Brandon Rettke

Review of "Tour #6" by StormChasingTour.com

General review

I had tornado/storm chasing on my bucket list for 10 years. When I saw Brandon Ivey and Marcus Gutierrez from Discovery’s Storm Chasers were starting their own company offering tours I finally decided to book my 2 week storm chasing vacation as my 30th birthday present to myself. If you are a fan of the Storm Chasers show, these guys are very willing to discuss the events of the show and provide more background and context to what you see on TV. These guys are dedicated to storm chasing and providing a great experience for their customers. They do things a little different than some of the other companies: nicer hotels than others (Quality, La Quinta, Holiday Inn Express, etc.), when storms allowed, we sat down for lunch and dinner rather than gas stations and fast food, and my favorite par is that when all the other tour companies were watching from miles away from the storm, Brandon and Marcus got us safely within a few hundred yards of several tornadoes when the roads and storm allowed. If you want to experience tornadoes not just see them, I suggest you book with Stormchasingtour.com

Vehicle review:

The van is new and comfortable and is always cleaned between tours. It has a monitor in the back so you can see what Brandon, the meteorologist, is looking at (not all tour companies do). They also have a hail guard on the roof so you can drive directly into the hail core so you can see and experience large hail (baseballs or greater),

Tour guide review:

Brandon is a great meteorologist and managed to get us on 15 tornadoes during my 2 week trip. Even on days with low tornado probability, Brandon would still find the best storms, namely the ones with tornadoes. He also spends a lot of time describing all of the models used in his forecasting and how he compares his forecast to the SPC before deciding where to go as well has describing what to look for in the sky. He didn’t always agree with the SPC, and on several occasions that work in our favor. Marcus, the driver, is also very experience chasing tornadoes (since he's driven into several). He has a lot of stories to share and was always making sure everyone needs were taken care of. He was able to get us much closer to storms than the other tour companies will get you.

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