text:  So I have chased tornadoes for 37 years, but this is the first year at Iowa State we developed a course called Field Observations of Thunderstorms. And part of the course was an eight-day field trip where we took 13 students out across the central United States for this eight-day period in late May. And we actually got very lucky because this was probably the most active eight-day period that the United States has seen for severe weather in many years.