(Transcript) Flashback: Storm Chaser Stas Speransky

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[00:00:00] Gabriel: Hey, everyone. You may have noticed that this is a flashback episode. Over the years, the number of people that listen to Chaser Chat has grown significantly, and I wanted to highlight some of the older podcasts so that all of you new folks have a chance to listen. There may be some dated references, advertisements, etc.,

[00:00:16] so just ignore those, and I hope you enjoy the episode.

[00:00:22] Gabriel: Howdy folks, and welcome back to another episode of the Chaser Chat Podcast. I want to thank all of you for listening in, and just to remind you, you can subscribe on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere else that you listen to podcasts at. Today, I have someone on the show who I have been following on Twitter for a little while now. I’ve really enjoyed a lot of his content, not just his storm chasing stuff, and we’ll talk a little bit about that, of course. Without further ado, Stas Speransky, how’s it going, man?

[00:00:50] Stas: Hey, Gabriel, how you doing, man? I’m doing all right.

[00:00:52] Gabriel: I’m doing awesome. Very excited to have you on the podcast here. And I meant every word of that. I have enjoyed following you on Twitter quite a bit for all the storm chasing content but most importantly, I’ve noticed that, especially in the year 2020, with everyone kind of hanging their head and things not exactly working out the way a lot of people have planned, especially on the storm chasing front. You have been interjecting quite a bit of positivity sometimes to many people’s chagrin. Would you say that’s a pretty fair classification of you on social media?

[00:01:20] Stas: Yeah. I’m a very positive person. I see good in everything. I try to spread the positivity, and for people who wanna stay negative, that’s alright. I’m gonna keep pushing my positivity. Every day’s exciting, man. I get up every day, I’m excited.

[00:01:31] Gabriel: Yeah, it’s been really cool getting to see that. Especially contrasting with, a lot of the stuff that’s been going on here this this hashtag 2020 years. Just to get started, why don’t you take a few moments to tell all of the listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, what got you into storm chasing?

[00:01:47] Stas: All right, sure. If you hear some background noises, my dog’s next to me.

[00:01:51] Gabriel: Is that Manny?

[00:01:52] Stas: Yeah, it’s Manny. That’s my storm chase partner. He might make a few noises here and there, but so my name is Stas. I I was born in Russia. I immigrated to America when I was eight years old. First lived in the state of Maine of all states. Not too many foreigners. I had my own ESOL teacher there. She was basically, teacher just for me because there’s no other foreigners in our district. Lived in Maine for three years. What got me first started to be interested in weather was the 1999 ice storm. We had a big ice storm. We got about inch and a half of freezing rain accumulation, which is still the most I’ve ever seen. Didn’t have school for probably about two weeks. And although it doesn’t sound exciting, most people, think tornadoes, hurricanes. You know as an eight year old that was pretty exciting to me seeing all those trees fall down from the ice. So that kind of got me started and then so that was I was in the winter and then I remember, In may on May 3rd 1999 I was actually watching the weather channel during their live coverage of the Moore tornado the first Moore tornado in 1999. And that’s when I really got into tornadoes man, and I don’t know.

[00:02:53] I was just blown away I was It became a passion for life right there. And what what was cool about that is, pretty much the next day at school, I started to, you know how you you put your name on a worksheet at the top? I used to I started drawing tornadoes under my name of all different shapes and sizes. So everybody just thought I’d be a meteorologist. And it came out to be true. So as I got older, we moved to Maryland. And my favorite weather phenomenon there was Nor’easter. We had a lot of big time snow storms. I remember seeing 37 inches at one time. So that’s, that was incredible. So I’ve, I love snow storms. I was the kid who would watch the radar and go measure snow before I ever thought about sledding or having a snowball fight. So yeah, I abandoned meteorology for a while. I got into baseball heavy. I wanted to play pro ball.

[00:03:37] I played in high school. I played a little bit in college but ultimately it didn’t work out. So then I went back to the only thing I really knew was weather, and so I went to school in Florida State. I got a degree in meteorology, and that’s when I first started chasing storms. I wanted to chase storms all those years, I was a little kid, and I was in high school growing up in, or by the time I got to high school, I was in, in Maryland. It wasn’t reasonable for me to drive to Oklahoma or Kansas to chase storms. So it was always I was followed people. I’d watch documentaries and stuff. But once I got to Florida, a few people, they’re actually chase storms in the Southeast. And so I kinda, I was like, okay, I never really considered there’s tornadoes in Alabama, Mississippi before, but I was like, okay, I’ll give it a shot. So my very first storm chase was the March 2nd 2012 high risk day. I know I had no idea what I was doing. I drove out to, drove up to Alabama.

