Storm Chaser's 'Five-Minute Detour' Ends Three States Away

A storm chaser's decision to take a "quick five-minute detour" to observe a developing cumulus tower has resulted in a 600-mile, fourteen-hour drive across three states, culminating in his arrival home at 4 a.m. with an empty fuel tank and a single photograph of a rain shaft. Chaser Tyler Updraft, 31, left his home in Wichita, Kansas, on Saturday morning to purchase groceries. At 11:47 a.m., while driving past a field on the outskirts of town, he observed towering cumulus clouds to the northwest that he described as "agitated." "I just wanted to see if they'd go severe," Updraft explained. "I thought I'd drive fifteen miles north, take a look, and then go to the store. The atmosphere had other plans." The cumulus towers organized into a line of storms that propagated northeast at 45 miles per hour. Updraft followed. By 2 p.m., he was in central Nebraska. By 5 p.m., he had crossed into South Dakota. At 7:30 p.m., the storms weakened and Updraft found himself in a town he had never heard of, with a quarter tank of gas and no groceries. "The storms produced no tornadoes, no significant hail, and no wind damage," Updraft reported. "They were ordinary multicell thunderstorms that happened to move in a direction I found compelling. My best photo is a rain shaft at sunset, which admittedly is quite nice, but you can photograph a rain shaft from your porch." Updraft's wife, who had expected him to return with milk and eggs, received periodic text updates throughout the afternoon: "Quick detour, be home soon" (12:15 p.m.), "storms looking interesting" (1:30 p.m.), "might be a bit late" (3:45 p.m.), and "I'm in South Dakota" (6:00 p.m.). "She didn't respond to the South Dakota text," Updraft noted. "The silence was louder than the storms." The groceries were purchased the following day.