Good Sunday everyone. Warmer weather is ready to surge back into the region and that can only mean one thing. Thunderstorms and severe weather will surely follow. That has been the trend of the spring… every time it warms it storms. We will dive into why that is the case this spring and look ahead to the next round of storms a few days from now.

The latest severe weather outbreak was nothing short of amazing as we have had more than 200 tornado reports over the past 3 days. Many of these were long tracked, deadly tornadoes that spread from Oklahoma all the way to the east coast. While Kentucky was spared the worst… two twisters did touch down in Trigg county.

This outbreak comes on the heels of the bad boy from just over a few weeks ago…


That one spawned the highest number of severe weather reports on record. Why are we seeing this unusually active severe weather season? There are a couple of signals that have been showing up for a few months and have been pointing the way toward a busy storm season.

The first culprit is the continued well above normal snowpack across Canada and much of the northern Hemisphere…



That has been causing colder than normal temps to take up residence across much of Canada with the occasional push southward into the United States.

That air then meets up with seasonal return of warm and moist air coming northward from the Gulf of Mexico. Except this year… the gulf waters are much warmer than normal…



Put those two extreme signals together and you have the recipe for major severe weather outbreaks from the plains through the Ohio Valley and into the southeast.

If you want to see a perfect illustration of these two at work… look no further than this coming Tuesday as another big severe weather outbreak will likely get going. The temp anomaly map for this Tuesday shows the battle…



In just a few hundred miles you will find temps nearing 20 degrees above normal and 20 degrees below normal. That is a heck of a temp gradient to spawn a big storm system capable of more severe weather and that is exactly what should happen early this week…




The sad thing is there may be another similar storm that moves in a few days later toward the end of the week.

I just don’t see this pattern changing very much over the next month or so. The heart of the severe weather season is still ahead of us and we may challenge records before all is said and done.

I guess we will enjoy the nice weather we have out there today and into Monday. Highs today will head back into the 60s as the sun returns. Readings for Monday will surge toward 70 or better with a slight chance for isolated storms in the north.

Have a great Sunday and take care.