[00:04:26] I remember being in the tornado warning, but I can’t tell you I saw anything. So that’s where it, when it all started in 2012 on May, on March 2nd, during the high risk day that Henryville, Indiana got hit. And then Limestone County in Alabama also got hit. But honestly, I don’t remember ever seeing any, anything other than just rain and wind. Which is what a lot of chasing in South, in the Southeast.

[00:04:46] Gabriel: Yeah, I was going to say, I can’t believe you broke in your tornado chasing skills in Dixie Alley, that’s that probably made chasing the Plains a breeze once you finally got out there.

[00:04:54] Stas: Absolutely, man. So let me just keep going. So from 2012 to 2014, while I was in school at Florida State, that’s all I chased. I never once went to Oklahoma. Or I never once went west of the Mississippi River. So I probably chased about 30, maybe some around 30 times from 2012 to 2014 in Dixie Alley. Didn’t see a tornado in 2012, didn’t see a tornado in 2013 saw a tornado in 2014, it’s one of those things where it’s a rain wrap mess looking half wedge, half tree lines. I technically, I did see my first tornado in 2014. So it took three years for me chasing in Dixie Alley and chasing consistently Dixie Alley to really see what you would even try to call your first tornado. So I finished school in 2014 in the winter of 2014. And I got a got a job in Oklahoma. So I was applying for jobs for a while. I got job offers from Canada, which I didn’t want to go to. And then all of a sudden I got a job in Oklahoma. And I was like, you know what? I always told everybody I was going to live in Oklahoma and chase tornadoes. So almost, it’s almost perfect. In January, I moved out to Oklahoma and I was amazed at how easy storm chasing really was. Not to, sound like that because now I realize it’s really hard but if you’ve, if all you knew was chasing in Alabama, Northern Florida, Mississippi, then once you start chasing in Oklahoma and Kansas, come on. It’s a piece of cake, although. Now, six years, seven, six years later, I realized, it’s still really hard. But yeah starting in 2015 I just, everything I get into, I do really like to the max. Starting in 2015 all the way to 2020 now I chase everything, man. I I probably put on 25, 000 miles per year. So I’m probably looking at 150 to 200, 000 miles chasing storms 30 to 40, 45 times a year. So I’ve really taken it to to an extreme.

[00:06:39] Gabriel: Yeah. And if if people are looking to check out some of the, that extreme action that you’ve been looking into the past few years, they can check out your YouTube channel, which is Stas is Chasing. If they just search for that on the the search bar on YouTube. And I gotta admit, this is some pretty awesome stuff. You have caught a lot of storms these last few years.

[00:06:57] Stas: Yeah some years have been easier than others. 2015, was an incredible stretch. 2018, I had a really rough time. 2019, kinda same. This year, 2020, was actually pretty okay for me, considering it was such a slow year in the Plains. Yeah, every year has its own personality. So you almost have to adjust almost every year pretty much. But yeah I’m looking to just keep going and, like Reed said, never stop chasing, man.

[00:07:22] Gabriel: One thing I remember following you on earlier this year was I think it was the Springer event. You were out there, correct?

[00:07:27] Stas: Yeah. The Springer tornado event. Correct.

[00:07:30] Gabriel: Yeah, that was some pretty cool stuff. I thought that was gonna maybe be the early year contender for Photogenic Tornado of the Year.

[00:07:35] Stas: Yeah absolutely. And so I have a little story about that. I I actually sat in Springer for two hours waiting for initiation. And then the storms initiated so close to the interstate, I was like, you know what? I’m gonna be the smart one. I’m gonna hop over the Arbuckle Mountain, and I’m gonna catch a huge tornado on the other side. Everybody’s gonna be, panicking to get there. And what happened, of course, the tornado touched down literally on the other side of the Arbuckle Mountains. And other people who, you know, who, who were there got a good view. And I saw this tornado from probably 10 miles away. I was watching it crest over the mountains. They call it the mountains, but it’s really like hills. And I was I was a little, I was a little upset that, I tried to give the storm too much room and sometimes that happens.

[00:08:13] Gabriel: I really like that strategy though. That’s something that… we had Skip Talbot as a guest on the podcast last month and something he talks about a lot is going for the boom bust plays with the high risk, high rewards. And if you end up being right on those scenarios, then you get the dream footage that very few people are going to have. So I feel like in a lot of things in life, storm chasing included, that can be an excellent strategy, especially if you’re looking to to really get the best bang for your buck.

[00:08:37] Stas: Yeah, absolutely. It all started at first, I was okay just seeing tornadoes. Now I I almost try to position myself for the really good stuff and sometimes I actually get a little bit out ahead of the storm or sometimes I’m, I’m trying to actually reposition while there’s a kind of a tornado touching down. So I miss filming like some like little touchdowns and it never actually fully touches down when I’m, as I’m trying to get to a location where I know if I’m there and the tornado is down, like I’m going to have the dream shot. So I’ve cost myself some opportunities there, but I’m really going for the really, like you said, high risk, high reward stuff.

