Tornado Chaser Chris Coach: You Never Forget Your First One
A tornadic mothership supercell, near Santo, Texas, May 18, 2025.
The U.S tornado season is wrapping up. For me, it was a fruitful one, having seen multiple twisters this past spring, my very first photogenic one near Silverton, Texas, on April 24. I had been storm chasing with veterans Tim Bovasso and Jeff Anderson at the time (story link below).
Three weeks later, I found myself back in Texas, giving thrill rides to NASCAR Racing Experience customers at the Texas Motor Speedway near Dallas. A friend of Bovasso's, Chris Coach, 26, asked if I wanted to chase with him on my day off, Sunday, May 18. There wasn't a high probability for tornadoes that day in the immediate area around DFW - maybe 2% - so we weren't too excited. But hey, you never know.
Tornado forming near Santo, Texas, May 18, 2025.
Around 2:30 p.m., Coach picked me up at my hotel, with - surprise - his entire family in the back of a Honda Pilot: wife, Seiyana, and five kids. What's important to know here is that Coach had never seen a tornado, despite having chased a few dozen times going all the way back to 2021. So, if we found one, it would be a big deal, both for me and for a frustrated Coach.
Traffic wasn't bad for a Sunday, and we made good time north toward Santo, where a supercell, the giant cloud structure that produces tornadoes, was building. Using his cellphone radar app - you could tell he had done this before - Coach navigated us via smallish back roads to a farm. Across the flat fields in front of us, we watched the sky slowly darken and the lightning pick up.
Powerful stovepipe tornado off of I-20 near Santo, Texas, May 18, 2025.
An ominous black Wall Cloud (WC) with rotating air appeared directly below the supercell, perfect conditions for a tornado to drop. We waited and Sure enough one of the rotating nipples hanging from the WC began snaking its way toward the ground. The funnel danced and flickered, as if it wasn't sure weather or not to drop.. It finally did, but didn't last long before it evaporated back into the supercell. But it was definitely a twister, perhaps the first of many that night.
To avoid approaching hail, which Coach could see on radar and which sometimes is as big as softballs, we high-tailed it back to the main roads, then followed the temperamental supercell as it traveled south. It was already 8:15 p.m. and getting dark, but tornado warnings kept popping up on our phones, so we stayed vigilant.
Cellphone radar app indicates a tornado on the ground near Santo, Texas, May 18, 2025.
After about 15 minutes on I-20, Coach's wife and kids started yelling, 'Tornado,, tornado!' I couldn't see anything, being on the right side in the front passenger's seat, nor could Coach, who was driving. He immediately found a safe spot on the side of the 70-mph highway, and pulled over. Sure enough, about four miles above a ridge behind us, a stovepipe tornado was raging. It was a big one, too, at least an EF-2, and all hell broke loose in the car. The kids were screaming, and so were Coach and I. We got out and started snapping away. He had finally seen a photogenic tornado - and so had his kids - and it was a damn impressive one.
Tornado visible from highway I-20, May 18, 2025.
Coach was in disbelief. 'I couldn't process what was actually happening at the time,' he told me this week in an interview. 'But I have the photos and keep looking at them. My kids told everyone at school, too. They were as excited as I was.'
Now that Coach has finally seen his tornado, will he keep chasing? 'You bet,' he says. 'It's addicting. But you never forget your first one.'
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