Last month, British actor Kit Clarke travelled to the American mid-West to meet up with storm chaser and photographer Dorion Antares. Here, Kit documents his time with Dorion and the incredible natural phenomena they pursued, alongside an interview and photographs taken by Dorion of Kit in front of the magnificent storms, wearing Celine Homme by Hedi Slimane.

I was born in a storm in 1997, maybe that is why I have always had a fascination with big storms, lightning and tornadoes specifically. Their honest natural beauty coupled with their extreme unpredictability, power and destructive nature. When I reached out to Dorion Antares, Mailman, Storm chaser and storm photographer, and he agreed to meet in Kansas and attempt to go after some storms to photograph and chase, I expected a lot, but never expected what I experienced.

Before I arrived at Kansas City Airport, I suspected we would be chasing around Kansas, and possibly up into the south of Nebraska as at this time of year the storms fire further north, but when I arrived at the airport and met Dorian, he asked me, “Are you ready to drive? We will probably be on the road for the next four days.”

We headed up through Nebraska, into South Dakota, and North Dakota over the course of two days chatting for fourteen hours a day about storms, eating a lot of gas station food, staying in motels along the way, and then across to Montana where we found our first Supercell storm growing.

We had been tracking it for a while on radar and were looking at it through the front Windshield as it grew closer, larger, and exploded like a volcano up from a large cloud into an anvil-shaped supercell mesocyclone (a rotating storm) in what seemed like a matter of minutes. We arrived at a long open road, parked, and stepped out for the first time.

All of a sudden, it was real, stepping out onto a long, empty, quiet Montana road in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception, no other cars apart from another passing chaser, feeling this warm, humid, alien wind rushing past me up into the storm. Not wind moving away from the storm, but being sucked into it, energising it. As we felt the storm growing and becoming more and more energised, so were we. I have never felt such a feeling of nature being so in control and so truthful in its power in all my life, looking up and seeing this thing becoming more and more shaped like a giant, low-hovering UFO.

We then looked over to the shelf cloud off to the left-hand side at the base of the storm and saw a wall cloud coming down from it (a rotating lowering of cloud capable of producing tornadoes), with what looked like the top of a tornado, and underneath it, on the ground, debris being swept up. Moment after moment the two merged together as the warm wind continued to rush past us on the road, and a tornado formed. We watched with the sun setting behind, silhouetting it between us and about five miles of empty Montana grassland and prairie. The hairs stood up on my arms, butterflies danced in my chest and adrenaline pumped through my veins. I didn’t fully realise it then but from that moment on, I was hooked.

We continued chasing that storm into the night, chatting excitedly. Watching the sunset illuminating the backside of the supercell as lightning bolts still danced violently yet elegantly inside the storm, before arriving at our motel for the night.

After another motel sleep, a jugful of drip coffee and much more storm tracking on radar, we had to decide between two storms, one in North Dakota and one in Minnesota. We went to ND and after we got there, getting closer to where the future predictions said a storm would be, nothing showed. Nothing and nothing and nothing. We made the decision to head to the other storm a few hours away to catch it before nightfall, both a bit quietly disheartened, and just as we did, we saw a cumulonimbus exploding in the rearview mirror in a matter of minutes, each time we looked round it had grown bigger and bigger. A supercell was forming. We turned around quickly, and headed straight for it, about ten miles away, and as we did, another supercell was exploding right next to it. Twin Mesocyclones?

We got close, and then underneath the storm. It was a very strange feeling to go – in a matter of seconds – from bright blue skies to low visibility with this thick-sculpted UFO-looking cloud hanging low above, knowing that there was cloud for the next 40 thousand feet above the solid low cloud base I looked up into. It was truly special and ominous. We drove through the storm, narrowly avoiding the hail core (hail about the size of peaches) and got out of the car to witness its structure towering above us. Coming towards us.

