The peak of severe weather season is upon us and after a rough start to the month of May (which isn't surprising, really), the tornado count had another big jump this week. May 6 had some violent weather in Oklahoma with the Barnsdall tornado. May 7 had damaging storms in the upper Midwest in Michigan. Tennessee and Alabama were lit up with significant storms May 8th. (See the graph below)
Notice the red line surging above the black line. Red is the current count for the United States, while the black line is "average"- roughly 538 tornadoes through May 8.
Kansas tornado numbers are up too, compared to recent years. I've been asked multiple times in recent years if Kansas is no longer "Tornado Alley", but this year proves that we are still indeed a prone area for them, even if we haven't had widespread damage or an EF4/5 (nobody wants that). Remember that tornado records go back to 1950, and I only looked at the last 10 years for the sake of time.
Only 2015 has more tornadoes (through May 9th)!
I've taken a few emails from viewers upset that I only focus on drought these days. It's like we are beating a dead horse, and we are all so tired of discussing it and seeing the drought maps. However, we can't turn a blind eye to it and pretend it's not there. Most of Kansas is experiencing its top 10 driest springs (March - May) on record.
7 Day Rainfall (May 10-17): Average amounts expected for the timeframe - which would be about .50-1" for western Kansas, and roughly 1-2" for central and eastern Kansas. We have the Mother's Day system coming through, followed by a front May 15th.
7 Day Rainfall (May 18-24): We will likely move toward some drier and much warmer weather in our 3rd full week of the month. My suspicion is a high pressure ridge will pass through the central and northern Plains, and it could wipe out any decent shot at rain.
I think there is a chance for more active weather/slightly better chance at rain approaching Memorial Day weekend.
Thanks for reading! Have a great day
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