[00:09:07] Gabriel: So taking it back just a little bit to something you said, where it basically took you, I think I think you mentioned three years to catch your first tornado. I think that’s a really cool thing for a lot of folks to hear, especially people who are brand new, getting into storm chasing this year. I know you said that 2020 hasn’t been absolutely awful for you, but for a lot of folks, myself included, who have, more limited chasing opportunities, a lot of the higher risk setups have failed this year. And I think people can take a lot of solace by checking out your YouTube channel seeing what the perseverance and dedication can turn into, and knowing that they’re not alone if they’re not actually going out there and having any success at first.

[00:09:41] Stas: Oh, absolutely, man. You don’t, people just see the good stuff sometimes, but they don’t see the frustration a lot of times. And I’m not one of those people to vent on Twitter. I don’t say, oh, this setup sucks or whatever. I wish I didn’t chase. No I’m literally chasing most days and sometimes you don’t hear from me just cause I’m usually a little frustrated, but yeah a lot of the time you drive out there, like you said the setups that you can actually forecast out ahead, like two to three days out ahead to actually plan to go there. They have busted this year, pretty much all of them. If you’re struggling, it’s some years, everything produces. 2016, I saw 42 tornadoes. Every storm I was on produced. This year, nothing almost.

[00:10:17] Gabriel: Probably makes it a little easier to swallow when you have a co pilot like Manny out there with you.

[00:10:21] Stas: Oh, absolutely, man. Mannys not that old, I started chasing with him when he was about 12 weeks old in, in 2000, I want to say 2018. So we’ve been chasing together for two years and he’s the best chase partner you can have. He doesn’t tell me where to go. He just stays quiet and takes in the sights.

[00:10:37] Gabriel: That is actually pretty funny considering I think the most common comment you get on a lot of YouTube videos for storm chasers is, Wow, this is great footage, but I wish the guy would just shut up and stop talking.

[00:10:47] Stas: Yeah, I mostly try to appease everyone, because I usually get really excited. But, I have read a lot of comments that people don’t like talking, so I’ve actually made it a point not to talk. But sometimes I get too excited, and I end up, saying stuff. But actually, in some of my videos, you can hear Manny if you listen closely, you can hear him either wheezing or just like half snoring, so yeah.

[00:11:08] Gabriel: It’s the Easter egg right there for the content. That’s what listeners should do, put the timestamps in the videos if you hear Manny in the background. And just for those who want to follow, there’s a really cool account that Stas has set up. And by the way, it’s at StasIsChasing, S T A S IsChasing if you want to follow him on Twitter. And then it’s at Manny Wedges if you want to follow Manny, which is some pretty funny content, I have to say. Between Manny and Gizmo. With Reed Timmer? I’m not sure which one’s more entertaining.

[00:11:33] Stas: Oh yeah. Manny’s trying to become famous, man. He told me he wants more followers than me, so he’s climbing.

[00:11:39] Gabriel: So besides your YouTube channel, do you have any other projects that you’re working on, you have in the works that you’d like to do in the future?

[00:11:45] Stas: I have no other projects, man. I’m just basically trying to make storm chasing a full-time thing. So in the future I’m looking to, take it to another level so that, that’s the goal is to put out more and more content, chase more and more different regions. I planned to chase in Canada this year, but, they, they shut down the border. So hopefully next year I’ll try to not just go to Canada for a day or two. I’ll actually try to live in Canada for a few weeks. So that’s the goal.

[00:12:08] Gabriel: So as far as future projects go, and that was a question where I was baiting you, because I have seen you talking a little bit on Twitter before about potentially running for political office someday. Which would you be the first person ever to maybe announce your candidacy with a storm in the background? That’d be pretty awesome.

[00:12:25] Stas: Oh, man that’s a long ways away. I do have strong opinions, but I’m I’m not all not there quite yet, but yeah. I will announce my my, my candidacy with a tornado in the background if it comes to that.

[00:12:34] Gabriel: Yeah. I was just thinking that as far as we live in a day and age now where right or wrong, good or bad things that go viral tend to really leave a lasting impression on the public’s eyes. So the guy who announced his candidacy with a tornado in the background, like that picture of the dude who’s mowing his lawn. If you’ve ever seen it with the tornado in the background, he’s just casually mowing-

[00:12:52] Stas: The lawnmower guy in Alberta, Canada.

[00:12:54] Gabriel: Yeah. You could be the, you could be immortalized as the, the just name recognition, household name is the guy who announced his candidacy with the twister in the background, which I thought would be pretty awesome.

[00:13:02] Stas: Yeah. And then in this day and age, you don’t even need a good platform. You just need a catchy image, catchy slogan. You’re good.

