UK Storm Chasing

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	Biography Hello & welcome to my site, My name's Peter Scott & for my sins I chase extreme weather for fun. Had an interest in severe weather since looking through an encyclopaedia as a kid & seeing pictures of lightening & tornado’s. Although I’ve seen plenty of thunderstorms here in the UK I’ve yet to see a tornado touchdown. I took up photography several years ago & was just using the camera for holiday snap shots. One night back in 2001 ago a fierce thunderstorm rolled into my home county of Essex & was giving a great light show, it was this evening that I picked up the camera & headed out into the night & try my luck. Not having a clue on how to capture lightning on film I used up 3 rolls of cheap iso 400 film, trying to click the shutter open when I saw a flash in the sky in the hope that my reflexes were as quick as a lightening bolt. The film was developed & out of 108 exposures I managed to capture 2 squiggly white lines across 2 shots, (queue the point of disappointment & frustration) now it had become a mission to capture untamed nature on film. After a lot of searching the web & asking questions to other photography friends I eventually discovered the solution whilst taking pictures of moving water………………….slow shutter speed was the key & I’ve been experimenting ever since with mixed success, of course you’ll only get to see my more pleasing shots. Well the more pleasing early shots to the shots that please me today. The tornado’s are still elusive & I've been to the states for the last four years ,twice out with cloud9tours & twice with my friends from ukstorm.net in the hope of finding these beast’s. The 1st year was an exciting roller coaster of a holiday, having never been to the states before & travelling over there on my own to meet up with a group of people who are just as keen as myself to get the chance to see storms & hopefully tornado’s. Sadly no tornado’s but some very active storms & lots of photogenic lightening. 2003 was an awful year for storms for the UK, record temperatures, extremely long periods of hot weather & no storms to break the constant heat wave so back to the states again. Arrived there to be told the previous tour had only seen 3 storms in 2 weeks (it didn’t look good). In total we had 3 down days in 2 weeks & some great storms, on several occasions we were chasing 3 or 4 cells in 1 day. At last success, 1 cell had produced 2 mini tornado’s side by side within half a mile of our vehicle, alas no pictures though as we were driving at the time & then managed to lose sight of them as we were engulfed by heavy rain & hail that obscured our vision. 2 days later another cell produced a real skinny tornado but this was so short lived that by the time I picked up my camera & removed the lens cap it was already starting to rope out, but at least I had managed to see a tornado. 2004 was the year I made the break from a pro tour company & chased in the States with friends from ukstorm.net. It proved to be very hard work & the learning curve was steep & fast but at the same time it was very rewarding.Being in control of what where & when we wanted to chase was ] good fun but clocking up over 10,000 miles in 3 weeks was very draining. Sadly the tornado's were still very hard work but we managed to glimpse a couple of brief touchdowns,sadly though not at all photogenic. Some terrific lightning & some great video was also shot. 2005 & yet another trip across the Atlantic & once again with friends from ukstorm.net. This time armed with a weather satelite system called "Baron" to help us with upto date information whilst driving on route to locations. This proved to be the winner for us in what was the "worst" storm season for chasers in 10 years, a record low in tornado's for the month of May (a good thing for locals) & a great deal of storms dieing quicker than expected as cold front after cold front pushed over them & forced cold air into the cells. But thanks to the Baron system we to find a couple of tornado's, one at night time & the other we managed to get quite close to & watch it reveal itself from the rain curtain move & gracefully across the fields until it roped out & faded away after a couple of minutes. Sadly this also was unphotogenic but the video footage will keep me happy for a year. 2006. The flights are booked. The ukstorm team & myself are now counting the days. See you in Oklahomma. Take care & keep safe,remember that stormchasing is very dangerous & shouldn't be tried without at least a little knowledge.