'm going to try to pick up a multi-engine instructors rating. So I have all those. also recently in December, I went to Florida and got my seaplane endorsement. So I'm now rated to fly seaplanes as well. Although I only have a couple hours in them. you know, realistically, if I wanted a job doing that, I'd have to get some more experience, but I do have the rating. Yeah, I mean, there's there's other ratings out there. I kind of want to get my tailwheel endorsement someday. And then, you know, I once I get once I hit a thousand hours of flight time, I can work as an airline transport pilot. So, you know, while I'm in grad school, I want to find a way to keep flying inch towards my thousand and. Long-term, know, potentially fly jets, whether it's for cargo, for the airlines or something like that. But there's so many jobs outside of that in aviation too. you know, combined with my MPA work, who knows, who knows? I'm not really sure what I'll be doing in five years or 10 years, but you know, I'll definitely have a lot of options with all the pilot ratings. That's amazing too. So it sounds like you're currently on the unicycle though, and you're juggling the machete and the bowling ball and the burning axe or whatever. You're just juggling all those different things. How are you able to, yeah, I was gonna say, how are you able to maintain that? Because there's a cadence that you have to be able to do to maintain all of that. it's hard because I got to balance time for both of my jobs. then luckily, my second job is remote and it's kind of like asynchronous. So you can kind of work on it whenever you have time. So that's good. But, you know, I also, as I said, I'm on a city council commission, which is that's non paid, but it's appointed by the city. So, you know, I feel a responsibility to the the citizens of my town to, you know, make sure I'm. doing my job there, and I'm actually president of a couple of activist organizations in Athens. And I do a lot of stuff in my local community. And then you want to have a social life on top of that, right? So you have friends that you want to hang out with. And great thing about Athens is that I knew I would somehow make this about walkable cities, because that's what it always comes back to with me. But Athens, all my friends live within a couple of blocks from me. A bunch of them I went to college with. Some of them I didn't, but they just live here. It's nice every time I go out the door, I see like five people I know. So then you end up talking to someone for like an hour. And it's just a great, a lot of places in America don't really have community like in other countries or like how we used to, but a lot of college towns are places that still do. And that's one thing I really am going to miss about living here, but I think New York will have that as well. So it's hard to balance it all. and then, know, storm chasing on top of that, right? It's a whole, it's a whole thing. I was lucky when I was in college for so many years. My program took much more four years and then COVID happened. So I was lucky to get summer breaks where I could go chase. Last summer was the first summer that I didn't get to chase full time. But now with grad school, I'll be able to chase. I'm leaving on May 3rd. I'll be able to be out the whole season and then I'll get summer breaks in grad school too, which uh will be June. It'll be just June, but I'll still get ample time to chase. So yeah, that answer was a lot, but my life is a lot right now. And I'm honestly kind of looking forward to having a less to juggles. in the next year. I think I'm ready for a little bit less. Absolutely. I would love to be able to meet you too, finally in the, you know, out in the wild somewhere under a meso somewhere or, or busting like is common, but you you miss, you did miss last year. I missed most. only got to chase for four days last year, but I did see the narrow Vista storm and I did see the little tornado on Texoma you know, that little line. saw that little bitty tornado, but it was great. It was for four days. It was, and I'm saying chasing. Um, but this year I'm really excited to be able to be out there too. are you looking to be able to at least with your busy schedule, once you moved in New York, are you still gonna, are you still planning on chasing as much as you can? Yeah, the master's program I'm going to, their finals week is in late May. And that is unfortunate, because most colleges' finals week is at the beginning of May. So that misses me some May chasing. So I'm going to be juning for the next couple of years in 27 and 28. But honestly, my hot take is that June is better than May. Most of those highly photogenic tornadoes are not in May. They're usually in June. So it'll save me some money, too, not chasing 10 weeks and only chasing five. So it'll be fine. And then, know, long-term, mean, I'd love to find a job where I can, I mean, the dream job would be one where I can chase all May and all June forever. That would be, you know, whatever job I could work at that out with. But, you know, I got the next three seasons figured out. We'll go from there when 2029 rolls around, but that's a while from now. Well, you I mean, you talk about weather now and you're a pilot, you have a lot of passions. What made you or how did you develop that for storm chasing? Because by the time I met you, you were already, you were able to forecast, you're able to target, you're able to run the numbers basically mathematically and come up with a target and be confident and all that and learn a lot about situational awareness and the how to chase, right? There's more than forecasting, but then there's the how to's and you already knew all that. How did you develop that passion and then how did you, you know, how did you move forward into pursuing that? So yeah, we got the passion, then we got the skill. So I can break that down into two parts. So the passion for weather was always there. When I was a little kid, especially, it's funny, most people think that my favorite weather is tornadoes, but it's actually not true. My favorite weather is snow. There's nothing that makes me happier than cold, snowy winters. We had a great winter here in Athens. We had a week where it was negative 10 for like a week straight. And I'd go for walks in the morning and it'd be like five below and the snow was crunching. I was, I, I, I dated a girl who called me Arctic Fox once because of how much I liked the snow. So that was always my favorite weather and loving winter storms. And I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, which was, you know, now I'm in Southern Ohio. So I was a little bit closer to Lake Erie. So we'd get lake effect and all kinds of terrain induced stuff in the Appalachians. And, you know, it was like the best day of my life when we would get 10 inches or whatever when I was a kid, you know, and That kind of blossomed into a love for all kinds of weather. you know, even as a little kid, a big storm would come through. We'd get, you know, Western PA, get a couple of super sales, couple of derecho's. I never saw a tornado there, but you know, as a kid, there were still some decent storms and I just liked all of it. I liked everything about weather. And then, you know, I'd watch like storm chasers on the TV on Discovery, like everyone else did back then and kind of just loved it. I knew I always wanted to storm chase. It was like a bucket list item. I didn't think I'd become like a storm chaser to this extent. I just wanted to see a tornado, right? And as you know, you do it once and then it's like a drug. You you gotta do it. You never have enough, right? But there was a, I minored in meteorology when was in college, because it was only a couple, you already had to take some meteorology classes for the aviation degree, which makes sense. Pilots have to know. We're up in the sky, right? So we have to know a lot about it. I wanted to minor in meteorology. One of the classes for that was actually a storm chasing class. taught by, I gotta give a shout out to Dr. Jana Hauser, who is now up at Ohio State University. She still lives in Athens and she taught at OU. So I had her for mesoscale meteorology and I got to take her mesoscale class and then I was gonna take her storm chasing class. Well, that happened to be in a year called 2020 and the storm chasing class got canceled. So I said, well, screw it. I'm going to go out by myself. took like, I like, you know, I'm ready for this. I took her meteorology class. This was before I'd taken mesoscale, but I knew a thing or two. So I'm going to go out by myself. Went out 2020 storm chased, saw nothing because there were no good storms that year. That was like the worst year for storms ever. And then, you know, COVID on top of it, having to social distance on the road. was just a nightmare. So then 2021 came around, finally saw my first tornado and that's how I, you know, kind of just got hooked. So the passion was always there. then, yeah, I mean, honestly, it's funny, I presented with Skip Talbot at the Storm Chaser Summit a couple months ago. And one of the first things I did to educate myself was watch his videos. So now it's cool that I'm presenting with someone who I, you know, formerly learned from. But it's really because people like him and Jana Hauser and Cameron Nixon and people like that I learned a lot from and I would just study meteorology. I mean, when I there'd be like a Mississippi setup and I wouldn't chase it. I would just stay at home and I'd make like hand drawn maps and whatever. And that's how I would learn. You know, the, the, these big names are, are people who end up helping us so much that they become someone that, we really look up to. And that must have been really cool to be teaching alongside Skip Talbot. Not only though is Skip such a iconic person in storm chasing, especially for storm safety, but he's also an airplane pilot also. And he has his own experimental plane. think his father gave to him if I'm, if I'm right there. but he has an experimental plane, he goes out, he still flies. Is that something you enjoy, you still enjoy doing? You know, everything becomes work. Even flying an airplane becomes work, even if you're a professional storm chaser becomes work. But yeah, I still enjoy it. I mean, there's days where I could be having a bad day. come to work, I'm up flying. Southeast Ohio, foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It's beautiful here. Sunsetting, I'm over the green rolling hills. And I'm just like, well, I could have a worse job, you know? Like, my life could be better, but it