Good Weather News: National Dearth Of Tornadoes; Rainy Vermont

A rare March tornado in Middlebury, Vermont. Overall
in the nation, though, it's been a relatively quiet year
for twisters, at least so far. 

 Yesterday's post focused on a historic super outbreak of deadly tornadoes back in 2011, which was a tragedy. 

Today, we bring you relatively good news about tornadoes: This month in the United States, there hasn't been all that many of 'em. 

Up here in Vermont, we still need rain. And we're going to get it. More further down in the post. But first, tornadoes!

QUIET TORNADO APRIL

As Bob Henson notes on Twitter, through this past Monday, only 51 tornadoes had been noted in the United States this month. 

On average,  there are usually between 150 to 200 tornadoes in April.  

There were as many as a dozen tornadoes yesterday in Texas, Colorado and Oklahoma. There will likely be a few more twisters today. But there almost certainly won't be any big tornado outbreaks before April closes out Friday.  We might end April with fewer than 100 tornadoes, only the fourth time that's happened since 1990.  

Several influxes of cool, dry air from Canada into the Midwest and South have squelched tornado activity this month.  One crucial ingredient for tornado outbreaks are surges of warm, very humid air from the Gulf of Mexico into the heart of the country.  That has generally been lacking this month.

Overall, 2021 has been a relatively slow year for tornadoes, at least so far. Through Monday, there had been 269 tornadoes in the United States. Through the month of April, we usually have about 300 tornadoes.

March was a relatively busy month, compared to average. There were 191 tornadoes in the U.S. in March, 2021 including one oddly here in Vermont. 

Long range forecasters had noted earlier this year that large scale weather patterns this spring would have some similarities to that of 2011.  That prompted predictions of a busy, dangerous spring and early summer tornado season of 2021.

That still might happen, of course. May and early June are the peak months for U.S. tornadoes. The average number of U.S. tornadoes in May increases hugely to 276. In June, the average number is 243.

We definitely have a long way to go with this year's tornado season. At least we're off to a good start. 

Sadly, ten people have died in tornadoes so far this year. Still, that's not bad compared to some years, like 2011 when the death toll was in the hundreds.

The very strongest tornadoes, ones with a category of EF-5 with winds of over 200 mph, are obviously the most dangerous and deadly. 

It's been a long time since the nation has seen of those monsters, too. As Andrew Siffert noted on Twitter, we've gone 2,900 days or about eight years without an EF-5 tornado.  If we go another three weeks or so with no EF-5s, that would be the longest stretch on record. Fingers crossed! 

VERMONT RAIN

 

I've been harping all year that we need rain to overcome a lingering drought in Vermont. It seems this spring the only we get needed moisture it comes as snow.

Perhaps a little hard to see here, but an indication that
Vermont still needs rain.  The other day I dug into a pile
of soil I left last fall. A few inches down, it was still
as dusty as it was when I piled it up. (dusty part is lighter
brown/tan) We haven't had enough rain to percolate down.

So some good news for the rest of the week: We have a decent amount of rain coming.  And unless you live in a high elevation, it'll be all rain, not snow. (And the high elevation snow won't amount to anything much).  

Clusters of showers keep moving roughly west to east along a wavering weather front that is positioned mostly just to our south. One cluster clipped Vermont overnight with some rain central and south. 

Other batches of showers are due this afternoon and evening, Thursday afternoon and evening and on Friday. Overall these showers could accumulate to an inch of rain or more by the time we roll into Saturday. Some places could get more than 1.5 inches. 

That's not exactly torrential, given that the rain will come over three days or so.  But it will help at least a little. We still need a few to several inches of rain to overcome a deficit we've accumulated since last year.