What will it do in 2009?

[Jeff Passner]

It's obviously impossible to make such a forecast now. In my opinion, tornado records should be taken with the old grain of salt --- more chasers, more people, more educated people about storms, more media, more tornadoes. Who knows how many tornadoes there really were in 1951??? Really, unless it hit something, people never knew it happened. Radar surely did not show it, so who was watching at 2:00 a.m. in Nebraska?

The one thing you can bet is that it will be active "somewhere." 2009 might be great in Iowa, terrible in Texas. Who knows.. Maybe the Dakotas will bounce back in 2009 after a light 2008. Or maybe Texas will finally start acting like Texas again and it will active there. Jim Leonard's point about where the long-wave pattern sets up might be somnething to watch, but even that does not answer the question. In "bad" years you have to be creative; maybe go for the upslope storms in Colorado in June or move to Illinois for the season. Sadly, it's impossible to predict.

 

[Jason Foster]

bumping for fun post discussion of this old thread.

 

[Adam Lucio]

2009 tried to teach us to share. It seemed every setup [with yesterday being the first good exception] there was only 1 or 2 storms that ended up tornado-ing.

It also shows that mother nature wants to kepe herself a mystery. V2 had a death ridge, she gave them a little c*ck tease near the end and now went bonkers with plains tornadoes the moment they ceased operation.

Makes ya wonder...

 

[Austin Funderburgh]

now went bonkers with plains tornadoes the moment they ceased operation.

Not exactly bonkers but it certainly was spread out. Then in a couple days we'll just be back to a dormant state. I've been thinking for about a month that we won't hit 1000 confirmed tornadoes for the year. I stand by that, and I think the only thing that will prove me wrong is another Ivan (or overall busy hurricane-tornado season). It's hard to predict <1000 tornadoes in a year before that year starts. Especially given the whole reason this thread started (a relatively active December of 08)