May 7, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Martin Lisius, founder of Tempest Tours, and Kim George, Customer Relations Manager, talk about the company's origins and what it's like being on the road intentionally during some of the most extreme weather the world has to offer.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here on our American stories, and next
we bring you the story of Martin Lucius and his
company Tempest Tours, an unconventional Texas based tour company.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it first became interested in severe weather growing up
in North Texas, where we have big storms on a
regular basis. When I was a kid, probably about four
or five years old, we would have storms that come
through that the lightning would hit so close to our
house that our whole house would shake. Also, right down
the street from our house was a TV station called WBAPTV.
(00:49):
Harold Taft was the meteorologist on staff, and Harold is
actually credited with creating the American weather Cast. TV weather cast.
Before him, they would simply read the text. They had
to read the forecast off a piece of paper. And
then he, being a full blown meteorologist, decided to use
(01:14):
maps to describe to the viewers what was happening.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Believe me, we're going to the computer will paint this on.
I'm kind of fun to watch it, So let's just
do that for a second. See all the color comes on,
all the symbols, all right, Still getting a little light
freezing grizzle up here in gay Yoklahoma.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So i'd watch him a lot, and they had this
old fashioned black and white radar, and he'd showed that
quite a bit as well, and I think that was
kind of when I really became interested in weather. And
then when I was about twelve years old, I asked
my mom if I could build a weather station on
top of the of our house. She said, sure, just
(01:55):
be careful, and I started plotting storms as they came
through on a map, and I entered a science fair
and won the competition. I built a three D model
of a super self thunderstorm. Eventually I got a car
and decided that I'd go out and film storms. And
then about the same time that I did that, I
(02:18):
heard that there was these guys called storm chasers, and
I met some of them, and then from there at
that point on, I did it quite a bit. Eventually
for Tempest Tours that came about and we started it
in two thousand. I'd say around nineteen ninety nine, I
decided I was going to do it because I didn't
(02:42):
think that. I didn't say to myself, let's start a
stormchasing tour company. I just was receiving a lot of
requests from regular, normal people to go storm chasing with me,
and they were usually not able to go because of work.
So I thought, what if we created tours and then
we put out the schedule year in advance, people could
(03:04):
get off work and actually go. And that's when Timvis
Tours was born back around two thousand. You know, storm
chasing is kind of like fishing. You know, there's a
good time of year to go fishing, right, but you
go out and you go out several days fishing and
some days are good and some days are not good.
(03:25):
So it's a lot like that on a tour. You know,
they're typically run for to eleven days a length, and
of course the longer the tour, the greater chance of
seeing good storms, just like if you went on eleven
day fishing trip versus a four day fishing trip. Basically,
they get up in the morning, we tell the guests
(03:46):
when to meet us. We stay at motels, of course,
and we'll meet in the lobby or somewhere, and we'll
do a little weather briefing and tell them what we
show them apps and so forth, and we tell them
why we're going there, what we can expect that day.
Then we all load up head to that target, wait
(04:09):
for storms to develop, and then we track the one
that we fill has the greatest potential of producing a
tornado or just being a really good super cell. And
you know, sometimes you'll have three or four storms form
in your target and you have to be very careful
to pick this the right one, and so we kind
of sometimes hold back a little bit and wait until
(04:31):
the best one what we think will be the best
one to form. We've been very successful at that, and
then we track it and if it's not moving too fast,
we're able to stop several times and take pictures of it,
including tornadoes and lightning and so forth, which you can
see at our website. You know, people a common question
that people ask is how close do we get? And
(04:53):
I say, close enough to take great pictures, but far
enough to be safe. So the best way to see
how close we get to go to our website or
go to our Facebook page and just see the pictures
that we've taken and some of our guests have taken,
and you can get a good idea of how close
we get.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Well, they're in the van along the way. There's a
screen in the van, and so they're watching what the
tour director is doing and they're seeing, you know, the
models developed.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's Kim George Temps towards customer relations manager.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
So he will be explaining those along the way, saying,
this is what the storm is doing, this is where
we need to be, and so he will constantly keep
them updated as they are going towards the target, and
so they will wait. But when they actually get to
visually see the storm, you know, coming up in the foreground,
everybody gets very excited. So we get closer to the storm,
(05:51):
we track it. Sometimes you have to wait a little while,
but most of the time you're going straight towards the storm.
Comsted storms develop in the afternoon, and once you are
on the storm, then depending on how the storm is moving,
you position, and you reposition and you reposition again, because
storms don't stand still. Most of the time, when we're
(06:13):
chasing a storm, we follow it till it's end or
till you lose the light. And sometimes that'll happen, and
if you can't chase it when it's dark, sometimes they do.