[00:13:08] Gabriel: Yeah, absolutely. Takes me back to when you said you first started writing the- or drawing the little tornadoes on your school papers where your name was. A little signature thing that you could put, when you’re signing photographs for people or something like that.

[00:13:19] Stas: That’s right, man. That’d be cool.

[00:13:21] Gabriel: I like it. Switching a little bit over to some of your other chases. What is, what would you consider to be the most noteworthy or memorable experience you’ve had while chasing? It doesn’t have to be the biggest tornado or the most dangerous situation you’ve been in, just the one that really sticks out in your mind.

[00:13:35] Stas: The one that really sticks out in my mind is actually probably one of the best tornado days I’ve ever had. Was the Dodge city day in 2016 and that was on the tail end of a week of chasing straight. And I had seen tornadoes on five straight days before that. So I really didn’t even want to chase that. I went home. That was the day before it was the, was, I saw the Woodward, Oklahoma tornado around sunset. And I had actually planned on not chasing the next day because I was like, man, I’ve seen tornadoes every day this week. I’m getting tired. So I actually went home, I was close enough to home, and I slept in my own bed for the first time. And I woke up the next day around like 10. 30 a. m. Really tired. I was super tired. And I checked the SPC, which I normally don’t check right away. I usually like to do my own analysis.

[00:14:18] But I checked the SPC and they have a 10 percent hatched close to where I, I was yesterday. So I was like, all right, probably should have just stayed up there. And then I was like, you know what? I can’t miss out on Southwest Kansas storms. So I was like, okay, let me just go for it one more day. And so honestly, no preparation, nothing. I looked at the SBC 10 percent hatch and I just went, which is I never do that. I overanalyze everything. I plan everything the night before, but this one, no planning. I looked at while I was driving up there, I was getting gas. I was, I looked at the satellite image and I was like, Oh wow there’s a outflow boundary just draped across Southwest Kansas. I was like, okay, this is going to be good. So I’m driving, driving, and I’m really sick. That day I was sick. I was nauseous. As I’m approaching the Kansas border, I have an urge to, throw up. So I’m on the side of the road. People are driving by and I’m puking up my guts while the storm already got tornado warned and I’m like, man, I gotta get there.

[00:15:11] I’m, 20 miles out. So I’m driving. I pull off on a different road and I’m going maybe 78 miles an hour in a 65. I’m not going that fast. All of a sudden the cops lights behind me. It’s all Oh man, this is can’t get any worse. And so I pull over and he said, You’re going, a little too fast. And I said sorry, Mr. Officer. And he asked me what I’m doing. I said, I’m a storm spotter. You got to tell them you’re a storm spotter. If you tell them you’re a chaser, they’re going to get you. So I tell him I’m a local storm spotter. He said, oh, okay, there’s a tornado warning storm. I was like, yeah, I’m sorry. Wanted to check it out and report it, report back. He should have given me a ticket, but he didn’t, which is, a blessing. He said, okay just, take it easy, you’ll get there. So I said, okay, thank you, Mr. Officer, I appreciate it.

[00:15:47] So I got off of one ticket, towards the end of the story, there’s gonna be more stuff. So I pull up to a dirt road that I decided to take to go pretty much underneath the wall cloud. And as I’m taking that road. A tornado starts to drop, which is 2016, every storm pretty much did that to me. As I’m approaching the storm, it would drop a tornado. I don’t know. I don’t know what I did to to deserve that. But that year it just happened that way. And so I get this ridiculous shot of the first Dodge City tornado dropping right in front of me. You guys can, if somebody wants to check out the video, I have a really long video, both in 360 degree format and regular.

[00:16:21] And a tornado drops in front of me. There’s four, five, six more tornadoes after that. I’m pretty much close to all of them, and it’s a magical day. And I notice a roadblock in front of me, which I’ve seen roadblocks before, and typically they’re a little more organized, but this one just had a couple cop cars pulled off the side of the road.

[00:16:39] And there’s maybe 10 to 15 cars that I think the cops don’t want people to go, but it doesn’t really look like a roadblock to me. So I’m like, okay, I want to be, I want to be the smart one here. I’m just going to go around all of them. And the tornado was roping out about four probably like 400 yards in front of us. And I’m sitting there, I’m thinking, okay, if I pass them, there’s no way the cops are going to chase, right? No, I go around all these cars. And then the freaking cops start chasing me and so the cop puts on his lights. He cuts me off. We’re pretty close to the tornado. It’s roping out, probably three or 400 yards away.

