Sad Severe Statistics

Our primary severe weather season is winding down fast and the sad statistics are in now.  Meteorologist John Robinson with the National Weather Service office in North Little Rock has compiled the grim numbers.  This isn't easy to do considering there are 5 offices which cover the state and keeping up with it is probably overwhelming.

This is a La Nina year and the high number of tornadoes was expected.   The last La Nina was in 2008 and we had a total of 81 tornadoes that year.  As far as total number of yearly tornadoes, that year came in 2nd to 1999 when 107 tornadoes hit the state.  By the way, that too was a La Nina year!

So what can we expect for the remainder of 2011 and how will La Nina affect us?  I'm not a big fan of long term forecasting, but if history is a guide, we could see remants of tropical systems similar to 2008.  You may remember in September of 2008, Gustav and Ike both hit Arkansas with flooding and tornadoes.  I hope we can avoid that, but it's something we must watch carefully.

So far this year, there have been 31 total fatalities from tornadoes, thunderstorms, flooding, and lightning.  The number of total injuries is at 53.

It's interesting to note that there have been more fatalities from flash flooding (14) than from tornadoes (11)

Below are a few graphics with all the information...