Active Severe Weather Season Ahead for Many

According to AccuWeather.com forecast for Spring 2011 calls for more wild weather for the U.S. The biggest concerns center around expectations of an active severe weather season, the spreading of a severe drought and a high wildfire danger, and, as always, threats for flooding.  Paul Pastelok, leader of the AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team, warned that this spring's severe weather season will be more active than normal, meaning there could be a higher-than-average number of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in the eastern part of the country.  He is also concerned about abnormally dry and warm conditions worsening a drought on the Plains and bringing a major hit to cotton growers in Texas and wheat growers in sections of the southern Plains.

Note that while temperatures are expected to average near or slightly below normal in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, this spring will feel much cooler as compared to last year, when the regions experienced record warmth in March and April.  These conditions will also bring about a high danger of wildfires from the southern Plains into the interior Southwest. More than 88,000 acres of land in western Texas were scorched just this past weekend as wildfires ignited in response to hot, dry conditions already surfacing.  As is the case every year, the big concern for people across the northern tier of the nation will be flooding with melting snow and spring storms bringing more snow and rain. This area will also lie in the path of more cold shots into April.

Severe Weather Season More Active than Normal

The zone of greatest concern for above-normal severe thunderstorm activity this spring, according to Pastelok, lies from Arkansas and Missouri into Tennessee and Kentucky, areas that have been targeted already by several severe outbreaks the last week of February.  He added that this zone could shift north-northeastward into Ohio, Indiana and Illinois later in the spring.  The factors pointing to increased severe weather activity in this zone include clashes that will take place between warm air across the southern tier of the nation and colder air to the north. A major player will also be the presence of moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, which is expected to be drawn most frequently into this zone.  An expected lack of Gulf moisture getting farther west into the areas of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas that are typically more prone to tornadoes and severe weather is why these states are not included in this main zone of concern for a severe weather season that is more active than normal.  That is not to say parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas will not be hit with severe weather this spring. It just means that severe weather outbreaks may not be as frequent as in areas farther east.