Chelsea Burnett ('14) remembers her most memorable day as a storm chaser.

She and her group of fellow adrenaline junkies saw a twister form without lightning or rainfall.

"We assumed the day was over. But that same storm developed a new tornado, which was even larger than the first. As we continued tracking these storms, we kept witnessing tornado after tornado."

Burnett saw seven tornadoes on April 26, 2024, as her gang drove on the freeway from Nebraska to Iowa.

"The adrenaline was at an all-time high that day, and I remember feeling scared for the people that lived there, not necessarily for us as storm chasers."

In fact, she was fulfilling a lifelong dream.

"I've never witnessed that many in one day, and still haven't. Witnessing that many tornadoes happen back-to-back was something out of a movie. I was like, 'Is this real life?'"

Burnett, who is based in Little Elm, has been fascinated by severe weather since she was a child.

Now she has a career as a freelance storm chaser, delivering information on livestreams on social media and as an educator for the organization Storm Science.

So far, she's seen 84 tornadoes and three hurricanes. She says she loves the chaos and "just watching the process happen and the storms develop. No two storm chase experiences are the same. That complexity and that guesswork keeps me going."

Pushing the Limits

Burnett has always led an unconventional life.

"I like pushing my limits. I like seeing how far I could go."

When Burnett attended college in her native Oklahoma, she wanted to major in meteorology "and the math taught me real quick how difficult that was going to be."

During the next 10 years, she earned her associate's degree from Collin College, transferred to UNT, got married and had a child. In her last semester, she was going through a divorce while maintaining a full-time job at Cintas, the first aid and safety company.

"So I graduated with my 2-year-old napping with my ex-in-laws in the stands," she says.

At UNT, Burnett majored in business, taking a mix of online and in-person classes, including a course in risk management.

"That class was probably most impactful because it changed my mind of thinking, 'Oh, it's just another boring class.' The professor made it so real-world applicable and easy to understand that I ended up working in insurance after that."

But, while working in that field after graduation, she found herself coming back to her old passion for weather.

"I was like, 'OK, I can breathe, I have some time, I feel like I deserve to dive back into what makes me passionate, what brings me joy.' I started going to conferences, and talking with friends, and going on a couple of local chases, and then it was just like, 'This is feeling like what I'm supposed to do.'"

Making it Happen

In 2015, she quit her job and began a string of part-time and independent contractor positions. Ten days later, she saw her first tornado.

"Completely on a whim, I didn't expect it at all. It was like, 'I feel legit, I can make this happen.'"

Through the years, she's built a life as a storm chaser. Every day, she's monitoring reports from the Storm Prediction Center, planning on where to go next.

She and her partner, Adam Lucio, put together streams of income from social media, brand partnerships and selling footage to media outlets. They are tornado tour guides for Tornadic Expeditions Storm Chasing Tours, in which they take clients on the chases.

During the livestreams, they make sure people in the storm's path are safe by explaining the more complicated terminology in simple terms. She also shares what organizations are taking donations after a storm. When her hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma, was struck in 2023, she volunteered to distribute supplies to help those affected.

Burnett also continues to work with Storm Science, an educational organization for which she travels to schools and libraries around the state, presenting visual demonstrations about severe weather preparedness. She and the kids have lots of fun as she creates a huge thunderstorm cloud using liquid nitrogen and boiling water.

"Some days it truly does feel like a dream I'll wake up from eventually."