definitely, definitely could be way, way worse. And yeah, that kind of wonder never really fully goes away as a pilot, no matter how much you fly it still. It's still pretty amazing to think that, I mean, humans looked at birds for millennia, for over 100,000 years and thought, how do we do that? And then, you know, we figured it out. And now it's just like a casual thing we do. And it always amazes me when I'm on an airliner and someone like... isn't looking, someone's in the window seat, they're not staring out the window when they're coming into land. I'm like, you're flying, you're freaking flying. Like, this is the crazy, you take someone from a thousand years ago, they'd slap you in the face for not being amazed by it. And now we're just like, it's normal. I'm like, it is not normal. This is not normal. This is incredible. We're living in sci-fi movie. know, right? First world problems, first world complaints. I did see a comedian a few years ago talk about that, like, this sucks. I have to fly coach. They put you in this tube out of all of creation, out of all of humanity. We're in this tiny little section where we actually get to experience flight. And here we are bitching and complaining about there's a baby crying in the back or this and that near. You look at that window and you, even if it's just a tiny window, if you're looking across because somebody else has the window seat, you still get to marvel. You still get to fly through the air. It's just funny that that's the case that we find anything to complain about when there's so much more reality though that we have to worry about. But you you talked about the experience and the awe of learning to fly. I have to bring in the song though, know, my favorite band, Learning to Fly, that was David Gilmour's, I think it was Polly Sampson who helped him write his wife. just for anybody just starting here, I am the biggest Pink Floyd fan, so I could talk about anything and everything except the Sid Barrett ears. But Andrew is a huge Floyd fan as well. And I love, by the way, you I love that more people are talking about music and different things. Related to storm chasing because we listen to music all the time but learning to fly like what's your favorite? I'm gonna switch gears real quick because I love everything Pink Floyd. You're always posting some Pink Floyd stuff as well What what's your favorite Floyd album? Oh, Dark Side of the Moon. I mean, I know it's cliche, but I think it's the greatest album ever made. It's so cohesive. It's the way it's about life, the way that you can sit down. And I have a record player and I will literally sit down at nighttime, turn all the lights off in my apartment, put my headphones on to the record player, plug in the vinyl, drop the needle and just listen to the Dark Side of the Moon. Mm-hmm. It's two songs, A and side B, right? I don't know about any of these break, they break down what's your favorite song. Like it's not two, it's not songs, it's halves. There's two halves to that album. There's side one and side two, and it tells a story. And it's just, I love listening to it at nighttime after a storm chase. I love listening to it flying. I've certain albums I listen to when I'm flying and it's like, it's perfect, you know? And yeah, it's just, it's amazing. It's like. It's just, it's probably I would say, I don't know if I would say it's my favorite album of all time, because like certain albums are more meaningful than others, like for personal reasons, but I think it's the best album of all time, which is subjective, of course, but I think it's the best by anyone, by anyone. for that. Yeah, I can't diss you for saying that the dark side of the moon because there is so there's so much beauty to it. When I was in high school, I loved listening to Pink Floyd. My dad was the one he was in that he was in a band. was a leader of a band called Don Bailey and the Fugitives. was great country boys playing Johnny B. Goode and some other stuff. Fun stuff. But he got us into Pink Floyd because we were always listening to that to Pink Floyd in. the boat when we'd go fishing at Elephant Butte Lake State Park. so naturally this young kid, you know, here I am this really young kid listening to this music and the fish biting as soon as he puts on Pink Floyd, different story. It was really magic. He puts Pink Floyd on, the fish would start hooking onto the line. But learning to listen to that when I was in high school, actually, for my high school English thesis, you know, it's like a page paper or whatever. nothing big or whatever, but in English, we had to write this paper and it was on time and ticking away the moment and the meaning of it. And then I actually got to present it to the class. I just remember how proud I was of breaking down Pink Floyd's time and everybody's like, what is this? This is your paper. And I started off, I brought in my little tape deck and a little two player tape recorder and played the song first in my English teacher just sat there. And after I presented it all, he was like, Wow, that is amazing. And he just like told the class, I got an A in the class and but to present and speaking and breaking down what time really means. And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking and racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older and shorter of breath and one day closer to death. That's me today, Andrew. Frickin' A. It's the reason I chase. It's everything. Right? in Athens for 11 years and 10 years ago, I was a freshman at Ohio University and now I'm about to leave. It's funny, I graduated college like five years ago, well, three years ago. I graduated in the end of 2022. So yeah, I guess it's been three and half years since I graduated. But I lived here 11 and that line of, then you find 10 years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. It's like, well, I lived here for just 10 years ago was when I was a freshman here. And now I'm finally leaving my college town after a decade of being here. So that line really right now, specifically that decade timeframe, it really, it really resonates. And it's just like that album, it never gets old. And it just like, it's so relevant to everything and time is really good. But I think my favorite Pink Floyd song, my favorite part of Dark Side of the Moon is Us and Them. I think it's just the most beautiful song ever. Yeah. Yeah. thought you would like us and them too. And that is so iconic as well. And I could break it down, but I don't want to go too long into talking about Pink Floyd. What other bands though? You said you love music in general though. You said you, that you have different other favorite albums. Like real quick, name three other albums that are easily iconic for you that you would never live without. it's really funny because actually I wrote like I think in my phone notes app, 10, I think it was 10 albums that if I had to like my brother and I talk about like top 10 list all the time. So I think I did like if I could only listen to 10 albums for the rest of my life and all the rest of the albums were like deleted from existence, what would be the albums that I would listen to? And I said, so Dark Side of the Moon. is one of the ones on the list. The Joshua Tree by U2 is another one. I mean, that that one to me is really meaningful because that was my like every teenager has like their band. That was my band as a teenager. So that was the kind of that's how I got into music. This is a little lesser known, but Voltairi by the band Sigur Rós. It's like an Icelandic kind of avant-garde rock band. Really good ruins by my favorite band of all time. First Aid Kit. It's these two sisters from Sweden that have this amazing like folk rock. Harmonies, Country Folk, amazing. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers, that one is huge. Those who know me really well know why that one's meaningful. That one's really special. I would go Gregory Allen Isaacov and the Colorado Symphony. He took a bunch of his original folk songs and recorded it with the Colorado Symphony, phenomenal. Lost in a Dream by The War on Drugs is another rock band. They're really good. I'd go for Emma Forever Ago by Bon Iver. That's a beautiful, I love listening to that one in the winter time in the snow. And then I would go Pigos Hank, his self-titled album with Drive Under the Moon on it, because that's my Storm Chasing album, right? So that one is, that one's just super special because of chasing. And finally, I got to end it with the one that was really my childhood album, which was the Wildlife Concert by John Denver. Both of my parents were big John Denver people. And when I was a kid, Our family vacation every year was to Blackwater Falls, West Virginia, Canaan Valley and Blackwater Falls. And when we'd cross the border from PA into West Virginia, we'd always play Country Roads. So it's funny, because everyone knows that song, but I kind of am snobby about that song because I'm like, well, you guys just know it because it's popular. I knew it because I learned it in West By God, Virginia, and you didn't. So I claim that song a little more personally than most. kidding. A little bit more of a hometown song. You did, you did. But it tells me how important music is in your own, not only in your life, but in your growth as a, your mental growth, your spiritual growth, so to speak, as far as just making you, bringing you to the place that you are today, right? I think that's more of. person and like most of my like I know most people sit in bed and like watch Netflix, but I don't I lay in bed and listen to music. That's my that's my entertainment. I don't watch much TV. I don't really watch movies. I mean, I'll enjoy a movie from time to time. Right. But, know, in a year, I probably watch like five new movies every year. That's it. I'm always listening to music, though. And it's situational. So like those 10 albums I listed, I don't listen to them throughout the year the same amount when I'm listening to Pico's Hank's album, that's When I'm Storm Chasing, right? Like certain albums are seasonal, certain albums are more in the fall, in the winter, different occasions, different things that I'm doing, daytime versus nighttime, right? So it's situational on a lot of things. That's funny. And as far as music on the road, I love listening to different playlists. I'm a hard rock girl from the 80s. you know, roll up the Levi's 501s and Air Force 1s or whatnot. back in the 80s, know, the but also I like to listen to George Strait every album when I'm going from Arizona to southern Colorado. That's a long time of driving. And