Midwestern Storm Trackers Bring Weather Awareness To The Public

ST LOUIS – Midwestern Storm Trackers are a group of friends that love the weather. The group is spread out across the Midwest and South but most of the team is based in the St Louis area. 

Lucas Munzlinger started the group in January 2021. The group has now grown to 14 people. 

 “I have been officially chasing storms since 2016 and in 2020 I saw my first tornado.”

“I knew we had a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms. That afternoon I saw the radar and It looked promising so my dad and I headed to Cuba, Missouri, to intercept a storm. We were in the parking lot of Midwest Petroleum Service Center and Truck Stop in Cuba when the tornado came down,” Munzlinger said about the 2020 storm. 

The National Weather Service rated that tornado an EF-0 with 85 mph winds. According to the National Weather Service, the weak tornado touched down to the west of Indian Lake, along Lakeshore Drive in Cuba Mo. 

Since then the group has chased all over the midwest and south. On Monday Metro East Star was able to ride along with Lucas Munzlinger and Caleb Kime  for a storm chase just south of St. Louis.

Yesterday the National Weather Service issued a Slight risk of severe weather that stretched from St Louis down past Cape Girardeau Mo. 

Lucas and Caleb readied the vehicle. They had a few radars in the vehicle and cameras and video cameras to document what they see. 

We started in Dittmer Mo and waited for the storms to start up. Just after 2:30 the first storm started to pop up just south of Rolla Mo along Highway 44. 

Lucas, Caleb, and I dropped south to Potosi Mo to see if we could document the storm. We found a good view of the storm and it was coming to us but then turned right and dropped south and we could not catch it. 

We then saw another storm coming to Steelville Mo so we headed to that storm. We got there in time and were able to get some amazing photos of the storm. 

We then started heading back to Dittmer and call it a night since it was around 7:30 p.m. but we came across another storm around Bourbon Mo of a pretty strong storm. Lucas put the drone up and was able to get some awesome drone photos. I took several photos with my camera. After that storm went by we called it a night. 

They live stream most of their chases on YouTube and Facebook. You can follow along at (1) Midwestern Storm Trackers | Facebook