Danny Neal


My name is Danny Neal and I reside in Romeoville, Illinois, a few blocks away from the National Weather Service Chicago. My interest in weather was sparked by the August 28th, 1990 F5 tornado that hit Plainfield, IL. Being rushed to the basement in a frantic rush, can have a profound and terrifying effect on a three year old. Seeing the devastating power of the world I live in had a profound impact to my childhood. I was absolutely terrified of storms for the longest time. Each time a storm would roll in I would run to the basement and hide. Night-time storms scared me the most. Being woken up in the middle of the night to a bright strobe light and explosions was a horrible punishment. As time wore on I knew I couldn’t keep running from my fear. As a storm would roll in I would will myself to stand on my back porch no matter how bad it got and try to understand what was happening. I wasn’t satisfied with that though. Seeing storms from my back porch was okay, but I couldn’t get a real taste to what was going on and couldn’t really SEE anything but trees and power lines. When I hit nine years old I built up enough courage to ask my dad to take me to the park when a storm would come because it was flatter and I had a better view of what was going on. So for the summer of 1997 each time a thunderstorm would move in, he would take me up to the park and sit there and watch it with me. I was still scared sometimes and would beg him to take me home, but he wouldn’t. I would like to think he finally got me over my fear of storms.

The movie Twister was coming out. I wanted to see it worse than anything, but I wasn’t allowed to. My parents knew it would give me nightmares and I don’t blame them. However I had a hunger for knowledge and all the books and pamphlets in the book stores and library couldn’t satisfy this appetite. While I didn’t see the movie Twister, I had watched TLC and the Discovery Channel religiously when it came to weather specials. Such chasers as Tim Marshall, Gene Rhoden, and Bobby Prentice quickly became my virtual teachers and fueled the hunger for me to go out and document thunderstorms. In 1998, my dad had agreed to take me out locally when storms were in the forecast. We waited until April 13th and headed for Central Illinois blind of all aspects of forecasting and technology. All we had was a paper atlas, a big bulky video camera, and an old scanner to pick up the National Weather Service publications. You can read more about that experience in the “1998″ section of the website.

I only went on one chase in 1998. It wasn’t even a for sure annual event. After that chase though I was hooked. I wanted to document every local event, but being 10 years old and still in 5th grade severely hampered those ideas. When 1999 rolled around my dad offered to take me chasing again, this time it was the day before my 6th grade graduation. This chase was significant as I documented my first tornado albeit by accident. You can read more about this chase in the “1999″ section of the website. My hunger grew to an insatiable appetite as I got older and since 2000 I made annual chase trips out to “tornado alley” where I would come face to face with Nature’s fury. By the time I was old enough to drive in 2004 I would go out independently and take my own chances. My dad was conservative when it came to chasing and I don’t fault him one bit. Taking a minor out in pursuit of violent weather and getting close is not a great idea. But now, on my own, I made the decisions to core punch, find big hail, and get up close to wall clouds/tornadoes. My fear had done a 180 and turned into admiration and respect.

I enrolled into College of DuPage out of high school but never finished the meteorology program due the fact I was also a VERY good baseball player and had dreams of getting drafted into a minor league farm system. This ALMOST happened, but as fate would have it I injured my shoulder and was now a worthless prospect with no future. I was distraught over that and completely took a year off from school and sat and pondered what I would do. My passions are weather, baseball, and public safety. With professional baseball down the tubes, I was left to decide whether I wanted to become a meteorologist or I wanted to become a police officer or fire fighter. My family is full of fire fighters so I made the choice to follow that career path.

In October of 2008, the Evergreen Park Fire Department adopted me into their apprentice firefighter program and were about to give me all the training and procedural duties that I could ask for. For the next 13 months I would go up to the fire house to train and study and to prepare myself for the Illinois Fire Marshall’s exams to earn my firefighter II certificate. On December 16th, 2009, I earned that certificate and owe it all to the teachers and firefighters who work for the Evergreen Park Fire Department. As of that date I am officially a firefighter and I couldn’t be happier. UPDATE: I now have my EMT-B , so I am a firefighter/EMT

Also in 2008 I met my chase partner Adam Lucio. In many ways, Adam is like me. We have the same taste of music, same personality, same goals in storm chasing, and the same hunger to be the best chasers we can be. I couldn’t ask for a better friend or companion to go on long road trips with. In addition to meeting Adam, I also started interacting with other chasers from all over the country. Storm chasers are an odd breed. To people outside the chasing world, we are just crazy people that sit alone on farm roads and watch the sky. But to be a part of a chaser convergence before initiation is a special feeling. Sitting there with people that share passion with so many good spirits can really make a busted chase worth it.

This past year of 2009, Adam and I hit the plains with an iron fist. We chased two local events in March that were all in all busts. However, we made a decision to hit the plains on March 22nd with hopes of chasing a moderate risk in Southern Kansas on the 23rd. It is here I met another great chaser and person in Mike Nelson. He lives in Wichita and opened his home to us for a couple of days and for that I will be forever grateful. We met back up with Mike in late April for a pair of chases down in OK which you can read about in the “2009″ chase logs. May 13th was probably the most satisfying chase of 2009 since we scored a tornado that not many others saw in Edina, MO. We were in the perfect spot to view it and eventually were under a mile from it. After that May seemed to take a hike and June moved in with a trio of chases in consecutive days in Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. We documented the most documented tornado in history near La Grange, WY, and saw possibly the most powerful supercell in 2009 near Oregon, MO. After that my chase season pretty much ended as I had to go back to work and EMT school. There weren’t many events to chase in 2009, but when there were, they paid off big time.

2010 is upon us and I couldn’t be happy. Be sure to check out CHASER-TV for my live stream as I am out there touring the plains!!!

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