Early and busy start to severe weather season has now come to a screeching halt

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After an early and busy start to our severe weather season, it’s been quiet.  Things slowed down significantly, and so far for the month of June, one of our biggest months for severe storms, not much is going on.

Typically, March is not a big severe weather month, but the March 2nd tornado outbreak in the Tri-State started things off a bit early, and it didn’t stop there.

Our area continued to see more and more severe weather events, one after the other. 

In fact, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, we’ve had an above average number of severe weather warnings for the first part of the year, from January through May. 

Even though we’ve been hit hard this year, believe it or not, last year we had MORE severe warnings for that time period, than this year.

Here’s the breakdown:

January-May, 2012

Average number of Severe Warnings = 130 warnings   (Since 1995)
Jan - May 2012 = 154 warnings  (up through June 4 ^th) 
Most number of Severe Warnings = 281 warnings in 2011
Least number of Severe Warnings = 46 warnings in 2005

After a, active start to our severe weather season, everything seemed to come to a screeching halt in April, but especially in May.  Not much happened in May, but we still had some severe weather warnings.

May 2012

Average number of Severe Warnings = 70 warnings  (Since 1995)
May 2012 = 52 warnings
Most number of Severe Warnings = 181 warnings in 1996 (129 last year in 2011)
Least number of Severe Warnings = 14 warnings in 1999

It’s been quiet for this first week in June, but June is actually our BIG month.

Since 1995, the top 3 warning months are all Junes.  They occurred in 1995, 1998, & 2008. 

According to Seth Binau, the Science & Operations Officer at the National Weather Service, we average about 95 warnings for the month of June.  He also pointed out that July sees a considerable fall-off with only an average of 61 severe weather warnings.

Click here to get more information from the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

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