Spring Severe Weather Season Over?

FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK: TODD YAKOUBIAN
TWITTER: KATV_WEATHER

You may remember I put a tombstone on the winter of 2011-2012 in late February declaring the chance for winter weather over at that point.  On Friday, I had a conversation with meteorologist Ryan Vaughan at KAIT in Jonesboro and he asked me if I was going to do the same for severe weather season?  I told him no because I don't want anyone to have the impression we won't have anymore severe weather.

Here's the good news.  I'm writing this on May 12th and when I look at the data through the next 7 days, I don't see a storm system affecting Arkansas that would be capable of producing severe weather.  That takes us past the middle of May.  Typically, our severe weather season can start in late winter and usually will last until mid May.

I WANT TO STRESS HERE, SEVERE WEATHER CAN HAPPEN ANYTIME OF THE YEAR SO NEVER STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE WEATHER

In previous blog posts, I mentioned we have 2 more hurdles this year to get over.  The first is tropical storm season.   Remnants of storms can move through the area producing severe weather.  Also, we have a secondary severe weather season in late fall.

So far this year, we have had 9 tornadoes in Arkansas and NO fatalities.  7 of those tornadoes occurred in late January.  That means this spring, we have only had 2 tornadoes!!!!!  Our yearly average in Arkansas is 33.  Let's make our goal to make 2012 a year without any tornado deaths by keeping everyone informed.  That's our goal every year, but you know how violent our weather can become.  The last time we went through an entire year without any tornado fatalities was 2007.