I'll just put on George Strait and I can sing them all to you. But you don't want to hear that. But the other thing about music is I finally got my keyboard back here. You can see it here. And I have my guitars here and I've got, just love singing and making music. I was a worship leader for several different Christian churches throughout the years. And, you know, I'm finally comfortable getting back into just being myself again with the music as well. And it's so integral when it comes to me and chasing and just me in general, I'm so emotional about things and I can listen to even today. In fact, after we tweeted about Pink Floyd Pulse yesterday, I went back and rewatched Comfortably Numb and reimagining seeing David Gilmore playing the guitar, the solo, the second solo, there's two solos of Comfortably Numb. And during the stadium, the Sun Bowl, there is this giant ball, it's a disco ball, and the disco ball opens up and it mushrooms into a rose. And inside that rose is just all these extremely bright lights and it's blinding. And I know I'm going to go to my deathbed and that's not, that's going to be one thought that goes through it because it was that magical. as I was watching the video yesterday, I was in tears. Like it still brings me to tears. And I'm learning that to play that on the keyboard too. I comfortably numbs great, but my all time favorite song still is Shine on You Crazy Diamond. I just love it. those are great too. It's funny because you replied, that was a reply to my tweet about when you two did Where the Streets Have No Name at Slane Castle in Ireland in 2001. that is like, people say like Dark Side of the Moon is the best album of all time. It's not even the best Pink Floyd album. hear that. And it's like Where the Streets Have No Name at that concert is like the best performance by you two ever. And it's not even the best performance in that concert because they also played a song called Kite and it's about Bono wrote it about strained relationship between him and his father. um It's some long story. I don't know all the details. But that concert was four days after Bono's father passed away. So he was already full of emotion. And Ireland had won some big sporting event earlier in the day. So the crowd was already amped up. So there's context here. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had opened for them, Coldplay Red Hot Chili Peppers had opened for them. And he plays a song called Kite. And there's a line, I'm a man, I'm not a child. And he dedicated that song to his dad. And when he sings that line, it's just, it's absolutely incredible. like you two at Slank Castle, they released that free album on everyone's phones and it made everyone hate them. And people with my generation, I've been trying to convince them. like, no, their music's actually really good. You got to get, I know the free album thing was a mistake, but like, you got to get over that. And like, you got to listen to their stuff because it's, yeah, it's man. Get this crap off my hated YouTube for it, but they didn't hate Apple for it, which I thought always thought was hypocritical. It's like, well, you won't listen to U2 Go buy an Android though, because Apple also forced that onto your phone. know, so like I it's selective who they're hating there. but no, I think the the Pink Floyd pulse is amazing, too. And that's just that Comfortably Numb is really good. And there's so there's a cover band called Any Color, and they're a local band to Athens, Ohio. Mm-hmm. just do Pink Floyd cover. And I saw them for the 50th anniversary of Dark Side of the Moon and they played the whole album. They basically did the pulse set list. It was basically the pulse set list. And it was like top three concert I've ever been to. These are just a bunch of local guys. And I've seen Brit Floyd and these guys are better than Brit Floyd. That's how good they are. So if you want to see a good ass Pink Floyd cover band, go to Athens, Ohio and see any color. They are absolutely phenomenal. Phenomenal. Yep. If I'm ever out that way in their plane, I would love to see them. I haven't seen Australian Pink Floyd show, but I did get to see Brit Floyd two or three years ago here in Tucson. And it was the next best thing. It was incredible. My brother, my, my, my brother, my son, I took my son and he still tells me and he reminds me, he goes, Hey, remember when we went to get to see, go see that Pink Floyd cover band? He goes, that was something else. And he is not the biggest Floyd fan, but You know, they have the whole spectacles too in the lasers, but the performance itself, the skillset that these guys have is incredible. even when the great gig in the sky plays, it's just something I always tear up when I listen to the great gig in the sky. Cause I have a feeling that when my soul leaves this body, that if that's playing, that that also might be going through my mind when I'm exiting this corporeal, entity. who knows? don't know. I think I missed. any sort of heaven, there's definitely Pink Floyd music up there, that's for sure. I don't want to go if it's not there. I'm going to hell if there's no Pink Floyd. uh Gilmore's not here yet. Maybe, I don't know. Gilmore just turned 80 by the way. So enough about music. I know I can make this whole podcast about music and maybe I'll just start having some music podcasts as well. Cause I could talk about music and my passion for it. But speaking of your passion, what is, know, getting back to chasing really quickly, what is one of your most memorable experiences while chasing? Like I know as soon as I say that everybody goes click and you see their brain go. know, pull that memory feed from them because they automatically know what one of their most memorable experiences was. Well, I will say first off, I'm glad we talked about other things than chasing, because I think we kind of alluded to this before we went live. But I think there's a in the chase community, there's a mentality of like chasing is an addiction where it's just chase, chase, chase, chase, chase, and to the point where people are in credit card debt and throwing away their jobs and their families and their careers for chasing, which is not just a thing in storm chasing. mean, like athletes do this, like all kinds of people do this. So it is important to be a well-rounded person and have stuff outside of chasing. But. Yeah, this is a chasing podcast. So we can't talk about the main topic here, but the storm before the calm. We'll talk about some storms. um But if I could pick one moment chasing, I mean, it's got to be El Dorado 2024. If you want to pull up the picture of it that I sent you, it's the big white cone tornado. And that was the one kind of a story of redemption. So four days or three days or whatever before that, I was chasing a northeastern Colorado. And I got behind this really uh big line of storms and it prevented me from getting to Greenfield, Iowa the next day to see the Greenfield high end F4 tornado. So I missed Greenfield. And of course that was like a huge tornado in 2024. And I was really bummed out. I was like, you know, I didn't play it right as a solo chaser. I'm not going to pull an all nighter to drive through the night. So I missed it. I ended up in Joplin, Missouri. because I chased down there because that's what I could get to in time. Spent the next day in Joplin, went to the memorial, just kind of like regathered myself mentally. There's only one time in my storm chasing, I've chased for six years over 100 storm chases, there's only one time ever where I woke up 100 % sure that I was going to see a tornado and it was on May 23rd, 2024, back to 23 being my lucky number, there you go. I woke up in Joplin, drove to Tulsa, got coffee, went. to Oklahoma City, saw the storms developing in Southwest Oklahoma on radar. And I go back to in 2022 when the first Morton tornado happened, there was a single cell to the north with a tornado warning and a hook. And then there was a cluster to the south. And I went to the north and there's a couple of people that are watching this that are gonna, they always make fun of me for it, cause they were with me and I make fun of them back, cause they made the same mistake. We went north, busted and the big Morton tornado happened to the south. As I'm coming through Oklahoma City down the Bailey Turnpike, I saw the same exact radar setup, a northern cell with a big hook and a blob to the south. And I thought right back to 2022, I said, I know I've seen this film before, to quote Taylor Swift. And I drove to the southern stuff, got ahead of it, perfect position. And then, well, you can see it in the picture, that El Dorado tornado happened. It was on the ground for 45 minutes, incredibly beautiful. I got a ton of good pictures. It's the best tornado I've seen so far in my chasing. It's the most beautiful one I've seen. And it was just, it was a, it was a story of like, that's why you don't give up, right? Like things were, two days ago, I was pissed off because I missed Greenfield. I had screwed up. And then I redeemed myself two days later with that. And this one was prettier than Greenfield anyway. Where were you in the positioning of this tornado? So I started just south of it, and it started as a multi vortex tornado. I could see, I watched it form right in front of me, and it was heading right at me. So then I had to go south to get away from it, get out of the path. And the road network out there was pretty crappy, so I had to circle around. I lost the tornado for 15 minutes. I come back to it, and that's when it tightened up, and that's when it formed that cone. I pulled over right as it fully condensed right in front of me. And then I was, I have video and everything, and that's when I. Very cool. out of my car and take all these pictures. you know, it's nice when a tornado is moving slow enough. This is what's great about the planes is like, I didn't have to stay in the car. was literally I was standing outside when I took these pictures and that that's I mean, those are the best. Yeah, I this was 2023 center 24 2024. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think. I'm not a person to remember dates. There's not many dates I remember, but that is a specific date that I remember. dang. So, so you were able to get that in. You, you identified that similar pattern. You saw what was going on and you remembered I've seen that as well. And I'm starting to feel at ease now when I see storm structures and on radar and both visually and on radar. I'm only even chasing for a few years too. And, and it's just exciting to integrate that into your mind. And for me, I wouldn't even be able to explain it. just go, Like you said, I've seen this before. know what this could be doing and then engaging based off of that. I love that feeling. Yeah. the first couple of years I chased, my initial forecast targets were always really, really, really, really good. And that was because I studied meteorology and I got to take classes under Jana Hauser and learned so much from her. And she was on El Reno back in the day. So she's really well known in the academic world. So that gave me really good foundational knowledge. Hmm. what she couldn't teach me, because there's no teacher that can teach this, and she would agree with this, is that you need field experience. You could have the best teacher in the world, but if you don't practice, you're not going to get good at anything. No matter how much classroom time you have, you have to go out and practice it. So some of these men and women who have been doing this for 40, 50 years, that's why they're always on the right stuff, because they've seen it before, and it becomes second nature. They don't even know scientifically why they did it. They just instinctually did it. Yeah. It's gone to that point with me. It's really interesting. I didn't even notice this until 2025 or really till 24, I guess. But now I can like, can almost tell when a storm is about to tornado. I can feel it. I can feel the change in the air. I can feel, I can see the curve start to form as the RFD starts wrap around and it gets like arched and it's like, it's so strange. It's like something like you're tingly, your, your like senses go up and you're like, something is about to happen. And I don't have an explanation why, but I just know that something is about to happen. And then the tornado happens. And I'm like, yeah, I was right. But that classroom can't teach you that. No one with a PhD can teach you that. Experience doing it is what teaches you that. the experience, I love that you have to integrate, know, the, the on the job experience goes such a long way. And I worry that, you know, that so many people are just like, no, no, I can do this with just, you know, just going out, going out and doing it and, and maybe following some people or whatever. I can't advocate enough for going out there with people who already have been doing this or learning from those people as extensively as possible. You know, I can't tell you like, truly, truly I've learned so much. Watching skips videos. I've watched them over and over and over again. And for me safety is of utmost importance No, I don't want to zero meter or tornado I'm I'm not a part of that crowd and if that's if that's the crowd that you want to be in you want to see that that swirl right in front of you you want to see the drill bit or the wedge right in front of you and the Dom you can see the dominator right in front of you that that's your business but I don't ever want to be that person because I have a different mindset to you. I also want to be able to capture structure and I want to be back a little bit, Yeah, that's really cool. And as you said, like you kind of just develop an awareness for what's happening the more you do it. And it's interesting because you don't have to think about it as much. I keep handwritten notes of all my chases, still have the notebooks and I the notebooks from my Mesoscale Meteorology class in there. I have notes from Skip Talbot's videos in there. And every year I always still refresh myself academically. I'm going to before I head out, I'm heading out on May 3rd. It's April 23rd as we record this. I'm going to go back and watch a Skip Talbot video. I'm going to go back and read some of my notes from college and I'm going to review. like, it's just like, I don't know. It's so interesting. like, it's just like second. It becomes second nature. You don't even realize how you're doing it so good, but you just, you just like, you know what you're doing. And I didn't get to chase much last year, but the days I did get to chase, I was like on par with everything. I chased on Sexton day, saw the Sexton tornado, knew the exact right time with the road network to leave the storm. Mm-hmm. drove up north into Illinois and saw the Marion tornado and hardly anyone, I think I've only met one other person who saw both of those tornadoes. And so that was like a, that was a big win, you know? But, but as much as I'm bragging about that, there's plenty of other days I could brag, I could do the opposite of brag and say how stupid I was. So, you know. I wanted to go with this as well too, because obviously I do like to talk about, I don't like to, but I think it's essential to talk about the setbacks. I think it's important to talk about how we got to where we are today and how we ended up succeeding over being defeated, you know, instead of, or maybe we had to accept defeat and to get to where we are. mean, That's the whole nature of the storm before the calm. know, the calm is a storm to me, by the way. I always tell people, go, you know, when we get to the storm, you're already there. You've already endured the things that you needed to endure or encountered. And you had to get through some stuff to get to every single person I've talked to, whether they're an extreme photographer, extreme weather, or they, they jump out of airplanes and extreme sports, they all have that same common entity. think that same common. Spirit behind them is that they they kind of through some stuffs too, could you go into maybe talking about some of those those? Significant challenges that you've had to come through and endure to get to where Andrew is today I mean you're you're full of confidence you have You're very vocal. You're you're not afraid to step into your power and I love that about you. By the way, that's something that I admire about you that you're not afraid to be an advocate, you're not afraid to step into your power and to take up space and to share, you know, to share the things that are important to you. Yeah, anyone who says it's easy is, you know, lying. There's no one in life who's had it. You could have been born a very privileged person and still had to face a lot to accomplish anything, you know. But I, for me, the hardest thing was how long it took me to see my first tornado. That was the hardest thing for me was storm chasing because I picked the worst year ever, ever 2020 to start storm chasing and It wasn't that's not a COVID thing. That's a there were no tornadoes that year. Like May 2020 had like one photogenic tornado and it was an alternate target day in Texas that hardly anyone saw. And then June, like I think I chased like four days in June and then that was it. I end up going home early. I actually 2020 was so quiet that the forecast looked so bad. I drove back to Ohio during the last week of May because there was nothing to chase. That is insane. That's peak season. Who goes home in the last week of May? Because there's nothing to do. I think some crap like that, I don't remember, but it was just like that year was garbage, I think, for tornadoes. think the only...Bassfield, SoSo, Mississippi in like March was like the only actual big tornado that entire year. And I don't chase in the south because it's too many trees. I have enough trees chasing in Ohio and West Virginia around me, you know? But so no tornadoes in 2020. 2021 comes around, first couple of weeks, no tornadoes. May 16th comes around. I'm in Northeast New Mexico, that beautiful area we talked about at the beginning of the show. And I'm driving down and I'm taking a bunch of pictures. I'm just kind of screwing around, taking my time, just not doing a good job of like getting to the target, right? That's one of my like chase roles now is like get up at a certain time, get your ass to the target. I was just taking pictures of like other pop-up storms. I miss the earth Texas tornado. And I was so upset, I pulled over on probably Highway 87 in Texas Panhandle. Like, I was like, I was so upset. I didn't know if I wanted to cry or if I wanted to punch a hole through the window, you know, because I was like, anger and sadness at the same time. And I was just like, I was about to be at a boiling point because I was in a Ford Fusion. was, I would recline the driver's and sleep in the Ford Fusion. I would just like hang up, like, I would hang up. towels to block the windows, sleep at truck stops, shower at truck stops, like, which I still mostly do. I still sleep in the car, but now I have Subaru. So I actually have a nice like mattress in the back of the car. So now it's like actually nice car camping. But this was like, I was like basically living homeless on the road, you know, because I didn't have money for hotels. I was a college kid and all this sacrifice, all this effort to like be that close to a really nice tornado and miss it. Next day comes around May 17th, 2021. You can pull up this picture as well. This is the big storm with the tornado in the back. was in La Mesa, Texas. I met, this is the first time I ever met Matthew Cappucci, who I've since become good friends with. And I convinced him actually to drive south, because I said there was a target near Lubbock and there was a target south near Big Spring, Texas. And I said, let's go south. The dew points are like 66 there and 62 to the north, something like that. I don't remember the numbers. So we go south and I'm thinking ahead of time and I saw a blob again. I saw a big blob and I said, there's going to be mergers. So I thought ahead of time, I punched through the stuff in the front of the blob and I went on a north south highway that was like 30 miles east of the blob. Everyone else was on this other road from the other side. So they ended up stuck behind the blob because there's like no roads in this part of Texas. And me and Matthew Capucci are the only two, this tornado as it formed, my first ever tornado. Me and Matthew Capucci were the only two people that had a clear angle of this tornado. Everyone else was behind it. It was moving at five miles an hour. And obviously that insane mothership structure, the whole collar cloud around it, just it was just incredible. And I watched multi vortex tornado for 45 minutes, slowly moving across Texas. And it was such a relief to after two years of all these miles on the road and night sleeping in a sedan. Mm-hmm. just like, I was so happy. think I literally was screaming, Texas, Texas, I love Texas. Like I was literally screaming atop my lungs, Texas is the best. And it was just like, it paid off. So that was quite the tornado. is what you're saying. You really had to