[00:17:07] He gets out of his car. He’s just really mean. And he just started just cursing at me. I had to turn the volume off that video just because the guy’s obnoxious. And he just keeps cursing at me. He said, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take you to jail and make an example out of you. And I’m like looking at the tornado right in front of us. And I’m like, man, don’t you see that? He said, it doesn’t matter. I’m like, it does matter. So he, he makes his whole speech. He goes back to his car. He’s casually writing this ticket while the tornado was just roping out a few hundred yards away. It’s not one of those, little tornadoes. This was a major league tornado. And, he writes me a ticket, $550 fine for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle, 500 fine. So he writes me that fine and I’m waiting. He still has a lot more words to say. And I’m seeing another tornado start to form in front of us.

[00:17:52] And I’m like, all right, man, just write your ticket. I’m not saying this, but I’m thinking, I’m like, all right. And just let me keep chasing, man. Eventually he gives me his ticket, give me the ticket. And I see probably like three to four more tornadoes until finally, the storm dies. So saw a total of 10, 12, 15, however many, Other people counted 20 tornadoes, I probably counted maybe 10, 10 to 12 tornadoes. So it was the best tornado day of my life but yet I’m, I’m down 500 bucks and I’m, at the time I was very broke, man. At the time I was chasing storms on credit most of the time. These days things are a lot better, but back then that, that kind of ruined my day, but it’s still the most memorable experience to me. And a lot of people really love that image of the cop in front of the tornado.

[00:18:32] Gabriel: It’s iconic.

[00:18:33] Stas: Yeah, I have it framed in my house, so it’s pretty cool.

[00:18:36] Gabriel: When you were talking about how you were really sick leading up to those those tornadoes, all I could think about was the Michael Jordan flu game. It’s like this was your flu game, right? You just went out, you absolutely killed it.

[00:18:47] Stas: Yeah I saw cars were honking at me, like I’m hunched over in the back of my car What’s this guy doing? And back then I don’t think a lot of people knew who I was. These days people would probably just, pull over and check on me. But back then I was a, not a noob, but I guess I was, not known to many people at all.

[00:19:02] Gabriel: So what about the most violent tornado you’ve witnessed? Would that be the same ones there, or have you seen something significantly more stronger than the Dodge City event?

[00:19:10] Stas: In terms of pure strength, man, the Dodge City event was probably one of the best ones. It was just absolutely perfect tornadoes. They’re just drilling into the ground. But I’ve seen a few other ones in Mississippi in 2015. December 23rd, 2015, I chased what actually dropped a couple of tornadoes. One was an EF3 in Clarksdale. Mississippi right across the Mississippi River, which is the one I chased. And then later that storm also produced the Holly Springs EF4 tornado, which killed some people. That one was really violent. It was throwing trees in the air. And yeah another one was the Elmer, Oklahoma tornado back in 2015 on May 16th. That was my first wedge tornado that I’ve seen. And that thing was just an earth eater. And that day also got absolutely crushed by a windblown softball size hail. I never knew. I never knew the area right behind the tornado can have softball hail getting blown sideways. And I, I lost most of my glass. My car was never the same. And yeah, that, that was a really big one. There’s a few more. The Dimmit tornado day, which is one of my favorite chases of all time. It was a day that nobody thought there’d be even a storm. And there happened to be a cyclic tornado producing. I dropped a mile wide wedge tornado. Probably about a mile outside of Dimmitt. It would have been a disaster if it would have hit the city. But yeah I’ve seen a few good tornadoes over the years.

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[00:21:14] Gabriel: As far as the big hailers go, are you one of those folks who will actively drive into the hail core or do you stay away from that?

[00:21:20] Stas: I used to. Probably the first few years I used to not care. I’d break glass three times a year. I’d need a new windshield three times a year. But it got to the point where it’s annoying. I get my windshield blown out and I’m, I’m having to go outside the car to film storms and it’s just got to the point where it’s not even about the the money aspect. It’s not even about the extreme aspect. It’s just, it gets annoying trying to replace the windshield is if you’re trying to chase for three, four or five straight days out in the middle of nowhere where I don’t even know where to replace the windshield. So I’ve actually avoided hail pretty good the past couple of years. I’ve only gotten in a couple of decent sized hailstones, but I haven’t actually broken a windshield in two years, which is a big accomplishment for me.

[00:21:58] Gabriel: It feels like there’s got to be room for some sort of marketing deal with an auto glass company. I don’t know if they have them out there, but there’s a big brand called SafeLight around Columbus, Ohio where they’ll actually drive out to your car and replace your windshield for you. I feel like that would be the perfect sponsorship deal for a storm chaser.

[00:22:15] Stas: Oh, absolutely. Hey, if they want to, if they want to do that, hey guys I’m right here. I’ll drive into more hail for you. But actually what I also, so this is my sensitive sides coming into play. So Manny actually doesn’t like hail. And I remember Manny he loves to ride in cars. He’s cool. He he gets French fries on the way. So he likes to be by my side, but whenever we get into hail, I can see him like start to shake a little bit look a little uneasy. So I actually do avoid the hail sometimes just for him, just cause we really don’t need to be in the hail.

