This afternoon at 2 pm EST, I will be joined by HailTrace founder and meteorologist Derik Kline for Tuesday @2 With Chip Merlin.Derek has broadened from tornado chasing to Hurricane Eyewall chasing.He will be talking about his recent experience with Hurricane Ida this afternoon.

A news story about Derek provides a little history about Derik’s passion and the start of HailTrace: For founder and CEO Derik Kline, the weather has been a lifelong obsession, which inspired him to start his own company.‘I have always been obsessed with weather,’ Kline shared.‘I knew that I wanted to start a weather-based company, so I started a storm chasing company.’ For some time, Kline worked other jobs while trying to get people to pay him to take them storm chasing.

A significant storm hit Oklahoma City on May 16, 2010 that changed everything for him.‘A family friend and contractor asked if I could create a map that showed the areas that were hit by the hail storm,’ Kline said, ‘and the concept of HailTrace was born.’ Over the next year and a half, Kline continued to work a full-time job while tracking storms on the side and saving as much money as he could.In February of 2012, he took the leap, quit his job, and went full-time.

‘I took what was then Extreme Weather Predictions LLC—soon to be HailTrace—to the International Roofing Expo in Orlando, Florida.’ ‘The rest, as they say, is hail-story,’ he said with a grin.Today’s livestream will be fascinating, and I hope readers will tune in.Here is the link.