swallow your pride and understand that the, understand that there's going to be pain, right? And then, you know, the worst, the worst pain I'd say I've ever had as a storm chaser was last year because I, you know, I chased full time, 20 full time meeting after the college semester would end. May and June, early July, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 full time 2025 comes along. like, all right, I need to stay in Athens. Like I'm on a, I got appointed to a city council commission. So I'm like, I have to be here for that. Like I have responsibilities here, you know, huh. adult responsibilities where I can't be gone for two months. I took my two weeks in May, which I regret not doing it in June because I use up my paid days off at my job and I had the good day with Marion. Then I go, I end up going to Paul Simon concert in Milwaukee the day before Arnett, Oklahoma, drive through the night, sleep in Des Moines for four hours, get to Arnett 30 minutes after that tornado lifted. So I drove from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, all the way to Western Oklahoma to see nothing, to see absolutely nothing. And I don't chase at night. So I watched the Plevena Storm form. And I said, that's going to be a wedge. I drove home and it was a wedge tornado. I don't care. It's at nighttime. I'm not in it for the nighttime stuff. So I was already like, shoot. Nothing else good happened. Finally go back home to Athens. Then, of course, June comes around and Wellfleet happens. Wellfleet to me is the best tornado that's happened since probably Dodge City 2016 anywhere. Eldorado was pretty good too, but that Wellfleet one was just perfect, perfect, perfect. mean, that's as a... Like Eldorado is like an A plus tier tornado, but Wellfleet is like a true S tier tornado. And to miss that after years of chasing full time to finally step back to do the right thing in my career. Mm-hmm. and then missed that tornado, it felt like I was being punished for doing like objectively the right thing in my life. And I'm like the most nonviolent person ever. And I got so mad that I took a roll of paper towels and literally threw it across the living room because I was so mad about like seeing the videos on Twitter about that tornado. And like I was like, damn, like this, it really sucked. It got me so depressed that I didn't even have the mental energy to go chase two weeks later. on a weekend in South Dakota and then I missed Gary. So then it's like back to back, Miss Swellfleet. about Gary now in these podcasts. They're like, I was at Gary. It was amazing. And ouch. tornado, but like well fleets that perfect cone, you know, so like well fleet like and you know, those tornadoes are rare. They don't come around very often tornadoes that are that good and to miss like, you know, one of the greatest tornadoes of all time because of adult responsibilities that gets back into like the addiction thing. And it's like, well, I see how people throw away everything for chasing. But I just try to remind myself, like had I It's I try to justify it. I'm like, had I not stayed there, had I not gotten on the council commission and interned under a council member, had I not worked this job, I wouldn't have had the money or the grad school acceptance I've had to move to New York City. So like missing that tornado was consequential in me getting to do this. But even still, I'm still pissed off that I missed it. And it's been almost a year. And like I see pictures of it. I scroll past. I like I can't even look at pictures of that tornado. I still can't look at pictures of that tornado. Yeah. in Lubbock and there was that high risk or a higher risk in Northwestern Kansas, Colby area. was like, I'm going up there. And I left Lubbock the night before. that morning drove all the way up to Kansas, totally got skunked and getting in the car and... And I see Silverton, right? How close to Silverton is very close. That would have been, that was a secondary target. was like, now let's go for that. We got to go big or go home. Well, I went home. I didn't go big. And then I saw everybody on Silverton, you know, scoring. saw Reed destroying the end of his Dom five or whatever the, the subi. And I was just like, this sucks. This hurts. It still hurts. I can't watch. I can't look at pictures of Silverton anymore. It was a beautiful tornado. It was out in the oil fields and stuff. I'm still pissed though, because I don't have that many days of the year, but at least back then before I was retired and now I do. I'm, but I still know too, that I don't want to chase all the time. That's why I have these other hobbies. I need variety, but I also need, I need to know that I can't put everything, my entire idea of success into one thing, because if I do, I'm going to come crashing down. I struggle with mental wellness as it is. I'm open about it. I've suffered from depression. I've suffered from so many different things. And then the world is cruel to you too, right? And you're just trying to survive. So it's essential for me to protect my peace. And it sounds like that you're, you've done the right things, but you've also had to swallow your pride. And that, you know, I think that's so important. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that some of these, there's a growing rank of storm chasers who feel like they have to chase it all. that they have to never stop chasing. Why do you think that is? And I'm not picking on Reed, by the way, beyond that. it's the same reason a breakup hurts. Like, there's plenty of other girls or if you're into whatever into there's plenty of other people out there, right? But you'll never get to date that one person ever again. That person is gone forever. And if you miss a tornado, there will be plenty of other tornadoes. I saw a picture of a tornado that I thought was well fleeted. It turns out it was some other South Dakota tornado from like 2012. And I'm like, OK. So and I even saw a picture of one that looked like Gary with the snake and it wasn't Gary. So even those tornadoes have like duplicates of them. And I'm like, all right, like there's going to be another one. Like, like Wellfleet, I don't think there is a single like greatest tornado of all time. I think there's just like a very, very few tornadoes that are all tied for the greatest. And Wellfleet and Gary are two of them, but they're far from the only ones. There will be more that good. But even that being said, like I could like break up with a girlfriend and someone could say, you know, the common response, there's a million other fish in the sea. But yeah, but I loved her. I'm not gonna get to date her, you know? Like, I'm not with her. And it's the same with a tornado. It's like, I'm never gonna have that chance again. Or anything else in life. An athlete who loses a championship. Well, there's next year. Yeah, but I didn't get to win. I'll never get to win this year's again, you know? do you think that that's why these younger folk are, sorry, and I say folk all the time, but you know, these younger men and women, do you think that that's why they're spending everything, that they're going into credit card debt? You know, the credit card debt, the credit card rates when I was younger, when I was in college was tops 18, 19%. And now it's 29 % for credit cards. You will never get out of debt if you don't know how to pay those out and pay in Like why are why are people I don't think we're talking about I think there's this underlying danger to Spending every ounce and you know you hit on it even before the beginning of the podcast you talked about that concern is I don't I don't want to I don't want to throw it all into storm chasing, know come hell or high water and if I end up broken and Alone at the end of it all then then to hell with it all but I have a feeling that that's that's a That's a path that a lot of people are on That's concerning. Had I thrown it all into storm chasing, I wouldn't be able to be a pilot the other 10 months of the year. To be fair, I became a pilot before I really got into storm chasing at all. But let's say I had got into it as a teenager, like a lot of these people are. Had I thrown all into chasing, I would not have become a pilot. I would not have been able to get into a master's program. I would not be like, you know. I'll counter my sadness with a like just factual reality, but me being able to stay home last summer saved me an extra $10,000. And I'm using that to move to New York City. That's some of the money I have saved up, you know? So like that matters. And had I just put everything into chasing, I wouldn't have been able to do all this stuff in my life. And I just think, I don't know, I think to answer your question more directly, like I think it's just an addiction. As I said earlier, like with Tiger Woods being addicted to golf and it interferes with the rest of his life. storm chasing, anything in life. People think of addictions as like drug sex, know, like actual addiction things, right? But like, and you can become addicted to anything and storm chasing is no different. And it's becomes like, it's because it's a chase. It's the thrill of the chase. And it's like, you just, it becomes obsessive. And then you miss one tornado and the gambler's fallacy, right? Like you, you lose money. Well, now you have to gamble to win it back, right? And then you lose more and you lose more. analogy. Cause I've, I'm, I'm in the same boat. Like, my God. Now I'll know next one I'll get next one. That's been me and white sands by the way, like I'm going to get that bolt. My bucket list shot, right? We, we just, have to keep getting, we have to keep trying. no, I got this. I got that. And you're just, you might be given a little wind too, right? I got this pretty sunset, but it wasn't the right one. So I have to go back and back and back. One of these days I will get that, that beautiful bolt over the Yucca with the white sands at sunset, but It is not this day. And I think, you you only get one life and when you miss an opportunity like that, like it is, it's bad to the psyche because like you instinctively want these things and then you don't get them. And it's hard to rationalize not getting them. I mean, you can't have everything in life, but the emotions don't work that way. And the brain doesn't like there's the logical part of the brain. And then there's the emotional part of the brain and like the logical part of the brain is like, I'm only in my twenties. I'm going to have. decades to see more well fleet type tornadoes I'll probably see a bunch of them. But like the emotional part of the brain