It depends on the storm if it's developing tornadoes. Some
times we have that we did this past year chase
a storm even after dark, and they actually saw some
nighttime tornadoes, which was very good for the group. They
(06:35):
thought that was amazing. And the only reason you can
see them is because the lightning when it strikes, you
can actually see the tornadoes below the storm. So that's
basically a typical day. And then we get lodging nearby
and they stay somewhere for the night, and then they
also are developing a plan to begin that all over
(06:56):
again the next day. We are not a luxury to
your company. We have to tell them that. Honestly. You know,
when you're out chasing, and anybody who does it would
know you'll be in Coo Donkeys America somewhere, and there's
not a lot of options when it comes to places
(07:17):
to stay, and sometimes there's not an options places to eat,
and so you do the best you can with the
environment that you're in. And we are very good about
finding places that you can stay. But every once in
a while, you know that Motel six it may be
billin place that you can stay for the night. So
you do because the important thing is not the luxury
(07:39):
of what we do, it's the chasing itself. And our
guess do you realize that that you can't always be
and you know a really swanky hotel. But that's not
why you get chase with us. You just need a bed.
You need a place to get some rest and then
you can start the next day fresh.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
On a down day, we will head towards the next
day's target. So a down day may be followed by
a severe weather potential day, so we'll head towards that
target and on the way stop at places that are interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Things that you know, I've seen since I've been with
a company, that I've never knew existed. There is a
place in Kansas that's called Monument Rock and it's just
this sandsum formation in the middle of nowhere and you
go on it and it's just crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It could be the bad Lands in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore,
Devil's Tower, Pala dro Cadget in the Texas Panhandle, or
you might stop at a weather service office and take
a tour. So we're always doing something interesting every single day.
We know this is our guests vacation time. They want
to see something interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
We try to make it special. When we're not on
a storm. I mean, they're all coming for the storms.
I mean they don't really care about the other ones.
If they have a storm to follow, so but yeah,
we try to make the times that we're not in
a hard chase for the storm, we try to make
those times as memorable as we can.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And you are listening to Martin Licious and Kim George
and Martin is the founder of Tempest Tours and Kim
works there in the customer relations department, and tempest tours
dot com is the website address tempest tours dot com
and go on there and take a look at the
gallery section. So again, Martin Licious with Tempest Tours, his
(09:41):
story and so many Americans who are just fascinated by
well just turbulence and tough weather, Martin's story here on
our American Story
And we continue here on our American stories, and next
we bring you the story of Martin Lucius and his
company Tempest Tours, an unconventional Texas based tour company.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, it first became interested in severe weather growing up
in North Texas, where we have big storms on a
regular basis. When I was a kid, probably about four
or five years old, we would have storms that come
through that the lightning would hit so close to our
house that our whole house would shake. Also, right down
the street from our house was a TV station called WBAPTV.
(00:49):
Harold Taft was the meteorologist on staff, and Harold is
actually credited with creating the American weather Cast. TV weather cast.
Before him, they would simply read the text. They had
to read the forecast off a piece of paper. And
then he, being a full blown meteorologist, decided to use
(01:14):
maps to describe to the viewers what was happening.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Believe me, we're going to the computer will paint this on.
I'm kind of fun to watch it, So let's just
do that for a second. See all the color comes on,
all the symbols, all right, Still getting a little light
freezing grizzle up here in gay Yoklahoma.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So i'd watch him a lot, and they had this
old fashioned black and white radar, and he'd showed that
quite a bit as well, and I think that was
kind of when I really became interested in weather. And
then when I was about twelve years old, I asked
my mom if I could build a weather station on
top of the of our house. She said, sure, just
(01:55):
be careful, and I started plotting storms as they came
through on a map, and I entered a science fair
and won the competition. I built a three D model
of a super self thunderstorm. Eventually I got a car
and decided that I'd go out and film storms. And
then about the same time that I did that, I
(02:18):
heard that there was these guys called storm chasers, and
I met some of them, and then from there at
that point on, I did it quite a bit. Eventually
for Tempest Tours that came about and we started it
in two thousand. I'd say around nineteen ninety nine, I
decided I was going to do it because I didn't
(02:42):
think that. I didn't say to myself, let's start a
stormchasing tour company. I just was receiving a lot of
requests from regular, normal people to go storm chasing with me,
and they were usually not able to go because of work.
So I thought, what if we created tours and then
we put out the schedule year in advance, people could
(03:04):
get off work and actually go. And that's when Timvis
Tours was born back around two thousand. You know, storm
chasing is kind of like fishing. You know, there's a
good time of year to go fishing, right, but you
go out and you go out several days fishing and
some days are good and some days are not good.
