Active March = ? (April, May, June)

[Jason McKittrick]

It seems to me that March has been a little more active, in terms of severe weather than usual. Remembering back to the climatology coarse I took, I believe, Nomias put together some correlations between seasons. I remember there was a strong positive correlation between Spring and Summer, wet spring= wet summer. I was wondering if anyone happens to know if there is any correlation for severe weather between March and the rest of the season? In past years when March has been active what happened during April, May, June?

 

[brody_clifton]

I haven't found any documentation or studies yet relating early spring severe weather pattern to that of the latter half of spring. The same as I have yet to
run across a study making a direct positive correlation between La Nina and increased frequncy/coverage/severity of spring outbreaks. From what I've
researched, some years that have started out with an active early spring continued to have big events into the late spring/early summer over the
north central/northeastern part of the country. 1984 was a year that had both an active early spring and a La Nina pattern, with notable tornado outbreaks
occuring in late March in the southeast, and late spring in the Central Plains/MO Valley/Upper Midwest. 1990 began with the Hesston outbreak and ended
with the Plainfield F5 in August. But I don't recall a significant event in between for that year. I have a hunch that a spring thats starts out with an
extended period of higher-than-avg intensity and frequency of shortwaves/longwaves crossing the conus (such as this year) has a higher probability to end
up in the same manner, although in areas farther north later in the season of course. About the only climatological pattern I know for sure enchances
severe prospects for the entire spring over a region is El Nino, with the region being the southeast US. I've read reports that back that theory up
and I chased in the southeast US in 1998 and remember first hand the frequent 120+ kt southwesterly 250mb subtropical jet streams/steaks,
something that's just not common that far south and east for an extended period during most years.

 

[Khristian Snyder]

For those interested: Here is a link to Ed Berry's blog.
He seems to be a really good long range forecaster and has been outperforming the weather models IMO.
He does some awesome analysis of the atmosphere over the entire earth and makes some very good forecasts. He has been nailing the storms over the past month or so I highly recomend anyone to read through his blog every now and then.

Ed Berry BLOG

From his latest post:

Where the atmosphere goes from here is always a good question. However, I think our SDM Stage 1 state is most probable for at least the next 10-14 days. Depending how far east the tropical convection moves, Stage 2 may be possible late week 2 into week 3. Most models (links to 2 of them below) are now capturing the signal for another strong baroclinic storm development initially impacting the USA west coast late this weekend, then moving into the Rockies leading to possibly intense baroclinic development on the Plains by ~middle of next week (days 7-8)[/b]

 

[Dan Robinson]

Although it's natural for us to want to have an idea of how an upcoming season will be, we're nowhere near being able to predict even large-scale patterns this far in advance.

Every year there are those with concerns and those with optimism prior to the season. But every time, the weather proves that we just don't know. Remember the drought that was supposed to kill any chances of chaseable severe weather in Oklahoma this year? The dusty dry ground that was going to foul with our low-level moisture and make any tornadoes big amorphous dust bombs?

Last year we couldn't even predict what was going to happen within a week's time, let alone a month or more ahead. It was either going to be a huge death ridge or big western trough four days out. I was making nearly all of my chase plans at the last minute.

It's anybody's guess what will happen this year. It could be anything from a 1988 to a 2004 or anything in between.