I've been on a few opportunistic chases as I was driving across the the plains. These yielded some nice storm pictures and sunsets, but no tornadoes. 
A few years back I made a setup-specific drive to Oklahoma, where a missed turn (chasing alone is a prescription for task overload!) cost me a chance at seeing what turned out to be a very brief nader.
I DO want to get out to the plains again! This spring might work out - or it might not, depending on employment, free time, and free $.
Living in Aridzona, I make the most of the monsoon season. (We do have a brief 'Tornado season' in October, when an early-winter storm system gets far enough south to collide with lingering moisture. This gives us cute little 'mini-supercells' that occasionally spit out a weak tornado.) The storms we get in the summer are generally the 'pop-up' variety that seldom have enough rotation to do anything remotely tornadic. They can produce nice downdraft microbursts that are quite capable of tearing up mobile homes and pepper plants. Two or three times a year any given location gets a severe thunderstorm directly overhead that can bring 50+ MPH winds and torrential rains. Less violent thunderstorms are of course more common.
The monsoon brings fantastic colors and textures to the sky. After the long, baking leadup of one "Clear-skies and 100+" day after another that stretches from late April to early July, the storms are very, very welcome.
And a little lightning makes them even better
A few years back I made a setup-specific drive to Oklahoma, where a missed turn (chasing alone is a prescription for task overload!) cost me a chance at seeing what turned out to be a very brief nader.
I DO want to get out to the plains again! This spring might work out - or it might not, depending on employment, free time, and free $.
Living in Aridzona, I make the most of the monsoon season. (We do have a brief 'Tornado season' in October, when an early-winter storm system gets far enough south to collide with lingering moisture. This gives us cute little 'mini-supercells' that occasionally spit out a weak tornado.) The storms we get in the summer are generally the 'pop-up' variety that seldom have enough rotation to do anything remotely tornadic. They can produce nice downdraft microbursts that are quite capable of tearing up mobile homes and pepper plants. Two or three times a year any given location gets a severe thunderstorm directly overhead that can bring 50+ MPH winds and torrential rains. Less violent thunderstorms are of course more common.
The monsoon brings fantastic colors and textures to the sky. After the long, baking leadup of one "Clear-skies and 100+" day after another that stretches from late April to early July, the storms are very, very welcome.
And a little lightning makes them even better
