What's Special About May 3, 4, & 5???

[Drew.Gardonia]

My curiosity is piqued...but what's so bloody special about May 3, 4, & 5 in regards to severe weather outbreaks?

I don't get it. How can so many severe outbreaks occur on the same days in different years???

The 1999 Oklahoma City F5 kicked off on May 3, 1999 and ran through May 6, 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Oklahoma_tornado_outbreak


The May 2003 Outbreak started May 3rd, 2003 and ran through May 11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2003_tornado_outbreak_sequence


Then the May 2007 Outbreak kicked off on May 4th, 2007 with the infamous EF5 Tornado that decimated Greensburg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2007_tornado_outbreak


May 3-4, 1999 Outbreak - F5 (highest rated tornadoe of the outbreak)
May 3-4, 2003 Outbreak - F4 (highest rated tornadoes of the outbreak)
May 3-4, 2007 Outbreak - EF5 ((highest rated tornadoe of the outbreak)

so what is significant about May 3-4 that seems to have caused a large number of outbreaks with exceptionally violent and extremely damaging tornadoes from 1999-Present?

Wondering if there is some sort of pattern maybe? or maybe it's some sort of sign of future outbreak events to come?

If you noticed I didn't include the May 2004 Outbreak because that event occured from May 21-31, 2004.

I know April and May are about the most common months for severe tornado outbreaks, but within the last 10 years, May 3-4 seems to be "The Day".

not to mention we're slightly overdue for (at least with this 10 year trend) for another major outbreak.

discuss.

 

[rdale]

Wondering if there is some sort of pattern maybe? or maybe it's some sort of sign of future outbreak events to come?

No and no... Those dates are no more special than May 10 and May 1.

 

[Connor McCrorey]

Luck.

You said it, April and May are peak months in the Southern Plains. If you look, I bet you can come up with all sorts of "magic days" in this general timeframe. How about all the days May 3-4 didn't result in a massive tornado outbeak?

One more note, you have May 3-4, 2007, listed, but the real "outbreak" was May 5th.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

Luck.

You said it, April and May are peak months in the Southern Plains. If you look, I bet you can come up with all sorts of "magic days" in this general timeframe. How about all the days May 3-4 didn't result in a massive tornado outbeak?

One more note, you have May 3-4, 2007, listed, but the real "outbreak" was May 5th.

maybe so. Just curious to see if anyone else thought anything of it.

ah I stand corrected, but yes the Greensburg EF5 (damn that Enhanced Fujita rating...it screws everything up IMO in regards to actual storm damage) took place on May 4th.

 

[MatthewCarman]

No offence but I find this thread funny. May is the main month for tornado activity due to all of the dynamics being in place and the Jet Stream set across the US so ofcource May will have alot of dates with big tornado outbreaks.

Awnser me this. How come tornado outbreaks in August are uncommon? Why is there hardly any tornado dates for August? The answer it the Jet Stream. It is to far north in the Summer and the dynamics are not there but in the Spring time it is farther south and the systems follow it thus resulting in a stormy period from April into June thus resulting in tornadoes and tornado outbreaks. May 3-4 is no different than any other. They just come in the peak time for seeing tornadoes across the US.

 

[Dean Baron]

No offence but I find this thread funny. May is the main month for tornado activity due to all of the dynamics being in place and the Jet Stream set across the US so ofcource May will have alot of dates with big tornado outbreaks.

Awnser me this. How come tornado outbreaks in August are rare? Why is there hardly any tornado dates for August? The answer it the Jet Stream. It is to far north in the Summer and the dynamics are not there but in the Spring time it is farther south and the systems follow it thus resulting in a stormy period from April into June thus resulting in tornadoes and tornado outbreaks. May 3-4 is no different than any other. They just come in the peak time for seeing tornadoes across the US.

No offenSe, but that is a funny post. There have been outbreaks in the past in August, and there will be more in the future. These may not be to the scale of the bigger outbreaks in April/May/June, but there have been some good tornado days in Aug. The arctic upper level air that crashes south in the spring is MUCH colder than the air from the same area in the latter part of the summer since the arctic gets more sun during the summer and makes the air warmer.

This is a thread that probably deserves to be in the beginner forums...

 

[MatthewCarman]

No offenSe, but that is a funny post. There have been outbreaks in the past in August, and there will be more in the future. These may not be to the scale of the bigger outbreaks in April/May/June, but there have been some good tornado days in Aug. The arctic upper level air that crashes south in the spring is MUCH colder than the air from the same area in the latter part of the summer since the arctic gets more sun during the summer and makes the air warmer.

Ofcourse there has been tornado outbreaks in August. You missed my point obviously. All I was saying is May 3-4 fall under peak activity for severe weather/tornado outbreaks because of the Jet Stream and dynamics and there is nothing speacial about them.

 

[Dean Baron]

Ofcourse there has been tornado outbreaks in August. You missed my point obviously.

Then why did you ask why there have hardly been any?!?!? Apparently you missed your own point!

 

[MatthewCarman]

Then why did you ask why there have hardly been any?!?!? Apparently you missed your own point!

I wanted Andrew to understand why some days are more active then other days. Thanks for your explanation though. The artic air is another reason why May is so active in terms of severe weather.

 

[Brian Stertz]

Andrew agree that early May setups can be VERY solid. Many times there seems to be a nice balance of moderate CAPE and nice fast deep shear and decently wide warm sectors located under this good sheared environment. You also seem to avoid the severe capping that happens later in May & June causing more clustering or isolated supercells. Plus there is often strong sfrc cyclones that progress northeast and sweep the dryline towards the MS River Valley as well. May 2-8 has been very good to me as a chaser. I intend to make this a high priority time off this spring.

 

[Jeff Passner]

It used to be April 2-10 as the "big" days if you were talking about the '70s... There is no set pattern of way this works. May 3-5 are no different than any other days in the period April 1-June 15. Some years the big day is April 26 and some years it's May 3. Just chance.