He is now the president and founder of Tempest Tours, a company based in Arlington, Tex. that takes 6-20 people on a 4-10 day road trip across the Great Plains on tornado chasing tours. He started as a storm spotter in 1987 when he was still in college, shortly after, he began giving tours, driving towards one of the deadliest forces of nature with only a van, a laptop, and a $5,000 investment. Tempest Tours made over $250,000 last tornado season and have expanded to Denver, Col. and Oklahoma City, Okla. A reason for the company’s success is its crew. Comprised of some the most knowledgeable severe storm analysts in the world, which includes a climatologist, a wind meteorologist, and a National Weather Service meteorologist.

A chase begins days before when Lisius and his team track weather data leading up to chase day. He then begins to track a target supercell and plans the quickest and safest route for his guests to get one hell of a Kodak moment.

Tempest Tours is not for thrill seekers. It’s for people who want to marvel at the complexity of our atmosphere.

“Forecast verification is more of a thrill for me than seeing a tornado. “It’s really quite an ordinary, normal ‘everyday at the office’ thing for me,” Lisius said.

Easy to say when you have been chasing tornadoes for over 25 years and witnessed some of the largest and deadliest tornadoes on record.

He can’t tell you the biggest tornado he’s ever seen because there are many he never got the chance to measure, but the largest he and Tempest Tours recorded was just under a mile wide.

However, there is one tornado he will never forget, the Spencer, S.D. of 1998. It was the second deadliest in South Dakota history, killing 6 people and injuring 1/3 of the small town of just over 300. The tornado carved almost half a mile of damage through the town from 8:38 p.m. to 8:44 p.m. Destroying most of the town’s 190 buildings.

Tempest is renowned for its safety measures and has been praised for the experience it offers by CNN, Group Tour Magazine, and ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Lisius’s guests know the dangers of tornadoes and are usually well-educated professionals.

Jenna Blum, author of the New York Times bestseller The Stormchasers, took part in her first storm chase in 2006 to research her novel and was satisfying a lifelong fascination with severe weather. Her first chase was so memorable that she has gone back every year since to work as a hostess/driver/guide for Tempest.

“The clients I’ve chased with over the years have become my close friends,” Blum said. “I call them my storm family.”

She says everything she knows about tornadoes, she learned from Lisius, which is the best teacher on the subject since Lisius is one of America’s most respected severe weather experts, having been a consultant for the 1996 box-office hit Twister and Tree of Life starring Brad Pitt, telling the story of a family during the 1950s tornado outbreak in Waco, Tex. He was also the cinematographer for a 2010 Twister-inspired Chevy truck commercial he stars in as himself chasing a wicked storm through a hail of bricks and 4×4’s.

Lisius says it was a memorable experience getting to meet ‘90’s Hollywood superstar Bill Paxton, acclaimed director Jan Du Bont, and of all people, Oprah Winfrey.

In reference to the ‘flying cow’ scene in Twister, “They didn’t care so much for accuracy because it’s Hollywood,” Lisius said. “The dust and debris would obscure the view of flying livestock.”

Lisius is living his dream of analyzing severe weather in his hometown just like his childhood hero Harold Taft on Channel 5 News, but gets much closer to the story than the meteorology legend. Tempest Tours aims to provide the most informative and safest tour, which he believes truly gives his guests an appreciation of the rare and destructive phenomenon they are witnessing.

Despite his unconventional job title, he says a TV show of his work would be of little interest to Discovery Channel. “Nobody wants to see somebody relaxed and in control.”