[00:22:43] Gabriel: A good friend right there. Good friend. Okay. So one other question I have about your tornado experiences. What is the stickiest situation you found yourself in? Because this tends to happen to everybody. Eventually you’re going to get into a spot where things aren’t exactly the way you thought they were going to be. Maybe you misidentified storm structure, mesocyclone cycled, or whatever the case may be. Do you have a definitive experience where you thought to yourself, Okay, like I’m actually in danger right now, and you’re pretty lucky you got away from it.

[00:23:10] Stas: Oh, yeah, man. Last year, actually, or not last year, but the year before. On April 30th 2019 in Northeast Oklahoma, suburbs of Tulsa. It was near the town of Haskell, Oklahoma. I have a video on YouTube if you guys want to check it out after I finish this story. But yeah, it was a normal storm. I already saw two tornadoes from it before that, very weak tornadoes. And there was a river crossing that I’m trying to get to. And so I’m paralleling a river and I’m basically almost in the hook area, I’m slicing through the hook trying to get ahead of the storm so I can go east to get further ahead of it. And all of a sudden debris starts hitting the back of my car. And if you guys ever see the movie Twister, there’s a reference to the Suck Zone. So all this debris is from my behind into an area in front of me, probably like 20, 30, 50 yards in front of me. And I’m getting hit by sheet metal. I’m getting hit by all kinds of sticks and wood and I don’t know, man, but it was very loud. Everything was, I was getting absolutely pelted by debris in the back and I’m backing up cause I realized all this stuff is funneling into one spot right in front of me.

[00:24:14] And I’m backing up. I floor it and I’m backing up and I’m getting hit by all this debris. It takes out my side mirror. It takes out my door handle. I have a piece of wood stuck in my trunk. And then the tornado condenses right in front of me about, again, about 50 yards in front of me, which is where I was. So I, I backed out of a worse spot. So the tornado condenses fully, it’s a nice white cone tornado in front of me. And then I’m trying to chase it again and it goes into the rain. So it’s one of those things that I was I was hook slicing kind of an HP storm trying to get ahead of it. And I miscalculated probably, I probably looked at a radar image that was, five minutes old thinking it was five miles away, which is actually on top of me, but I did have the the whereabouts to back out of, the area that was getting debris sucked into it because it’s when it drops the pressure and what happens is stuff gets sucked in. So it is technically a Suck Zone because stuff just starts getting sucked into one location. And then once that location reaches, a certain pressure threshold or whatever, it condenses. That’s how you get water to, that’s how you get a tornado to form. It condenses that, that column of air. That’s how you see the tornado, but it actually starts forming before you can see the tornado, as I experienced it.

[00:25:23] Gabriel: Now that was Dusty. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character in Twister that said that, right?

[00:25:27] Stas: That’s right.

[00:25:27] Gabriel: Yeah, I remember that Suck Zone. I hadn’t thought about that in years, but that’s crazy though. So you basically, if you would have stayed in the spot that you were in, would have had a full fledged tornado condensed right on top of you.

[00:25:37] Stas: Yeah, so then I wouldn’t, then the video would have been even better, but, maybe we wouldn’t be talking.

[00:25:41] Gabriel: Yeah, I’m very happy for your sake and all your fans that you were able to get away from that, and it sounds, and this is something I always try to ask as a follow up to that question is, so it sounds like, the the thing that you might give as a caution to other chasers is that don’t always just rely on, that five or six minute old radar image as being exactly where the storm is at the moment you’re watching it.

[00:26:04] Stas: Yeah, a lot of times, and I’ve fallen into this trap too. So you’re thinking the storm is somewhere, but if, especially on a day that storm motion is, fairly brisk, let’s say like 20, 30, 40 miles an hour, that storm’s probably not where you think it is, so you always gotta, you gotta always gotta look up. But if you’re in an HP storm and it’s basically, it’s overcast, you can’t really see storm structure, you can get a little hard. But most of the time, the storm isn’t where you think it is on radar.

[00:26:29] Gabriel: Moving to a cool little question that I’ve had a lot of fun asking our guests on this show is what do you think a hidden gem area to chase in the country is? Like a place where most people wouldn’t necessarily consider it to be prime chasing location for one reason or another, but you absolutely love it when you’re able to get out that way.

[00:26:47] Stas: Oh man, if I say it, then it wouldn’t be hidden anymore.

[00:26:49] Gabriel: You’re the second person who said that, by the way. So maybe this is a bad question to ask people to give up their secret sauce.

[00:26:55] Stas: No. It’s not a secret. Nobody wants to chase there. It’s Eastern Arkansas, Western Mississippi, man.

[00:27:00] Gabriel: Okay.

