Dustin Staples

Praying for and thinking of all of y'all hit by or impacted by the extreme start to April severe weather. There were over 1,775+ combined Tornado Warnings, Severe Storm Warnings, and Flash Flood Warnings from April 1st to 6th. 13 days in a row back into late March had at least a Level 2 severe risk in the U.S. -- 20+ were killed from tornadoes and flooding, at least 10 of which in Tennessee alone. 72 confirmed tornadoes so far: EF-Unknown: 1 EF-0: 13 EF-1: 41 EF-2: 12 EF-3: 5 EF-4: 0* (but may be when surveys complete) EF-5: 0 I truly do not recall a spell like this in a long while. Strong-violent tornadoes of note hit Lake City, Selmer, La Grange, and Potosi. A few causes for this... the very warm Gulf water temps (source origin for rich, low level moisture) and weak La Nina, transitioning to neutral phase. Transitions from El Nino to La Nina and vice versa that align with spring are often extremely active. Looking ahead, a notable break appears in view. This very quiet severe period may hold through the end of April even. May, looks tricky. Some data advertises extremely active severe weather, even down into the Gulf Coast/Florida, other data is overall much quieter than normal. Large part depends on how fast we trend away from La Nina in the next few weeks. If there is interest especially -- soon I can try and get some thoughts together on tornado alley shifting east, which has seemed to percolate a lot of interest of late.