Storm Chaser Ben Holcomb
Bio
As a resident of Oklahoma, Storm Chaser Ben Holcomb is centrally located in the heart of tornado alley. Each spring I travel thousands of miles in pursuit of severe and unusual weather. While a good day of structure or big hail is exciting, nothing compares to the grand prize for storm chasers: Tornadoes. To date, I have witnessed over 200 tornadoes.
Early Life and Interest in Weather
I spent the first 25 years of my life in Lansing, Michigan where I became fascinated with severe weather. There were a number of events and tornadoes, including the famous 1991 Andover tornado outbreak and the May 3rd 1999 Moore Oklahoma F5 outbreak, that piqued my interest in violent and extreme weather. The biggest event was the May 31, 1998 Southern Great Lakes Derecho which destroyed lower Michigan the morning following the F4 tornado in Spencer, South Dakota. The derecho brought 120+ mph winds to lower Michigan and left the state a disaster. I was delivering the Sunday newspaper to my paper route that morning and experienced the wall of wind & water as it blew through Lansing that morning.
Storm Chasing Era 2007 – Present

While I ultimately pursued a full-time career in Information Technology, I have managed to intertwine my professional life with the weather industry. I’ve received no formal weather education and absorbed all meteorological knowledge from the wealth of information available for free on the internet as well as experience in the field.
On October 18, 2007, I began observing storms outside of Mid-Michigan by chasing a supercell near Fulton, Indiana. A couple months later in 2008, I would go on my first multi-state chase to Arkansas on Super Tuesday and had become involved with bringing live video streaming technology from storm chasers to the public. This merging of weather and technology (as well as a hatred of winter) lead me to move to Oklahoma in 2010. After arrival in Oklahoma, I worked for a private weather company before spending time at OU School of Meteorology as an IT Professional. While I no longer work in the weather industry, weather is still the focus of my fascination. Nothing is more inspiring to me than standing under a 10 mile tall cloud.

Contributions
I’ve worked with numerous media outlets from local TV and radio stations to national news networks and have had my tornado video shown to worldwide audiences. I was instrumental in putting together the SPC Video Lecture Series and the Tornado Forecasting Workshop while working at The University of Oklahoma. While I lived in Lansing, I was a member of RACES and ran the Skywarn program for Ingham County. Since 2009 I have been on the Spotter Network Advisory Committee to help review reports on the Spotter Network. I have travelled worldwide to assist with international weather system installations in Asia and the Middle East.
Storm Chaser Ben Holcomb Track Map
While I am storm chasing, you can use the map below to follow along. The map will display my last known GPS location as well as the local weather. It updates once per minute or when my GPS updates.
Featured Tornado Photos
Latest Chases
- September 8, 2025 - A marginal day northwest of Woodward resulted in 3 tornadoes from a supercell near Laverne (546 Miles)
- September 3, 2025 - Weekday September drive up to Kansas to look at some clouds and gamble (369 Miles)
- July 28, 2025 - Missed two days of epic tornadoes and wasted a bunch of time and money (1516 Miles)
- June 17, 2025 - HP Supercell that becomes outflow dominant pretty quickly in its lifecycle producing a nice shelf cloud near Blackwell (374 Miles)
- June 14, 2025 - Beautifully sculpted supercell slowly travels across the Oklahoma landscape near Weatherford (267 Miles)
- June 8, 2025 - Intense HP Supercell dives southeast across the Texas Panhandle from Claude to Paducah dropping hail (573 Miles)
- June 6, 2025 - Intense supercell from Morton to Tahoka produced hail and multiple tornadoes as well as some structure (890 Miles)
- June 5, 2025 - Didn't commit fully to the target and watched tornadoes ongoing west of Lubbock while sitting in Childress Texas (417 Miles)
- June 3, 2025 - Tornado moved within a mile of my house in Norman, Oklahoma on a day I chose not to chase (0 Miles)
- May 25, 2025 - Supercells along a boundary in South Central Oklahoma results in a hydro event (171 Miles)
- May 24, 2025 - Nocturnal supercell near Watonga after a strong cap suppressed daytime convection (282 Miles)
- May 19, 2025 - Fast moving messy storms in a 15% hatched Moderate Risk bust in Oklahoma (234 Miles)
- May 18, 2025 - A beautiful supercell produced multiple photogenic tornadoes near Arnett Oklahoma (421 Miles)
- May 17, 2025 - Tracked supercell from Lindsay to Stratford and witnessed a brief tornado near Pauls Valley (203 Miles)
- May 5, 2025 - Cold air always wins and it would win this day as supercells developed and immediately became undercut (1086 Miles)
- April 29, 2025 - Made a run at the supercells west of Seymour Texas but decided to turn around and chase Southern Oklahoma instead (306 Miles)
- April 28, 2025 - Supercells in Iowa are undercut by cold air (1085 Miles)
- April 27, 2025 - The cap holds throughout Kansas while a tornado rages on for 3 hours in the Nebraska Sandhills (737 Miles)
- April 26, 2025 - A small photogenic tornado near Bokchito Oklahoma (361 Miles)
- April 24, 2025 - Multiple photogenic tornadoes near Matador Texas (607 Miles)
- April 4, 2025 - Tornado near Clarksville Texas (737 Miles)
- April 1, 2025 - Cap bust in Oklahoma (286 Miles)
- March 15, 2025 - Witnessed a tornado near Bay Springs Mississippi during a high risk tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama (994 Miles)
- March 14, 2025 - Multiple intense supercells in Northeast Arkansas after dark and observing a tornado near Poplar Bluff (835 Miles)
- March 2, 2025 - Grungy low topped supercells produce hail (358 Miles)