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!).
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Today was the second day in a row I got to enjoy a shelf cloud and strong storm (today’s was severe) as it swept through the Space Coast. Even better, we got a lot of rain. My parched plants, after several rainless, extremely hot days, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief – except for the palm tree that shed multiple fronds in the …
I haven’t done much in the way of storm chasing this summer, at least not yet. I’ve caught shelf clouds moving through our neighborhood. One even approached as I caught the bat flight out of our neighborhood bat box, which has become two boxes. The new one is supposed to lure the bats out of the old one, which is falling apart. After …
Minor weather, or no weather, forces storm chasers to be creative when we don’t have a quick commute home. But sometimes those quiet days yield magical moments. On May 24, Alethea and I followed a sun halo to Liberal, Kansas. Sun halos seem to follow us around – or perhaps we’re just extra sensitive to them. I’m always looking for these rings of …
The morning of May 23 had Alethea Kontis and I switching from one Best Western to another in Amarillo because of the total disregard of a lobby clerk who wanted to charge us more than the online rate for staying another night – even if I volunteered to make the reservation online. She clearly had zero interest in making our stay a happy …
On May 22, we started a fun Texas Panhandle chase by picking up Allsup’s burritos in Dalhart. Bill Hark joined Alethea Kontis and me for this delicious snack, while Jack Beven somehow missed our stop. Maybe he was avoiding the burritos. Regardless, we all caught up and proceeded to the Littlefield area north of Lubbock. We watched a storm or storms — it …
On May 21, Alethea Kontis and I met up with chaser friends in Limon, Colorado, including Jason Persoff, Bill Hark and Jack Beven. This is Jason’s backyard, and he was optimistic that we’d get some “Colorado magic” while sharing his knowledge of the ways of the DCVZ. That’s the Denver Convergence Voriticity Zone that enhances the potential for severe weather in eastern Colorado. …
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 …
