WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19,2002
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN =13
Tornado
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cells was from roughly May 20 through June 5.
Umscheid said he would chase storms wherever the weather patterns took him, whether it be in Kansas, as far south as Texas, or as far north as the Dakotas.
"In a 10 to 13 day storm chase vacation,
I can log as much as 7,000 miles on my vehicle." Umscheid said.
Umscheid said he had storm tracking equipment to track tornadoes on the road.
He said he only had the bare essentials for storm tracking.
Umscheid has a scanner for picking up National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association Weather Radio transmissions, a CB radio for communicating with others, a cell phone, and he just bought a laptop computer this year with Global Positioning Systems software for navigation.
Umscheid said chasing costed money.
He said one chase day can cost him between $65 and $90 for gas, food and lodging. During a chase vacation he can easily spend $900 on these things alone. In an entire year he estimates that he spends $2000 to $3500 if he includes new gadgets that he buys for storm chasing.
Umscheid said that storm chasing falls in line with his career interest of meteorology and he enjoyed storm chasing as a hobby.
Antle said he would keep chasing storms until the day he died.
Contact Smith at tsmith@kansan.com. This story was edited by Mandy Miller.
CONTRIBUTED ART
A tornado in Seward, Neb. registers as an F-4 on the Fujita Tornado Damage Scale. This means the tornado had winds up to 260 mph. Antle said watching the tornado hit the barn was the worst scene of destruction he'd witnessed during his years of storm chasing.
EVERYTHING BUT ICE
BEDS DESKS CHEST OF DRAWERS BOOK CASES
unclaimed freight & damaged merchandise 936 Mass.