is like my life is ruined because I missed this one tornado and like you can't think about anything else in that time and you're just like you get overwhelmed, you know. How do you shore up the support structure that you need? I mean, you're talking about being responsible, first of all. Beyond somebody else supporting you and saying, mentally saying, I know you can do this, pal. I'm your best supporter. I'm your best friend or your best coach or your best cheerleader, right? Beyond that, how do you shore up that support overall? I think just talking to other chasers about it is really good and like having people with shared experiences. Because I think a lot of people don't understand. They don't understand like missing a tornado, why it's so emotionally hard. But then when you break it down to someone who's not a storm chaser and you're like, you've got to understand in six years of doing this, I've probably spent $30,000. Right? I I spend roughly seven to $800 a week out on the road. That's just on gas and food. And You know, that doesn't include like the occasional hotel that I might get something like that. I usually sleep in my car. So, you know. All that money, all that time, time away from other stuff. mean, I tell even my own family members, I'm like, yeah, like, don't like I'm not coming to see you in May or June. Like, like, like, mom, dad, if you want to hang out with me in June, you're coming storm chasing with me. Like, I'm not I'm not visiting you in May or June because I'm busy, you know. So it's like it's time away from your family, from your friends. Yeah. People don't know the sacrifices that you make for this. And it's similar to sacrifices that people make in other. I've been using sports as a reference, but it's the same. mean, you know, athletes can't, if their cousin's birthday is on the day of the Masters, Rory McElroy's not going to that party. He's got a golf tournament to play in, you know? And it's the same, like our season's May, June. And for some people, April, but I've been on the university schedule. So whatever with April, that's fine. But. For me, it's May, June. And I'm like, yeah, when it's those two months of the year, like, you can text me, but I'm not hanging out with you. Sorry. And people don't realize that. talking to other people about that. And the good thing is, like, you tell them the things you missed and they'll counter back with something else. You know, I was talking to my friend, Jeff Frame. He's professor at University of Illinois, and he's pretty active on Storm Chaser Twitter. And he actually stopped through Athens a few months ago on one of his road trips. So I got to show him around town. He's really nice guy. And I've become pretty good friends with him. And I was venting to him. He saw Wellfleet and then I was venting to him about me missing Wellfleet. And he's like, well, don't feel bad. And then he told me a story of how he missed a tornado because some family situation or whatever. And it was like as destructive to him as it was to me, you know? And I'm like, OK, well, it makes you feel better when you realize like, yeah, I'm not the only one that goes through this. And in fact, at Storm Chaser Summit, I mean, I bet you there were 800 people in that room. The amount of people who saw Wealth Fleet and Gary was maybe five people. And the amount of people who saw either one of them was maybe 50. And those are the hardcore storm chasers who go to the summit. So you have to remember, like, I'll draw on something my sister said to me once that I always go back to. It's easier to compare up than to compare down. And it's easier for me to look at someone like, you know, Reed Timmer, Brandon Copic, they Copic, sorry, I mispronounced his name. it's the podcast of name of mispronunciation is okay. of his pronunciation names. But I look at people like them, like they're really good chasers. They see all the tornadoes and it's easy to be like, well, I want to be like him or I would be like her. But then like I could also compare myself to someone who like isn't a very good storm chaser. And I've seen way more than them. And I'm like, well, I never compare myself. Why don't I ever compare myself to this person? You know? Yeah, because it's just not important. It really doesn't matter. Everything we see is we create this our own unique world, right? And our own perceptions of everything. we think that honestly, like I've been seeing Aaron Rigsby this year and just seeing how far he's come and pursuing his dreams and making it happen. I think to myself for a moment, think, man, I would love to do to be in those shoes, right? And to have that kind of success and then to be able to do what he does. he's the first storm chaser I ever befriended. I met him in 2020 and he was super nice and he's just, he's amazing. He busts his ass to get where he is. exactly it though. He, this wasn't overnight. And not only that, just like you said, I don't know the sacrifices he's continuing to make, but for some reason I I have, I have elevated to some elevated him to some sort of super King, you know, as far as a chaser. And I think that's unfair as well, because we don't see the, the grind that he does. We don't see the failures. We don't see the family he's leaving behind or the friends or all that other stuff, you know, and sure. Yeah. I'm sure he feels proud of himself for, for becoming that he talks about that. That's super important. But I think it comes back down to we do need to focus on the obsession and be concerned with the obsession of whatever it is we're pursuing. uh I hyper fixate on them. Hopefully, Aaron doesn't mind me telling this story, but March 31st, 2023, him and I both chased in Illinois on the Keota Iowa day, and we both missed it. And I said, Do you want to go to Applebee's after it got dark? And we went there, sat down. We were both so mad about missing the tornado and so upset that we I don't think we barely said a word to each other the entire dinner. We sat there in silence for the entire dinner and just like looked at our phones. Bro. that's tough. Oh my goodness. someone like him who he's only a year or older than me, but he's been chasing about twice as long, you know, even he has his misses too. And I mean, all the other people I've mentioned that I look up to, they have their misses as well. So it's all of us, you know. Absolutely. I want to ask you directly, you know, what, what advice would you give someone who's going through their own struggles? We all struggle differently. We all have different, we all have our own hells to go through. We all have our own different paths, but people that are, that have been doing their best to try to, to become better at storm chasing. And they just feel like they're failing. have a feeling there's more people who feel like failures and you do see. the people who express themselves who are succeeding. And I think that's the hidden alley of the storm chasing community is we're all raging, we're all getting into the drama because we're missing things or we're feeling FOMO, the fear of missing out. We're comparing ourselves to all these other great photographers and chasers and we feel like dirt. what piece of advice would you give to those people speaking directly to them? Well, I mean, if you're a young chaser, high school or college, you got to put your career in your life. You got to get that stabilized before you can chase. was, you know, in an OK financial situation when I started chasing. And you can't you can't let yourself get into like literal financial debt. You cannot do it. You cannot do it if you don't have the money. You need to figure out if you're going to if you're going to go to college, you need to figure out your college plans. If you're not going to go to college, you got to figure out if you're going to military or work or whatever it is you do. You got to figure out what your plan is and you have to have a plan and that has to come first. And, you know, a lot of people who chase full time fit into a couple of categories, either number one, they had wealthy parents and just had the upbringing to where they have the money and the ability to do it. Or number two, they're in a massive amount of debt. And or number three, they're older and they spent 20 years working and they have a good job. Right. they're able to do something like that because they've worked for that. Jim Tang is like that. you know, he's had a career in tech in the past in California, and then he got into chasing, you know, so I, you know, you got to. I love Tang. He's great. And he killed it on Wellfleet. He killed it that day. um But, you know, you got to, you got to just make sure that you're, you got to try to use that half of the brain that's logical to cloud the half of the brain that's emotional. I think the emotional. brain like you can use that for like your dreams and your desires, but you can't allow that to you have to try to use the logical half over the emotional half and and I'm not saying never take a risk. I mean sometimes in life on the other hand on the contrary to my argument, you do need to take a risk. You never ever reward if you don't take a risk, but you can't there's a difference between taking a risk and being reckless and you can't you can't be reckless. It's gonna it's not just gonna ruin your storm chasing. It's gonna ruin your life. Yeah, don't give up. Don't give up your career ambitions for chasing unless you are full send. That's what you want to do as a professional. You somehow want to monetize this. And even then the challenges are, I know the challenges that people keep talking about is, the market is saturated already. We already have the Connors and the, know, the McKinnies and all these people already doing live streams. And then we also have these other, you know, these other people that are monetizing. their content through a TV weather reports and things like that. But I still think that that's not even the existential threat that we face right now, which is AI. And we won't even get into that. But I think if you think that you can jump into this and find your niche and find your way, I think it's possible. I think anything's possible still for people who are committed and learn how to be an authentic person authentic creator and can differentiate themselves and find that that that audience that people want to continue to come back to right. But as far as sustainability over the years, that's the other challenge. But, you know, yeah, I, just I want the best for people. And I have a feeling even this conversation, most younger people are going to be like, I don't