Later that evening, after taking pictures and enjoying a lightning show, we realised that there was a third mesocyclone hiding behind the first two, so we decided to go after it. The sun had gone fully down now and it was pitch dark, the thin road only illuminated by our headlights and lightning flashes, which showed the low-hanging cloud with a wall cloud (a tornado-producing cloud) hanging down from it. We set up shop near an old railway track to get some pictures of the lightning. Our radar had gone down a few minutes earlier because of how thick the storm was above us as the warm midnight wind and spitting rain rushed past, and upwards. Then after a few more minutes, the radar started working again and Dorian realised we were in what’s known as ‘the hook’ where the southern wind meets the northern wind at the front of a supercell, the place where a tornado is born, he tells me we have to go, “Now.” Just as he does, a lightning bolt flashes – we both look up and see the cone of a tornado forming and rotating directly above our heads. It was so low it looked like we could jump up and touch it. We jump in the car and split off the other way fast. We made it to our motel as the lightning and thunder continued, with the friendly staff who ran the place bracing the storm, while we had travelled halfway up the country to be in it.

The next morning as we drove south I noticed a strange feeling inside of me, although incredibly scared during the events of the night before, in a way I hadn’t been scared in a long time, it was all I wanted to talk about, and I wanted to go back for more, so did Dorian. What I realised is this was addictive, feeling the adrenaline surge through you against the unforgiving majesty of nature, of a tornado; the danger, the thrill, was something I wanted again and again. I wanted that feeling, to witness nature taking the wheel in the most awesome, truthful way. It was truly addictive, fascinating and now, despite already being fascinated by tornadoes and supercells, I got storm chasing.

When you spend five days in a car with someone for fourteen hours a day backdropped by the most visceral conditions, it’s an intense and intimate situation. I came away from my five days in Tornado Alley with a few things, a new threshold for anxiety, an addiction to tornados, and a new great friend, Dorion Antares.

Kit Clarke: So, Dorion, we’re here driving through South Dakota up to Montana to find a potential supercell storm with tornado potential. How are you feeling?
Dorion Antares: I’m feeling pretty good. Especially with the view of the Badlands as we drive. I like the chances of seeing something really nice today. Yeah.

KC: How often do you go on a chase?
DA: Not as often as I would like, since I have work restraints and other commitments that don’t let me get out as often as I would like.

KC: And what do you do for work when you’re not storm chasing?
DA: I am a mailman in Kansas – technically a rural carrier. So I drive on the outskirts of town and deliver mail, that’s my main job.

KC: And how long have you been doing that?
DA: Thirteen years.

KC: Do you enjoy it?
DA: Sometimes, yes. When the weather’s nice. Other times it can be really hot or when there’s snow on the ground and it’s freezing cold.

KC: What initially drew you to chasing storms? What was the first inspiration you had for them?
DA: Just seeing storms around here in Kansas. There were a couple of good storms. Then I saw one that went through where I live and at that point I was getting into photography and it was the most exhilarating thing to try to capture storms – lightning in particular.

KC: What do you think it is about storms, lightning and tornadoes that are so exhilarating to you to chase and shoot?
DA: The uncertainty of what you’ll see next. When you’re in photography it’s more fun to shoot something that is unpredictable, and then you’ll create an image that is unlike anything else.

KC: And when was the first time you saw a tornado?
DA: The first time was in 2021, in Colorado. It was very brief and underwhelming as it was pretty far away and I didn’t know it was technically a tornado. But there were other things that I liked more about that specific day. The tornado was just kind of a little blip in the radar, so to speak. Like, the sunset later that day was more amazing to capture, with the open plains for miles, it was really great.

KC: Was there a time you specifically saw a tornado in a storm and thought to yourself, “This is really exciting,” and made you feel something you’d never felt before?
DA: Yes, definitely. That would be the first time I saw a tornado close-up. It was last year in June. I had seen other tornadoes prior to that, but nothing fully condensed to the ground, nothing very close. This one was different, you could see it impacting the ground and the dust and debris coming up from it – you could feel the power in that storm and the tornado being that close. That was probably the first time I was like, “OK. Yeah. This is ridiculous,” you know?

