SPC 2021 Season Post-Mortem

[Randy Jennings]

SPC has posted a 2021 post-mortem at Year In Review - NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center . Lots more info that just their intro which I posted bellow, but I think they hit the nail on the head when they said "2021 was an odd year".

"2021 was an odd year with most of the significant severe weather events very early and very late in the year. March had 2 separate "High Risk" events which was the first time since 1991. The heart of the severe weather season (April through June) was very quiet, particularly for tornadoes. April had the fewest tornado reports on record, May had no EF3+ tornadoes for the first time on record, and June had the 5th fewest significant tornadoes in recorded history. Severe weather picked up again in the fall and October had the 2nd most tornadoes on record. However, October would eventually be overshadowed by December. December had the most tornadoes and preliminary severe weather reports on record with both records nearly doubling the previous record, the 9th longest tornado path on record on December 10, the most preliminary significant thunderstorm wind gusts in a day and the first December Minnesota tornado on record on December 15. Prior to December, the tornado fatalities numbers were on pace to be well below normal in 2021, but after 87 people died in tornadoes on December 10, the 2021 tornado fatalities continued the trend of the past few years of increasing tornado deaths."

 

[Randy Jennings]

Looking some more at this a few things jump out to me.

First the Watches tab shows all, tor, and svr watches by county. If you look at "all" it looks like tornado alley is making a comeback, but when you set it to "tornado watch only" it shows it wasn't a great chase year for the alley (which we all know) and it shows the "all" watches is skewed by severe watches. It also has a slider to go back years and that shows what a horrible chase year it was in 2020, 2018, and 2017 in places like the Texas panhandle.

The Convective Outlooks tab has an interesting animated map, especially when you set it to Slight and higher. Not much excitement in northern half of OK and southern half of KS, but an area in the northeast (NY, PA, NJ) sure sticks out (appears to be related to Ida).

Finally, make sure you look at the Significant Events tab if nothing else other than to see the picture of the new record for hail in TX at 6.42"

 

[Lou Ruh]

The Convective Outlooks tab has an interesting animated map, especially when you set it to Slight and higher. Not much excitement in northern half of OK and southern half of KS, but an area in the northeast (NY, PA, NJ) sure sticks out (appears to be related to Ida).

Actually, Ida was significant in the northeast, especially the Mount Holly CWA ... but, the tornado season was much more than Ida. See July 29: Tornado Outbreak for the writeup on the ten tornado outbreak event from July 29 (including an EF-3). September 1: Remnants of Ida shows 7 tornadoes (including another EF-3 that some think warranted an EF-4, but, I know they considered things carefully before settling on the 3) spawned in that CWA from Ida. There were als three tornadoes from Fred, two from Elsa and a few others from non-tropical systems.