2025 Chase Season Begins by Jessica Moore
After months of planning and preparation, Tori Ostberg of Copper State Storm Chasing and I are making our way to the Great Plains for the 2025 chase season, and we’ve got some pretty exciting things in store…
A gorgeous whale’s mouth develops on a severe storm near Guerra, TX on 5/8/2025
While I normally begin chasing each spring as early as February or March, this year has brought some health and circumstantial challenges that have made getting out to the plains a bit tough for me.
But I am not one to let obstacles stand in my way of achieving my dreams, and Tori shares that same tenacity. I believe that is what makes our stories unique and powerful: we’ve overcome so much just to be able to pursue this amazing passion.
Witnessing storms is our lifeblood. It gives us purpose, renewed enthusiasm for life when circumstances can seem bleak, and it fuels our spirits. It reminds us how small we are, how magical nature is, and how, if we let it, nature can even heal us.
Stormscapes Photo Tours guest photographs a severe storm in Texas on 5/8/2025
And what’s even better?
Getting to share that same passion with other people and watch it ignite a flame within them as well—this is the gift that operating my tour company, Stormscapes Photo Tours, has given me. I’ve met the most amazing people who’ve chosen me to guide them to and through storms, and help them learn the meteorology behind predicting them, along with the photography skills that help them capture the storms in their full glory.
Severe storm near Guerra, TX on 5/8/2025
I opted to only offer one tour this year in order to focus on filming Weather Women during peak chase season. Last week, that singular tour launched out of Oklahoma City, OK, and meandered through west Texas, then through the southern tip of Texas in Brownsville by week’s end. We played with some beautiful isolated storms each day, with some unexpected twists and turns along the way—such is the storm chaser life!
There’s something about that first trip out to the Great Plains that reinvigorates my spirit and reminds me exactly who I am and why I live this crazy life. It reminds me that all of the sacrifices that have come along the way these last 14 years of storm chasing have been worth it to get me to the point I am today: filming for an amazing documentary called Weather Women with my best friend, Tori.
If you don’t know Tori, let me give a quick snapshot, which will in no way be able to fully encompass all the awesomeness that is this woman. Tori began her storm chasing journey chasing monsoon storms in Arizona, and has had a passion for weather since her earliest memories. I won’t speak for her on what that journey has been like, because she tells the story much better herself.
But I will say that this image below is how I first came across Tori. The moment I saw it, I knew I needed to know this woman and befriend her immediately.
Tori’s now-famous image of the Wray, Colorado tornado on 5/7/2016
I mean, does it get any more badass than this image of the infamous Wray, Colorado tornado from May 7th, 2016? Tori wasn’t yet well known in the chaser community, but this image put her on the map. It made everyone stop in their tracks and ask themselves: WHO is this woman?
Another image Tori captured of the Wray tornado during its widest stage
I remember connecting with Tori on Facebook and thinking she was just the coolest human. We are both metalheads, so we also connected on our musical interests right off the bat. Plus, how many women chase storms and capture incredible images like she does? I’d never met one, and being a storm photographer myself, I knew we’d hit it off.
I literally love this woman now.
I’ve watched her go through some of the most brutal times one can go through after the tragic passing of her best friend, a storm chaser who was killed in a car accident by another chaser while storm chasing in Texas in March of 2017. I had just met him the month before at ChaserCon and he talked about how much he admired my photography and wanted to move to Colorado so badly. Just a month later, he was gone.
I didn’t know Tori that well yet, but something in me just felt drawn to her. I knew she was going through so much grief and struggle at that time after losing her friend, and I didn’t want her to be alone. Myself and a few other women formed a group chat on FB that we still talk in to this day; this is where we began to get to know each other and form a truly inseparable bond.
We’ve walked each other through the darkest valleys, we’ve carried each other in life’s hardest moments, while always cheering each other on during those glorious victories. This woman is truly one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, and she inspires me more than she knows.
Our mutual friend Emily Pike, Tori, and I chased a low-end setup in eastern Colorado a few years ago, and we all decided randomly to lie down in the middle of the road together and stare up at this billowing updraft of a supercell above our heads without even saying a word. It was a truly awesome moment of shared reverence for the beauty and power of nature. It’s one of our favorite storm chasing moments to this day.
Of course, we don’t take life TOO seriously. After all, chasing storms is about our freedom. This is OUR time. Tori and I are both mothers who work hard year-round for our families and everyone around us, but this is our time to truly live for ourselves and pursue this thing that sets our souls on fire: storm chasing. And sometimes we like to let a little loose.
This 2025 season represents the culmination of years of hard work. Years of fighting to be seen as equals in a field largely dominated by men. It’s always men you see on the big screen, in the media, and gathering large social media followings, while we women seem to struggle to break through.
But the tide is turning. I believe Weather Women is a movement that will help spearhead that change. I hope we, Tori and I, can lead as examples of women who fight hard not to let obstacles deter us from our dreams of chasing storms.
Weather Women isn’t just about Tori and me, although I hope our journey can inspire people—it’s about all of us women who have fought hard to carve our own paths in this wild world of weather. I believe this project will grow and expand to include many powerhouse women and young girls aspiring to be storm chasers and meteorologists.
This project is for all of us. For we are ALL:
WEATHER WOMEN.
Have you seen our trailer?? Check it out here!
We are already on the road filming and chasing this spring. This is the big leagues. We’re putting together an amazing feature-length documentary that we hope will capture the beauty and essence of storm chasing, as well as show the science and real-world impacts storm chasers can have. Citizen science is what we do, and we do it because we love it.
I can’t wait to see what this season has in store for us!
Thank you for following our journey!
Written by Jessica Moore
