I was tasked with coming up with a severe weather outlook. These are really hard to do because if your house ends up getting hit, you'll remember the season as "bad". And then there's the question, what makes the season bad? Is it 50 tornadoes, 100, etc.? The average for Kansas in a season is around 80. Since 2000, here's are the years where the tornado count has been higher than average:
Out of the 14 years (since 2000), there are 4 years where El Nino was occurring in the Pacific. That was 2019, 2016, 2015, 2010.
Here's what we are in now:
Notice the orange color within the highlighted box. That's water that is about 1.4°C above average, making this an El Nino spring season. But you also have to look just outside of that highlighted area and see the "cooler" water showing up - that's the oncoming La Nina that we will be talking about very soon (maybe as soon as this summer). If we take this one step further and consider the years where El Nino was going away and La Nina was coming on, here's what we find:
There is NOT necessarily a correlation to a high number of tornadoes when El Nino is going away and La Nina is coming on. The El Nino in 1998 was particularly strong, and it was quickly replaced with a La Nina, and that year ended up with slightly fewer than average tornadoes.
El Nino has been a helpful driver of more rain/snow for the Plains this winter, but it hasn't completely eliminated the drought yet. Take a look at what El Nino springs have looked like in years past - the purple is good - it means above average moisture. Let's look at 2015, 2016, 2019:+
May 2015:
May 2016:
May 2019:
I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but there are many more cases of "wet" springs with El Nino than dry ones, so I think odds are in our favor that this upcoming spring will be at least average moisture, but for many areas, it should be wetter than average. See the early April rainfall outlook at the end of this post.
Rain is coming!!
The 3rd full week of March (18-22) doesn't look that promising, but once we get beyond that timeframe, odds look better for moisture. Here's a 30 day preview of March 24-April 24:
And for the entire month of April, one set of model data looks like this:
I know it's just one model, but we've been expecting a turn toward some wetter conditions for the central US, and I believe we are just getting there. What should be a continual march of low pressure systems in from the West should begin soon and continue deep into April. Will this be the uptick in severe weather? Stay tuned.
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