What is this season doing???

[Cory Schuller]

Now just a couple weeks ago we were all complaining about the slow season and we were praying for it to pick up, now look what we did, mother nature seems to be torqued...... Is it normal to have at this time of the year 3- high risk areas so far and 2 PDS's? Is this a sign for the season or is the Vortex curse going to kick in for the plains and all this activity will die???

Thanks
Cory

 

[Jason Boggs]

Like others have mentioned, I think the season just got off to a slow start. I mean, it's May and the bulk of the severe wx lately has been in the S/SE states. I think late May into most of June will ramp up in the southern plains. I think early June will be more active than May around the TX Panhandle/Western OK and southern portions of KS.

 

[Andrew Ryan]

I agree with Jason. I think due to El Nino, spring is delayed about a month. I think everything will be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

 

[MatthewCarman]

May is usually the most active month of the year and we usually have some big outbreaks before May. As Jason said this year with the exception of a few days started off slow. That is just because after 2006, 2007 and 2008 I am used to March and April being very active but those months can be snowy or quite. This is normal.

People are always going to complain if it is slow. They expect March and April to be active when in reality those months are not always active. I remember having a blizzard or snowstorm one year for Easter in Iowa for April. People need to learn to just enjoy life and find other things to do when the skies become quite.

2004 had a very active May. So did 2003. I remember in those years there was a few outbreaks that had around 80 tornadoes. This is nothing new.

 

[Dave Marshall]

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Split Flow pattern keep that fire hose of Gulf Moisture heading into the mid-south and eastern plains well into May. I think that LA/AR/MS tri-state area is going to be the hot spot for at least the next few weeks. I can't say I'm complaining. I got to chase all of the high risk days so far this year

 

[Bryan Stokes]

As we talk about spring being delayed by 2-3 weeks, I'd like to point out that I'm in Moab right now for a landscape photography symposium and have spent the last couple of days with some of the world's greatest landscape photographers and they have all mentioned that the wildflowers are all blooming about 2-3 weeks late. I've been coming here extensively for the last 14 years and have noticed the same thing. I realize that we're talking about a different geographic location, but it seems pretty apparent to me that things have been delayed, especially after such a cold winter.

Bryan

 

[Dave Marshall]

Interestingly, in this neck of the woods (NW PA, and the same statement goes for locations to my north and east) this is one of the earliest springs on record. Our last snow fall was March 9th, and our first 80 degree day was long about March 22nd. The winter was fairly average for us temperature and snowfall wise, though the source of our snowfall was different, and areas to our south 90 miles got *much* more snow than average. The flowers here are quite early, with the daffodils already 2 weeks gone and the lilacs in the hollows going full tilt now.

Looking back at the last few El Nino's that were similar in strength to the current one, this seems to be something of a trend for this area. Lets just hope it doesn't wind up in a significant drought for this area, as early springs are wont to do. It would be nice to finally see a decent season in the Ohio Valley. The ass kickers that the mid-south has seen the last few weeks make me think maybe there just might be hope up this far north this year.

 

[Brian Moody]

In my area, this reminds me of 2008. It was sluggish for the most part until late May when things went bananas. By mid-June I was actually getting tired of being awoken for tornado warnings.

Unlike winter 2007/2008, we had that winter that seemed like it would never end this year, which probably hurt instability and moisture flow. Now we are just getting into it.

 

[Pete Smith]

Interestingly, in this neck of the woods (NW PA, and the same statement goes for locations to my north and east) this is one of the earliest springs on record. Our last snow fall was March 9th, and our first 80 degree day was long about March 22nd. The winter was fairly average for us temperature and snowfall wise, though the source of our snowfall was different, and areas to our south 90 miles got *much* more snow than average. The flowers here are quite early, with the daffodils already 2 weeks gone and the lilacs in the hollows going full tilt now.

Looking back at the last few El Nino's that were similar in strength to the current one, this seems to be something of a trend for this area. Lets just hope it doesn't wind up in a significant drought for this area, as early springs are wont to do. It would be nice to finally see a decent season in the Ohio Valley. The ass kickers that the mid-south has seen the last few weeks make me think maybe there just might be hope up this far north this year.

Ditto here in the Chicago area. We just came out of the third warmest April on record (possibly the warmest on record in the state of Illinois), and the first April in 140 years of record keeping that started with an 80 degree temp, and ended with one! It seems with El Nino's that our neck of the woods is usually warmer than average here, but much cooler than average in the south.

We had one nice severe weather outbreak on April 5th/6th with a couple of nice hailers here, one that produced baseball sized hail just north of O'Hare Airport, and quarter sized hail in my area just a few miles northeast of O'Hare. But the lack of moisture flow from the gulf has kept things quiet for the most part. So I agree that the best may be yet to come for the central plains and the upper midwest. Usually mid May to late June is our peak for us.

The other factor will be soil moisture. A relatively dry March and early April has kept the soil moisture much drier in the midwest this year over last year, and that can definitely affect moisture feedback into the atmosphere. However that deluge that affected Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and S. Illinois may play into how much moisture feeds into these storms. I expect things to become more active here, but in the short term we are expecting a late season cold surge late this week that should shut things down severe weather wise for a few days afterwards.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

with 4 PDS Watches (possibly more) being issued in an 8 day period I'm inclined to think things are just getting started. For the most part April here was pretty quiet but since the 24th, things have gone haywire. Maybe things will stay active a little longer than normal and I can get some quality chasing in, in August since I had to cancel my OK,TX, KS trip for next week due to financial reason.

 

[Jeff Turner]

Nothing much in north Texas. Constant wind, no rain. The ground is already showing cracks in the ground. Not a good sign overall. T-watch just noprthwest of here, nothing on the radar near here.....