KC: Were you scared when you saw that? What emotions were you experiencing?
DA: I wasn’t scared because of my positioning, I knew I was safe based on where the tornado and the storm was going. It was just pure excitement. Pure adrenaline. It was difficult to try to wield a camera and capture photos and videos when you’re in a moment like that, that is only going to last minutes.

KC: Did you get any photos of that?
DA: Yeah, I got some pretty good photos, and video.

KC: Was that a storm you deliberately tried to chase, or did you find it by accident?
DA: I initially wanted to go to another area, and fortunately I had to go through this area where the storm ended and eventually produced the tornado. So as I was driving, I realised the conditions were good. Good enough that if a storm fires, I should probably be checking it out and maybe have a little patience. And it paid off.

KC: Would you say that technology has been helpful for storm chasing?
DA: Absolutely. It totally changed the ability for anyone to get into storm chasing with limited knowledge. People who did it before had to use paper maps, forecasts published in the paper. They had to go out there and just use the sky as their guide and hope for the best. Those people are pioneers in the chasing world. They’re still around, still chasing, but I’m sure as the hobby grew and now anyone could do it, it’s probably been a little frustrating as they had to go through the trials and tribulations. The new people came in and had all this technology and success, whereas they really had to grind it out.

KC: And would you say there is one memory of tornado chasing in your career that has really stuck with you above the rest?
DA: I mean, probably that day where I got really close to the tornado in June 2023. It was a big stovepipe about a mile from me and I was pretty much the only chaser there. That one storm produced twenty or more tornadoes. I think in total there were 36 tornadoes that day that spawned in a very small area and I saw about twelve of them. It only happened in like a twenty to thirty-minute span. So yeah, pretty intense. Otherwise, probably seeing a really sculpted supercell at sunset or lightning bolts dropping down – there’s something magical about them.

KC: Do you think storm chasing has taught you anything about yourself personally?
DA: I think I’ve grown into taking more chances and going out of my comfort zone more. You’re driving long distances to see something and sacrificing a lot of time to see the wonders of nature. It definitely has taught me to persevere, explore and be fascinated with nature. I am very fortunate to be able to do these things, that I get in a car and drive. I know not everyone has that luxury, and I feel lucky to be able to do that.

KC: Looking to the future, is there any specific thing that you have always wanted to capture?
DA: There are certain photos that I would love to get, like a lightning bolt with the tornado, a really nice tornado or a sculpted supercell in front of a National Park. A really beautiful scene. My top one would probably be a tornado with an abandoned house, possibly destroying that abandoned house.

KC: That would be a pretty great photo. My last question is, from all your experience as a storm chaser do you have any advice for people who want to go storm chasing?
DA: Well, it will take a long time to be successful. I still don’t think I’m very successful. It’s really about perseverance and just getting out there. And with sheer numbers, you see something eventually. But it’s not as easy as you think, it’s a lot of time in the car, a lot of wasted time. But there’s a lot to learn, and I don’t think anyone can ever stop learning about the weather as it is this fundamental thing in our lives. And even if you don’t go out and chase, just knowing about the storms happening around you can make you and your family safer.

KC: And Any advice for the world, just generally from all the stuff you’ve learned through storm chasing?
DA: To regularly keep up with the weather and learn more about it. I see so many people driving into an area I wouldn’t go at that time because they don’t know what we can see on radar and they just think it’s the rain. Then all of a sudden they get taken off the road by a tornado, so it’s definitely good to have some awareness of what’s happening around you.

KC: Well, Dorian. Thank you very much for your time – and let’s go chase some storms.
DA: Alright. Thank you.

Follow Kit Clarke on Instagram. 
Follow Dorion Antares on Instagram.