(03:25):
So it's a lot like that on a tour. You know,
they're typically run for to eleven days a length, and
of course the longer the tour, the greater chance of
seeing good storms, just like if you went on eleven
day fishing trip versus a four day fishing trip. Basically,
they get up in the morning, we tell the guests
(03:46):
when to meet us. We stay at motels, of course,
and we'll meet in the lobby or somewhere, and we'll
do a little weather briefing and tell them what we
show them apps and so forth, and we tell them
why we're going there, what we can expect that day.
Then we all load up head to that target, wait
(04:09):
for storms to develop, and then we track the one
that we fill has the greatest potential of producing a
tornado or just being a really good super cell. And
you know, sometimes you'll have three or four storms form
in your target and you have to be very careful
to pick this the right one, and so we kind
of sometimes hold back a little bit and wait until
(04:31):
the best one what we think will be the best
one to form. We've been very successful at that, and
then we track it and if it's not moving too fast,
we're able to stop several times and take pictures of it,
including tornadoes and lightning and so forth, which you can
see at our website. You know, people a common question
that people ask is how close do we get? And
(04:53):
I say, close enough to take great pictures, but far
enough to be safe. So the best way to see
how close we get to go to our website or
go to our Facebook page and just see the pictures
that we've taken and some of our guests have taken,
and you can get a good idea of how close
we get.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
Well, they're in the van along the way. There's a
screen in the van, and so they're watching what the
tour director is doing and they're seeing, you know, the
models developed.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
That's Kim George Temps towards customer relations manager.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
So he will be explaining those along the way, saying,
this is what the storm is doing, this is where
we need to be, and so he will constantly keep
them updated as they are going towards the target, and
so they will wait. But when they actually get to
visually see the storm, you know, coming up in the foreground,
everybody gets very excited. So we get closer to the storm,
(05:51):
we track it. Sometimes you have to wait a little while,
but most of the time you're going straight towards the storm.
Comsted storms develop in the afternoon, and once you are
on the storm, then depending on how the storm is moving,
you position, and you reposition and you reposition again, because
storms don't stand still. Most of the time, when we're
(06:13):
chasing a storm, we follow it till it's end or
till you lose the light. And sometimes that'll happen, and
if you can't chase it when it's dark, sometimes they do.
It depends on the storm if it's developing tornadoes. Some
times we have that we did this past year chase
a storm even after dark, and they actually saw some
nighttime tornadoes, which was very good for the group. They
(06:35):
thought that was amazing. And the only reason you can
see them is because the lightning when it strikes, you
can actually see the tornadoes below the storm. So that's
basically a typical day. And then we get lodging nearby
and they stay somewhere for the night, and then they
also are developing a plan to begin that all over
(06:56):
again the next day. We are not a luxury to
your company. We have to tell them that. Honestly. You know,
when you're out chasing, and anybody who does it would
know you'll be in Coo Donkeys America somewhere, and there's
not a lot of options when it comes to places
(07:17):
to stay, and sometimes there's not an options places to eat,
and so you do the best you can with the
environment that you're in. And we are very good about
finding places that you can stay. But every once in
a while, you know that Motel six it may be
billin place that you can stay for the night. So
you do because the important thing is not the luxury
(07:39):
of what we do, it's the chasing itself. And our
guess do you realize that that you can't always be
and you know a really swanky hotel. But that's not
why you get chase with us. You just need a bed.
You need a place to get some rest and then
you can start the next day fresh.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
On a down day, we will head towards the next
day's target. So a down day may be followed by
a severe weather potential day, so we'll head towards that
target and on the way stop at places that are interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Things that you know, I've seen since I've been with
a company, that I've never knew existed. There is a
place in Kansas that's called Monument Rock and it's just
this sandsum formation in the middle of nowhere and you
go on it and it's just crazy.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It could be the bad Lands in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore,
Devil's Tower, Pala dro Cadget in the Texas Panhandle, or
you might stop at a weather service office and take
a tour. So we're always doing something interesting every single day.
We know this is our guests vacation time. They want
to see something interesting.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
We try to make it special. When we're not on
a storm. I mean, they're all coming for the storms.
I mean they don't really care about the other ones.
If they have a storm to follow, so but yeah,
we try to make the times that we're not in
a hard chase for the storm, we try to make
those times as memorable as we can.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And you are listening to Martin Licious and Kim George
and Martin is the founder of Tempest Tours and Kim
works there in the customer relations department, and tempest tours
dot com is the website address tempest tours dot com
and go on there and take a look at the
gallery section. So again, Martin Licious with Tempest Tours, his
(09:41):
story and so many Americans who are just fascinated by
well just turbulence and tough weather, Martin's story here on
our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.