Alethea Kontis, left, and Chris Kridler chase a storm in 2023.
Welcome! Sky Diary’s home is now here on my official site, ChrisKridler.com (the main menu is above in case you’re looking for the Chris Kridler home page, author services, books and more). I started chasing storms in 1997 and soon after that developed a website, first on America Online and then on the web. After building Sky Diary for more than twenty years in HTML, it became a bit creaky. I’ve captured the best of SkyDiary.com and transferred it to this site for a more reader-friendly experience. See the latest chase reports here on the blog and in the new index of storm chasing reports.
Cow is our loyal companion on the road.
Alethea Kontis and I have just returned from Tornado Alley – you can see our chase updates on YouTube (with lots more photos and videos to come from the Alley and from Florida as we get into storm season). I’ve also posted photos and video from 2025. See video and images in the blog, which I update when I’m not working and writing books under my pen name. You can also view chase reports from years past listed by date and event. Read about our adventures here and on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube (please subscribe!).
Thanks for your magnificent support of our gas fund! Your thank-you is in the works!
Sometimes storm chasing is more about travel than storm chasing. Though May 18 — after the extremely frustrating traffic jams of our tornado chase May 17 – did offer chasing. Alethea Kontis, Jason Persoff and I targeted north-central Kansas. So did hundreds of other storm chasers. And as one storm popped up after another, we were again mired in traffic. The only time the …
Hey! In case you haven’t noticed, Alethea Kontis and I are on the road in Tornado Alley. We’ve been chasing storms and seeing fascinating sights along the way. I already have a ton of content to post, but since we are driving CONSTANTLY, there’s not a lot of time to process it – though we are doing our best on the social sites …
May 17 offered a wild storm chase as Alethea and I met up with Jason Persoff and targeted southeast Nebraska. We sort of hoped that the Storm Prediction Center’s bull’s-eye centered in the northeast part of the state would pull more chasers that way, but instead, we ended up mired in the worst storm chaser traffic jam I’ve ever seen — and it …
A sunny, windy day on Cocoa Beach provided a beautiful backdrop for the second day of the Air Dot Show on Sunday, April 12. That is, an air show, headlined by the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels. Huge crowds showed up on the barrier island, concentrated in the main show area in Cocoa Beach. I was at the house of some friends a bit south …
I’ve just come back from a dream bucket-list trip to Iceland. Of course, the problem with any “bucket list” item is that you’re supposed to check it off. It’s done. It’s over. But I would love to go back to the dreamy skies and dramatic landscapes, which my husband and I experienced in all of their winter beauty, from snow-frosted black lava rocks to …
It’s a good thing I have dogs to walk, because when I’m buried in work or hiding in my writing cave, it’s easy to forget that the skies can be beautiful, and looking at them can be really therapeutic. The dogs got me outside early this evening in time to see convective towers creating pileus clouds, a type of lenticular cloud. Pileus are short-lived …
It’s been a weird summer here on Florida’s Space Coast. We’ve had weeks with no rain at all during the height of the supposed storm season, though this past week, we finally had some relief in the form of two gully-washer days in a row. Tonight a couple of isolated storms popped up to our west, moving my way, and I realized I might …
