Tornado Chasing Kansas in April

Last night I got a call from a friend in Ohio.  He is coming out in April to do some tornado chasing with me for a few days.  We made some initial plans but will wait until closer to the time he is coming out to set everything in stone.

We will meet up close to where there is a threat of severe weather.  Then we will start following promissing  storms for a few days until it is time for him to return to Ohio. 

We will put a lot of miles in during those few days and may even chase right around my house if it is anything like last year in April.  We had all kinds of tornadic activity within 30 miles of here last year.  I didn't spot any personally but did see funnels and followed quite a few storms that eventually dropped tornadoes.  I had some good footage of one almost touching down right in front of us but my boy video taped over the top of it.  He actually got the footage on his video recorder somebody gave him. 

In that same storm I ended up taking cover at our house as the cell of the storm moved towards town and came across the top of our house.  We had 2-3 inch hail that beat the crap out of our vehicles.  We lost power and were kind of nervous since we didn't have renter's insurance.  The sirens never went off in town both times we were in eminent danger last year.

If the power goes out the sirens don't work.  If a tornado is approaching town it will likely take out the power.  We need to find a better warning system for the towns residents before a tornado actually makes it into town.  Many people had no idea how close we were to getting hit last year.