About Jon Davies
Meteorologist. Severe weather researcher. Storm chaser.
Jon Davies is a meteorologist and severe weather researcher based in the Kansas City area whose work on tornado forecasting has influenced how forecasters across the United States assess tornadic environments. Over a career spanning more than three decades, he has published extensively on supercell tornadoes, cold-core low pressure systems, and the atmospheric parameters that distinguish tornadic from non-tornadic settings — research that remains in active use at the Storm Prediction Center and in operational forecasting today.
Davies is perhaps best known for his early collaborative work with SPC forecaster Bob Johns in the 1990s, which contributed to the development of the Energy-Helicity Index, a composite forecasting parameter still widely referenced in severe weather analysis. His peer-reviewed papers in Weather and Forecasting and the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, alongside more than a dozen conference preprints for the American Meteorological Society, represent a body of work built largely outside of academic institutions — the product of independent curiosity, field experience, and a genuine commitment to understanding how tornadoes form.
He is also a storm chaser with decades of field experience, a ChaserCon instructor, and the author of Storm Chasers! On the Trail of Twisters, a full-color book introducing younger readers to severe weather science.