[00:27:00] Stas: Storm motions are nasty. The storms are usually nasty, but the terrain is beautiful. It’s like Kansas with fewer road options and no storm chasers. So I was able to see a few tornadoes in that area and I make sure to go there every time there’s a chance, because to me, everybody’s going to see the Oklahoma tornado, I’m trying to see stuff that I know most people won’t see because it’s more impressive for the kind of a resume, but it’s also, it’s also something you can be more proud of saying, okay, these guys aren’t even chasing there, but.

[00:27:28] I can chase there. Maybe once in a while I’ll see stuff there. So it does feel good when you can see something that other people don’t see. When I see a tornado that a hundred other people see, it’s very cool. But at the same time, it’s not as special as let’s say the Dimit tornado from 2017, which I was one of maybe eight or ten people who saw that. Stuff like that really drives me. That’s why I usually chase days that, typically aren’t as good looking. If they’re fairly close, I try to get out on those days versus chasing the high risk day that I know everybody’s chasing. And my neighbors are probably chasing it.

[00:27:56] Gabriel: Yeah. Skip Talbot goes so far as to have some places where he won’t even chase because of chaser convergence any longer. He just either, either he’ll find a spot that’s, a bigger risk reward away from that area, or he won’t even go out on that day, just even more extreme version of what you’re describing.

[00:28:10] Stas: Yeah, no that’s smart, but, I do try to get out on every day, so I try to keep in mind what roads people are gonna take, and if there’s one road that I know that’s gonna be backed up if I’m chasing in western Oklahoma, I try my best to be out ahead of everybody. But if the herd catches you and you’re stuck behind the herd, then it’s gonna be slow going.

[00:28:27] Gabriel: And that would take away, too, just from me personally one of the greatest joys I have in storm chasing, which is, there’s nothing like just being out on the open road. Taking in the air and just getting to watch the storms. And to me that’s one of the best parts. So getting stuck in a traffic jam is something that it definitely would take away from the experience.

[00:28:42] Stas: Yeah, absolutely. And Western Oklahoma, that’s the place for traffic jams. So I live in a state that everybody wants to chase in. So it’s as storm chasing becomes more and more mainstream, it’s, it might make it hard. And especially in areas where there’s literally like one or two roads gets pretty bad. But I heard on the previous interview that she had with Skip. I heard Central Illinois. That’s actually one of my favorite spots, too. I’ve only chased there a few times, but I’ve always said I have a hundred percent tornado success there. So I do like their setup. And I do love their road networking. It was spot on. There’s literally a road every mile that you can just take. I do like central Illinois a lot. I’m making it a point to go there every time in the future.

[00:29:20] Gabriel: Now, this is a little game that I like to play with the people on the podcast. And, it’s basically if you had five parameters to choose how to forecast a chase location which ones would you choose? And you have to you can’t use things like Skew Ts or Hodographs since they’re an all in one type product. We’re talking about single things like 500 millibar winds or surface temperatures. What would you do if you had to narrow it down to only five, five parameters?

[00:29:43] Stas: Five parameters. Alright, man. Let’s see. We need to know kind of where the trough is. So I’d look at the 500 millibar winds and just basic 500 heights. So those are two maps I’d look at. I guess they, they have it on one map, but let’s say those are two. So 500 millibar winds and 500 heights. So that way I can know, the momentum aloft so I can infer the deep layer shear and I know the trough axis So I know where to be based on the trough axis itself. So I can actually really chase off just those two. But I would also need I would also like to know if there’s what kind of low level shear we’re working with, So I would like the 850 millibar winds which you know, it’s a is basically the proxy for a low level jet. So in the Plains your best tornado chances will be on days that you have a stronger low level jet than other days. And those kind of, that’s how you discriminate from days, structure days versus tornado days is the strength of the low level jet. So that’s three. And then two more. I just I want to see what’s going on at the surface. So surface temperature is one. And then the fifth one is surface dew point. That way you can see how much moisture is in the air and how big the temperature dew point spread is. As the closer the two are, the kind of the easier it gets to see, to get a tornado. If you have a dew point spread of, let’s say, 30 degrees, it’s going to be very tough, unless you’re in Colorado, to really get a tornado. But a dew point spread of maybe like 15 would be a nice day considering if all other parameters line up as well.

[00:31:05] Gabriel: I like those answers a lot. The folks we’ve had on the podcast so far, we’ve had a lot of answers with things like CAPE, convective inhibition, that sort of thing. But it seems like you stayed away from a lot of the convective parameters and you’re really just hammering home the real basics of the recipe.

[00:31:17] Stas: Yeah, because if you take the overall trough, which you can get off 500 millibars, if you take low level shear, which is 850 flow all you need to know is if there’s moisture or not. So you look at the dew point and temperature and you can know whether you have enough CAPE or not and you pretty much know, knowing the trough axis, you pretty much know where there’s going to be enough lift to overcome the convective inhibition. So that’s it comes with practice, but I really don’t need to look at how much SIN H is there a good trough will always convect storms.