want to hear it. Nope. I just want to chase. No, I want to see the next setup. I want to get out there. I don't care how how I need to get the money. I'm going to find the money and blow it and spend the credit cards and all that. And then I'll worry about everything after. And then there's going to be a huge, you know, there's been the crash. If you worked through high school and saved up, if you have $3,000, say I'm going to spend$3,000 on chasing. And once you run out, drive home. You're done. Like, you got to be smart about it. And you want to chase storms your whole life, not just when you're 18 or not just when you're 30 or 40 or whatever age you are when you start. That's the other thing, too. It's not just young people that can do this reckless behavior. I've seen middle-aged people get into storm chasing and then burn. a ton of stuff. It's just easier for them because they usually have more money saved up by that age. the same toxic traits can happen at any age. It's not just we see it more in young people, but older people are not immune from it. Anyone can be, you know, victim of these mindsets. You know, I don't want to switch gears this quickly, but I was also thinking about, and I know we're not going to be able to really get into it on this podcast, but you incorporate or do you incorporate a lot of the rules that you've learned to flying as to to storm chasing? I'm not a pilot. Huh? What's that? I do want to let's talk on that really briefly, because I wanted as someone who. who receives input from all different sources, right? I watch pilot several air crash videos where they break it down And I've learned that they've put, you know, the airline industry has put in so many different things in place, the crew resource management, all of these different rules to ensure that people stay alive, right? And I, and I've discovered that learning to read and learning the laws of avionics and the, rules of being a pilot actually applied to being a storm chaser or even a law enforcement officer is when I go into something and I'm driving, fly the damn plane, right? What is it? aviate navigate communicate, you know, ANC, I think that automatically when I'm like, Oh my God, I gotta get here. Like, what can you say about all of that and how they integrate? So at the Storm Chasing Summit in Denver, Colorado in February, me and Skip Talbot presented about this. And it was how aviation safety can be applied to storm chasing. It's on YouTube. Go watch it. Just type in my name is Skip Talbot. It'll pop up. We talked about how hazardous attitudes that have been identified by the FAA as causing a lot of plane crashes also are like one-to-one translation to storm chasing. And I won't go through the whole lesson. Go watch the video. as a teaser, I'll go through one of the hazardous attitudes, which is impulsivity. So that's like, need to do it right now. Right. And you're being really impulsive about your decisions. And that causes you to have a lapse in judgment. We talked about actually back to that 2023 sequence, April 2023, when a couple of storm chasers got hit by the Lewistown, Illinois, Lewistown, Lewistown, don't know, tornado around there. And it was impulsivity that got them into it. They just made a rash decision. And this has been found by the FAA to cause certain plane crashes, too. know, something's wrong with the airplane. I need to turn back and land immediately. And they're rushing things. And they're not like, OK, take your time. Think it through. Make an educated decision. And people think the problem with plane crashes and with storm chasing incidents is that people often think like the reason the plane crashed is because in the last 30 seconds, the pilots did this mistake. But that is not true. The reason the plane crashed is because 27 years ago, the pilot had the wrong mentality when he or she went into the training. And then that carried with them their whole career. And it led to a cascade of mistakes. It's never one mistake. you are unable to escape the tornado because you got boxed in, people will look at that and say, well, You could have made this decision to get out of being boxed in. But I look at that and say, why were you boxed in in the first place? Why were you on the north side of the storm in the first place? You're the one that put yourself in a dangerous situation. And now you're deflecting the blame. And that's not to victim blame. But it is true. If you leave your car door unlocked, you're more likely to get robbed. And again, it's not your fault if someone breaks into your car, but lock your doors. And that's the same thing with storm chasing, like Take the precautions to prevent yourself from getting in this situation in the first place and it won't happen to you. It's just the reality. Mitigate the risk. Yeah, risk mitigation, that's another term that Skip uses in our presentation. So yeah, there is a lot of parallels between meteorology and aviation in terms of storm chasing and flying and stuff like that. It's a whole talk. I definitely hope that people and I'm definitely going to link that here too, because I think you and I could talk about that. But there was so much was said already at that at that conference. And I think people go back and watch that they can really they can go into how you all elaborate on that. That's fantastic. I love it. And getting back to to to to flying, what's your favorite airplane to fly? I know they're all different. Everybody tells me that that they all have their own feel. My favorite was the Piper Cub, the seaplane that I flew. That was really freaking awesome. I really enjoyed that. My favorite airplane is a Boeing 747. I've flown on one, but I've never flown one. When I went to Germany a couple of years ago, I purposely bought a Lufthansa. I like saved up for this. I bought a business class ticket so could sit on the upper deck of the 747. I travel on the cheap, and I'm used to like, Picture me used to like sleeping in my car or at like a campground in Oklahoma. I don't take luxurious vacations. So picture me spending an extra 600 bucks getting served like wine on a top deck of an airplane over the ocean. It was like a kid in a candy store. I was like, wow, this is really nice. I'm used to the Motel 6 in Amarillo, you know? So like this is a lot nicer than something I normally do. But it was awesome. was definitely a, I like aviation nerded out. Yeah, the queen of the skies. I've always loved the 747. I was deeply in love with the corny airport movies of the 70s. Airport 75, 77. 79, the Concorde was corny as heck. But watching airport 77 when the 747 hits a tower and then crash lands in the ocean. Did you ever see those corny movies? Are you serious? They show, mean, they took well, I've seen airplane, the original. That's different though. Yeah. are, oh, you've got to go back and watch airport 77 with Jack Lemmon and airplane gets hijacked and then it hits a tower and then it lands on the water in the Bermuda Triangle or in the ocean somewhere. And then it sinks and everybody's inside it. And so the whole premise is the Navy has to figure out a way to bring that, the entirety of a 747 back up to the surface while they get everybody to escape. And then, you know, I'll let you watch it on your own. But you got to watch it. It's one of my favorite all time air disaster movies. It's really great. Airport 75 is, but they're all 747 and there's just tons of beautiful sequences where you're just watching the airplane fly through the valleys and the canyons and stuff. And it's just gorgeous. I fell in love with the 747 thanks to those movies and I always wanted to fly in one and it never have. They probably never will because by that time Lufthansa will probably have switched over to Airbus by then. Germany's pretty awesome. Berlin is one of my favorite places I've ever been. So I highly recommend if you get the opportunity to do that then to do it. But they're cool planes. Germany's awesome. let me, let me before I let you go here, these are a couple of photos that we've already seen a couple, but these are a couple of photos that have a real significance to you. Can you talk about this one? Yeah, so another thing that I debatably actually like more than tornadoes is the Aurora. I just think the Aurora is just incredibly magical. This was May of 2024. 2024 was an insane year because we had the total solar eclipse. That was up in Quebec and then El Dorado happened. This happened. It was a crazy like two month period of my life. Some of the one of the best best 2024 is one of the best years of my life. I was in Arizona and the second half of the year, we won't get into that. But first half of the year was really good. And then a little political event happened later in the year. But May 2024 was fantastic. could see this in Arizona, dude. I was in Florence, east of Florence, seeing this. And then in Rio Rico, I have this time lapse of not all of this color, but it was mostly that pinkish color, but I didn't even get to see green. But you captured this in a, what is this, a lake or a lagoon or what is this? I was storm chasing in Oklahoma and my dad was to meet me for storm chasing and I called him like two days before he was supposed to fly to Oklahoma. I said, change of plans, fly to Minneapolis. I'll meet you there. I'm flying up from Dallas. I drove to Dallas. We flew to Minneapolis. We drove up north in Minnesota to see the Aurora. And that's I was like, there was like some other chance of storm somewhere else. like, I don't care about the storm. So I'm going for this Aurora. And we're photographing the Aurora over this lake and this fog rolls in over the lake. at like one in the morning. And I'm like, my God, this is like for a photographer, this is like, like my brain is about to explode. So I'm like, take the rental car, go on the other side of the lake, point it towards the lake and turn the headlights on, on the brights. And it illuminated the fog. And it was just that night, I didn't sleep until the sun came up. I drove around uh central Minnesota all night long and it was so bright. that even driving, when you were driving, you could see it with the naked eye. That's how bright it was. It was just like insanely vibrant. One of the most amazing nights of my life. Minnesota, Minnesota. Yeah, we flew up to Minnesota and saw it there. So it was just, it was an amazing thing. And I was like, yeah, I glad I changed my mind from storm chasing to Aurora chasing last minute. It was incredible. I mean, I still saw it down on the southern US border, so that was that was fantastic. I couldn't believe it. And then we saw the what