Storm Chaser Hayden Jennings

10/21/2023

Pecks Hank makes some awesome storm videos, but this one is one of his best now when it comes to information about storm chasing.

Even watching and knowing what a different beast chasing in Tornado Alley is to the storm chasing we have here in Dixie Alley, every point he makes I was thinking of situations we’ve been in my 18 years of storm chasing, everything from changing our position on 4/27/11 ahead of the wedge tornado near Southside, to chasing the tornado in Western TN in December 2021 in the heaviest rain I’ve ever driven in.

Impulsive tornado chasing and dangerous behavior nudging more and more chasers closer to the edge of death. Is it really worth it? COPYRIGHT PECOS HANK 2023...

08/29/2023

There’s always a lot of myths that go around about the weather and how it reacts to terrain, such as the myth that tornadoes won’t cross mountains (they do), or one of my favorites from the weather team comments years ago when someone speculated the the new Southwest Bypass in Rome was causing more tornadoes here.

While there is a lot of false myths, higher terrain in our area actually does sometimes affect the weather here. Many times when we have squall lines approaching from the west and northwest, you can actually watch radar closely and see the storms briefly disorganize when they push into the higher terrain of Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain and have to push up and over before they reorganize.

Just now I spotted quite possibly higher terrain having the opposite affect.

With summertime storms and ones like we are seeing yesterday and today, outflow boundaries play a major role in storm genesis. These nearly stationary storms push moist air out (especially after they mature and begin to collapse) and away from the storm creating a gust front that will often times spawn another storm a short time later.

Right now on radar, you can actually spot a little of the moist air coming in from the south (there’s a storm near Cedartown) and running up against the south/east face of Mount Alto (WSW of Rome) and appearing as light green spots on the radar just before this other storm pops up directly over Rome.

08/19/2023

It’s usually a temperature inversion in the mornings and the mode that the radar is in that allow us to see roost rings on radar as huge flocks of birds leave out for the day during the late spring and summer months.

These are usually very prevalent in the mornings on Huntsville Hytop radar over Middle Tennessee and Northeast Alabama. The best one seen almost daily this year has been along the Tennessee River adjacent to Scottsboro, which I even traveled up there a few weekends ago to see (you could barely see them in the ore-dawn light). These are most likely purple martins and the radar been is at an alititude of around 1200 feet when it’s detecting them here.

This evening though those conditions line up and allow us to see them coming back in a reverse roost ring.

08/08/2023

It seems like every time we end up chasing in Winter on severe weather outbreaks, it’s always a successful chase.

Seen here are the only known images of the West Tennessee EF-3 tornado from December 10, 2021. This tornado touched down shortly before it crossed north of us near Kenton, TN and tracked 122 miles through the Dresden area and into Kentucky before it lifted. This same storm recycled at that point and dropped another large tornado a few minutes later that struck Bowling Green.

Though myself and Alan were able to see and detect that there was a possible lowering crossing in front of us through the intense lightning that night, it was actually our dash cam that performed better than the still photos and videos we were taking with our DSLR cameras and iPhones, and caught the screen shots you see of the wedge tornado.

After it passed, we began trying to chase it as a tornado emergency was issued, but extremely heavy rain and bad roads hindered our progress. We eventually crossed its path 15 minutes behind it in Dresden, and were on scene before rescue crews arrived.

As we always do in those situations, we put our cameras down and went into first responder mode and began checking on victims in the neighborhood around Dresden 4x4.

The other photos you see are the few we took with our phones of the damage at Dresden 4x4 as we were leaving the area.

Though this storm was the second longest tracking tornado of this outbreak (the same outbreak that struck Mayfield, Kentucky), there were only 38 people injured and no fatalities.

08/08/2023

Thought I would get the page started by highlighting some of our past chasing experiences, beginning with our most recent tornado encounter back on January 12, 2023.

The tornado you see here as it first touches down in Autauga County, AL was an EF-3 that tracked 82 miles across Central Alabama for the next 90 minutes.

This was my view from Prattville about 10 miles south of the tornado, and as you watch it track east, you see it becomes rain-wrapped as it approaches I-65 where I had just passed and had almost stopped to wait on it just minutes earlier.

This tornado spawned from the same storm that had hit Selma minutes earlier and was responsible for 7 lives lost. It would also go down as the 9th longest tracking tornado to hit the State of Alabama

08/08/2023

For those wondering, it was a solo chase day for me today that consisted of basically a big local circle from Cedartown over into Cherokee County, down to Piedmont, and ending up in Bremen.

Though I anticipated to get over into Alabama and set up in advance of some of the more individual storm cells and the second line of severe storms that were headed our way in the early afternoon, during my trip west, they all merged together and the chase turned into one that was core punch after core punch.

Still, a day out chasing storms with nothing notable to report from it is still better than a day sitting at the house.

08/07/2023

Welcome everyone to my new page for my same old adventures!

After being a storm chaser now for over 18 years and working off our main NWGASWT page, I figured the time has come to make an independent affiliate page for the weather team, which we can dedicate more to the storm chasing coverage that we occasionally get to do.

Stay tuned to our main page for the latest severe weather updates for Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama that you’ve grown to trust, and keep a check here for updates from the field