Bosnia's Storm Chasers Thrill to Prospect of Lousy Weather

While most people in Bosnia only check the weather forecast to see if sunny days are coming, a small but devoted group of enthusiasts check the forecasts hoping for the exact opposite.

They want to track down thunderstorms, lightning, pouring rain or similar unstable weather conditions.

"We started this project in 2014 when devastating floods hit Bosnia in mid-May and then, after all of those extreme weather conditions, the idea of Bosnia's storm chasers appeared," Nedim Sladic, one of the founders of Bosnia's storm chaser group, told BIRN.

Sladic and Kristijan Vujcic met on crometeo.com, a webpage from Croatia that gathers people with a passion for meteorology and unusual weather.

While Sladic is based in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, Vujcic lives in Prijedor, in western Bosnia.

Sladic explained that it was still an informal group with only 16 members from Bosnia who combine a love for photography, storms and strange weather conditions all in one.

They publish their findings on a Facebook group as well as on a webpage.

"We all share the same interest, although I like to forecast a bit more, which is also a significant part of our work," Sladic said.

To capture breathtaking pictures of a storm or lightning at the right moment takes patience and love - but it also requires real knowledge about weather conditions.

No matter how eager someone is to capture a perfect storm, caution is a must in such situations, and is something that Bosnia's storm chaser are well aware of.

While Nedim now does only amateur weather forecasts for the media in Bosnia and publishes them on the group Facebook page, he will soon gain a faculty degree, which will allow him to do so on a professional level.

Being a storm...