This blog is intended to facilitate communication about the impacts of selected severe weather events, particularly major tornadoes, in the United States in near-real-time. We hope it will allow us to assist media, forecasters, researchers, emergency managers, and other interested parties to understand what we at the NOAA Weather Partners in Norman, Oklahoma have been able to gather about the events. We also hope to include information that puts recent events into historical perspective and provide guidance about how to interpret the record of reported events.
This blog is not intended to provide critical weather forecast information. For that, go to the National Weather Service 
, especially the Storm Prediction Center for national guidance, and your local National Weather Service Forecast Office for local information. Find it here . Nor is this intended to provide information on a broad range of research topics associated with severe weather. For that, go to the National Severe Storms Laboratory .
UPDATE (14-Aug-2012): Graph corrected to indicate 2006 as previous 15 Apr-31 Jul minimum.
The 2012 tornado season in the United States got off to a quick start with well-above average numbers in January, February, and March. Later, over 80 tornadoes occurred on 14 April. Since then, the number of tornadoes in the US has been unusually [...]
In May 2012, there were no tornado deaths in the United States. How unusual was that?
We can look at the record of tornado deaths, discussed here, dating back to 1875. The last time there were no deaths in the month of May was in 2005. Prior to that, it was 1994. Overall, there have been [...]
The charts below illustrate that occasional weak cool-season links may occur between the phase strength of the EL Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO phase strength) and EF1 to EF5 tornado reports for bi-monthly periods from 1950 through 2010 (1951 to 2011 for the last pair, Dec-Jan period). The charts display a simple running sum of EF1 [...]
A review of this past week’s widespread severe weather event…
Information on the 10 May 2010 tornado outbreak in Oklahoma and Kansas
Preliminary information on the long-track tornado that went from eastern Louisiana across much of Mississippi.
1. It had a path length of at least 97 miles. Over the last 40 years, we’ve averaged about one 100 mile path length tornado every 2 years.
Update (27 April): The path length is now given as 149 [...]
Short answer: apparently not! Longer answer follows.
Few tornadoes have occurred to date in 2010, especially when compared to very active recent years such as 2008. The adjusted annual tornado trend shown below indicates that 2010, with 79 tornadoes (adjusted) through April 15, is rapidly approaching the minimum number of tornadoes expected through this time of [...]
A late tornado report has been received, so there’s now 1 tornado in the database for February 2010.
How does the 23-day tornado drought in November 2009 compare with other years?
One of the interesting questions that comes up every year is how to compare a tornado season with previous seasons. In 2009, that question has come up particularly in light of the quiet conditions lately. One way to do this is to start by adjusting historical reports for the long-term “inflation” in reports. [...]