was this? The coal? We'll call it El Dorado. Yeah. You know, I let me me guess. I can't I can't remember. Is this a Colorado photo? No, close, almost Colby, Kansas. So literally almost Colorado, very like 30 miles away from Colorado, probably. Neff Shield has this photo as well, I think, or something similar, because I've seen it have maybe super much meaning to me, but I think it's probably the prettiest. In my opinion, it's the best picture I've ever taken of a storm. It's just the green field moving into this. To me, mean, that's like the structure equivalent of a Gary or a Wellfleet tornado. That's like the structure version of that. It's just like there is not structure. You cannot get structure better than that. It literally looks like a government drone, alien spaceship. that the crazy thing about this storm, and this just shows how serendipitous chasing is. um I woke up at 10 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m. I kind of slept in this day. There were supposed to be storms, haze Kansas, Dodge City, Kansas. And I woke up somewhere, somewhere in Kansas, Western Kansas. And I go on Twitter and I see a picture of this crazy mothership storm at 1030 in the morning, a half an hour north of me. was just the one. And I just I'm like, all right, I'm just going to drive north. Check this out. I have nothing else to do. Drive half an hour north. Stayed on this thing for four hours and I watched it decay and it had pancakes as it decayed. It had like two layers once it decayed. I end up missing a tornado because I was stuck on this storm. I'm like, I don't care about missing a tornado. I'm staying on this thing. This is amazing. It was like it was still probably the most beautiful storm I've ever seen. And it was and it happened by accident. I didn't even try to chase it and I got it. So that goes to show how much Sometimes it is a crap shoot to where you know You could be the best chaser ever and miss something good and then sometimes you could just accidentally stumble into something good and I stumbled into this I think that's actually essential. That's a part of my goal is I know when I'm going storm chasing, I'm not just going for the tornado. I'm going for structure. I'm going for a lot of surprises that are going to be had along the way. And I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for that as well. Here's another Aurora. So that is probably my favorite place in the world. That's Lake McDonald at Glacier National Park. This was in 2022. I first went to Glacier back in 2021. I was storm chasing with my mom, and we caught a couple of tornadoes in Western North Dakota. And then there was nothing to chase. So I'm like, well, let's go to Glacier. And I loved it so much. I've been going back every year. I have some friends in the area now. And I went there that night. because I would always just get a campsite there and wasn't even trying to see Aurora and also kind of stumbled upon this one. But yeah, I think that's just uh like that's probably the best picture I've ever taken. Like the last one was the best storm picture ever. But I think that's my favorite picture that I've ever taken. It's one of. I don't like to frame my own photos because I feel like it's kind of like, I don't know, it's kind of it feels a little bit narcissistic, but this is one of the few photos I actually of my own. Yeah. Let me hide my photos behind me. You don't see anything. These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along. is one of my own photos that I actually am proud of enough that I do have it framed in hangout. Heck yeah, to actually spend some time out on the plains. How are you preparing for all that? my last day at Ohio University is May 3rd. It's May 3rd all over again. That's a well-known date in the storm chasing world. But yeah, I mean, right now I'm just going through my stuff, packing everything. I got a storage unit. I got to put my stuff in. And I'm officially moving out of Athens then. And I'm hitting the road. I don't start grad school until August. So I have nothing to do. I have a remote, part-time remote job and nothing to do for the next couple of months. you've put some money into savings. use those and chase my ass off this year. This will be the last May that I get to chase until 2029 because of grad school. But I get the next couple of June, so that's okay. As I said earlier, June is the best, all the best stuff is in June. But I'm just gonna go hard and chase everything I can. Enjoy this, getting to have a full season out in the plains and that's kind of the plan and working on all that, so. Yeah, we'll see. It'll be, I hope it's a good season out there. That sounds awesome. It sounds like you have done the preparations, you've done the work, you've put in the work and you're ready to go. So I hope to see you out there this year for sure. Yeah, you too. It's gonna be super fun. So you uh got lightning questions? No? lightning round. Yeah, yeah. I do have lightning round. I'm all like, what's next? yeah, lightning round. I'd love to go through a real quick lightning round and see where you're at with these things. What is your fast, not fastest way? What would you, what do you prefer? you prefer mountains or oceans? mountains all day long. mean, it's just the beach is boring to me. I can spend like three hours on the beach. I'm like, all right, enough. This is boring. And I don't like hot weather. That's the other my hot weather take that gets me in the most controversy. I was saying earlier on how I liked when it was cold this winter and I anything over like 80. I just hate it. Give me I want to live in a place where it's like 70 all summer. It'd be like San Francisco. Perfect. You know. You wouldn't like Arizona then, that's for sure. but at least this is dry heat. It's the humidity that gets you. That's the midwesterner in me, but... do hate South Carolina, humidity, Georgia, no fun. So you talk lot about structure, but what do you prefer, NATOs or structure? If you had to pick one. over a bad tornado, but I would take a good tornado over any structure. I was going to say that's no fair, but you know what? I'll allow it because that's, that's, that's a pretty good answer. No one's ever answered it that way before. So what's your favorite weather phenomenon? That's a tough one, but I I answered it at the beginning. It's snow. The best day of my life. Probably the single best day of my life was when I was in February 5th, 2010, north of Pittsburgh where I was a kid. I was in like fifth grade. We got 26 and a half inches of snow in one night into the sixth. And that was the, I said that I don't remember dates and here I am listing off a bunch of random dates in this talk, but. That was like the best day. If it wasn't the best day in my life, it was the best day in my childhood. had four snow days in a row. went and laid a big hill in our backyard and I went sledding in the, and it was just, yeah, I don't know. There's just something that snow, aurora tornadoes, or I mean, aurora tornado solar eclipse are all truly magical and amazing, but like to me, I'm the most myself when it's snowing. People hate me for it, but more for me, less for them. I love it. So OK, finally, the second. All right, one more question. Sunset or sunrise? I hate waking up early, so I think I have to say sunset because I'm never up for the sunrise. But I will say, because I'm up early so rare, it takes something really special to get me up early enough to even see a sunrise. Usually traveling somewhere, getting to the airport early, something big. So whenever I see a sunrise, it's on a big day in my life. But I hate getting up early, so I'm going to have to go sunset. Okay, I'll allow that too. And finally, what's the top item on your bucket list? What's something you really want to capture this year? Well, my I lived in Pennsylvania and Ohio in my life and that area combined with West Virginia, that tri-state area is kind of where I consider to be home. And I've never seen a tornado in Pennsylvania. I've never seen a tornado in West Virginia and I've never seen a tornado in Ohio. So I would really like someday. I don't know how it's going to happen with me about to move to New York, but someday I would like to see a tornado in one of those three states. Okay, all right. I mean they do have severe weather in New York as well. seen Nicholas, I forget his last name, Isabella. Yeah, he's taking some pictures of supercell structure moving into New York City. That's crazy. And actually today is the 58th anniversary of the Gallia County, Ohio F5 tornado, which is the only F5 tornado that happened in southeast Ohio. So. Yeah, I just happen to see that I didn't know that until earlier today. I haven't actually see that online, but I mean, Ohio, obviously Xenia is like the most famous tornado of all time. So Ohio is no stranger to tornadoes. Mm. Wow. That is. Yeah, I didn't even think there was a lot of that much severe weather until this year, like Illinois has been killing it, crushing it with tornado warnings and all sorts of wild stuff happening up there and even Wisconsin, Michigan. There's been a lot of severe weather up there, so something I didn't ordinarily think would happen, but it seems to. I don't know about that. I think there'd be many people who would disagree with that, but I think that's a great way to end. Andrew, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming in. Yeah, thank you for having me and hopefully next time I see you it'll be at some remote gas station talking about the storms in like a couple weeks. and I'll always take your advice by the way, or at least heed some of it and listen to it if you send me in the right direction or tell me to stay put, because I'm still learning too and I love the fact that we can learn off of each other and rely on each other for support. So thanks for always doing that. chased the monsoon. So maybe I need to add Arizona to my bucket list and come get the monsoon. You won't like it. You'll be like this, okay, you said it was a dry heat, but the dry heat sucks still. So that's gonna wrap it up. Thanks so much, Andrew. I appreciate you and good luck on all of your endeavors moving to New York and your masters and chasing this year. I wish you nothing but luck and the best. So really excited to see what you pull out of your magic rabbit hat in the coming year. Yeah, you as well. Thanks for interviewing me and I'll see you soon. Thanks. That's gonna wrap it up here on the Storm Before the Con podcast. As always, shine your light while you still have it and we will catch you all on the next one. Take care everybody.