[00:31:45] Gabriel: Yeah, I think I remember commenting with you on Twitter before about that as well. You basically answered to the effect of that you keep it really simple with your analysis of figuring out where you’re going at the chase which I can really respect because there are so many parameters that it’s easy to get paralysis by analysis.

[00:31:58] Stas: Oh yeah, man. I, sometimes I fall into that trap too. I’m looking, especially if it’s a further away chase and I’m almost trying to convince myself not to go because I’ve got to drive really far. So I’m always trying to look at, if, Oh, let me see. Maybe it won’t actually convect because there’s just enough SIN. But, if you keep it simple you have success more often than not.

[00:32:16] Gabriel: As a follow up to that, do you think that there is a really overrated or misunderstood severe weather parameter that you see commonly used by the chasing community and you think would be helpful if there was a little more context behind it?

[00:32:27] Stas: Not that… I guess the supercell composite is the ultimate height parameter. And I see a lot of people post that me including, sometimes if sometimes you just need to feel good about a setup, so you look at it, it shows you bright red and you’re thinking, yeah it’s showtime. The supercell composite is severely flawed because some days in the early summer, where you do have a strong enough cap to get no storms, and you know this, but then the supercell composite is spitting out almost, purple colors, and you’re thinking, yeah, it’s gonna go nuts, but, there’s just not enough of everything else your supercell composite will lead you to a long drive back home.

[00:32:58] Gabriel: And just to send off the podcast here a little bit of a selfish question, because this is something that’s not weather related per se, but I’ve seen you tweet about it a little bit. It’s in your Twitter bio as well. I see that you trade markets, you invest in stocks, and people on the podcast here have heard me refer to some analogs between forecasting and analyzing markets before. But just give us a little bit of insight into how you do it what you do and for my own Edification I’d love to hear about it.

[00:33:28] Stas: Sure, man. It’s been you know, it’s been a long journey I’ve been at it for probably two and a half almost three years started off not really knowing what the heck I’m doing. Just throwing money here and there. Very little money. But you know as I found my niche or niche depending on who you are I gravitated towards the really cheap stocks the penny stocks because there’s so much dumb money in those. And I don’t mean this out of disrespect to anybody, but there’s a lot of people who are investing in this stuff based on, the Lamborghinis they see that certain people show on YouTube, they thinking, Oh, I can buy this stock and it’s going to make me rich. So I’ve learned to take the opposite side of all this is I short penny stock, so I wait for a move in the morning. Enough people get in, and then I take a short position, which means if you’re not familiar with shorting, it means I’m basically betting on the company to fail. So I’m borrowing shares from my broker that, the broker issues certain amount of shares, and I’m borrowing those shares and I’m trying to short the stock, which means I’m selling the stock first. So I’m selling the stock close to the top and I’m looking to give my shares back when it drops. So that’s the opposite of buying low and selling high. I’m selling high and buying back low. And so that, that’s been working pretty good, especially this year. It’s one of those things that it takes my math background. And it helps that I know algorithms, I know formulas, I know charts. So it works with my personality, my analytical personality. And it’s also similar to storm chasing because you really don’t know what you’re going to get, but you put yourself in the best position to to be successful, which is to me, stock trading is a lot like storm chasing. Combine the two and, live the good life, so to speak. Yeah, it’s, it’s still a work in progress, but this morning I traded this one stock from this random Chinese stock called E B O N. And I’m actually, while we’re talking I’m, I still have a tiny position left over from this morning, so I’m hoping I’ll drop some more, but even if it doesn’t I’m still up pretty good on the day. Yeah, it’s it’s one of those things I do. It’s a lot of fun. It’s it’s almost my second favorite thing in life after tornadoes these days.

[00:35:27] Gabriel: Oh, really cool stuff. I appreciate that answer. And thank you a ton for being on the podcast.

[00:35:33] Stas: Certainly Gabriel, I appreciate you for having me on man.

[00:35:36] Gabriel: All right, folks. He is Stas Speranski. Remember, you can follow him on Twitter at StasIsChasing, that’s S T A S, is chasing. And then you can search for the same thing on YouTube if you want to check out his videos. Appreciate you all listening to the Chaser Chat podcast, and we will be back in a couple of weeks with another episode. Take care.

[00:35:55] Gabriel: Thanks for listening. If you’re not already subscribed, hit that button right now and then make sure notifications are turned on so you never miss an episode again. There are lots of ways to show your support for Chaser Chat. You can pick up something from the merch store, leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app, leave a comment and a like on YouTube, or just share the link to this episode on your preferred social media platform.

[00:36:16] Thanks again for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.