Slow tornado season so far

[Shane Adams]

Best advice is to watch the weather, not the calendar. I can't imagine being limited to a 1-2 week window and having wish those are the good days - that must suck.

With chasing, you're better off throwing yourself into a full-season commitment if you're truly engrossed with seeing severe weather. Otherwise, getting worked up about stuff you can't chase for whatever reason just leads to needless disappointment and stress. If I could only chase a certain portion of a given season, I'd never expect anything going in.

One other thought, I'm perpetually amazed at how people under-estimate the importance of March and April. It only takes one good day to make a month, a year even. Snubbing the early months based on perceived climo data can ruin a year. Ask anyone who balked those months in 2006 to wait for the "sure thing" of May/June.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

With chasing, you're better off throwing yourself into a full-season commitment if you're truly engrossed with seeing severe weather. Otherwise, getting worked up about stuff you can't chase for whatever reason just leads to needless disappointment and stress. If I could only chase a certain portion of a given season, I'd never expect anything going in.

One other thought, I'm perpetually amazed at how people under-estimate the importance of March and April. It only takes one good day to make a month, a year even. Snubbing the early months based on perceived climo data can ruin a year. Ask anyone who balked those months in 2006 to wait for the "sure thing" of May/June.

How many chasers can throw themselves into a full year commitment? Maybe 5%? For those who can't, they're limited to trying to setup a time during the year when severe weather is most active, and that's climatologically the few weeks either side of May 20. I never get worked up or stressed about stuff I can't chase, in fact, if there's a big day I can't chase it's never been a big deal because there will be other big days to chase. Now, if I'm chasing on a day and miss a big event that's another story.

Yes, March and April can occasionally be big, but if someone can only chase for 2 weeks a year, they aren't going to put that 2 weeks in March or April because the odds of significant severe weather occurring in May is much better than occurring in March or April.

 

[Shane Adams]

I'm just saying if you can;t chase whenever you want in Spring, there's no point getting all worked up about missing events. If it means that much to you, make it happen.

But then again, chasing isn't a hobby for me, and it's difficult for me to see it through the eyes/mind of someone who just does it for kicks a few weeks a year.

 

[Jeff Duda]

According to the WCM page on the SPC site, this season is right around the median value for tornado count vs. time from stats averaged over the last 10 years.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/adj.html

 

[Dann Cianca]

According to the WCM page on the SPC site, this season is right around the median value for tornado count vs. time from stats averaged over the last 10 years.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/adj.html

Take that with a grain of salt. I would estimate that 90% of the tornadoes reported this year are garbage-nadoes.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I would agree with you, Dann. Although I haven't chased this year, from the pictures and videos I have seen from others, most of the tornadoes have been rather unimpressive. In fact, most of the ones I've seen did not even have a condensation funnel reaching the ground. They simply looked like dust whirls. But a tornado is a tornado, and that's how those stats are computed. It's likely that many of the tornadoes that occur every year are crappy looking.

 

[STurner]

Well it looks like things are really starting to ramp up now. I guess maybe I was so used to last year and prior years to being so active earlier in the season. It is still unfortunate people have been killed by tornadoes this year and hopefully we wont have the dsath toll we had last year. Good luck to you guys who chase this year and please everyone stay safe.