#1368 Postby ElectricStorm » Mon May 31, 2021 10:09 pm
Well May is in the books and I have mixed thoughts about it, so I will divide this post into national impacts, and local impacts...
National:
May 2021 wasn't all that active, however it was much better than 2020 and 2018, although that's not really saying much. Only one 15 hatched tor risk day (5/26), along with the two 45 hatched wind/hail days (5/4 and 5/17) total 3 moderate risks in May, which isn't a great showing for May but it's not as abysmal as last year. Overall, the first week and the last week of the month were pretty active, with the middle portion being pretty lame. One thing that this month really featured though was the overperforming 5% tor risk/slight risk days. I mean, several of these slight risk days just went off, especially at the beginning and end of the month. There were only a couple of days that didn't live up to or exceed their expected potential. Also it's nice that the majority of these days occurred over relatively rural areas, especially the last week of the month.
Grade: C+
Local:
This is where it goes downhill... fast. I don't root for huge outbreaks. And I also don't root for tornadoes to hit in my area (or anyone's for that matter, unless it's just fields of course). That being said however, considering May is peak storm season, I would like to have some solid storms in my area. Unfortunately, for the third time in the last 4 years, this didn't really happen. I ended up with 1 solid storm day out of the entire month. One. That's 2018 and 2020 levels of inactivity here, although the one event we had this month was pretty great, much better than the single event of both of those years. Don't get me wrong here, I'd rather take the inactivity over a continuous deluge of tornado outbreaks and record setting flooding in the area like parts of 2019, but man it's tough sitting through a cool and rainy pattern instead of nice warm and occasionally stormy weather during peak storm season. If it wasn't for 5/27 coming in clutch with back to back great storms, this grade would be much lower.
Grade: C-
Now for the overall storm season: (I realize we still have June, so I'll update this post and give an overall season grade/review at the end of the month)
National:
March was absolutely insane. I mean, 2 high risk outbreaks and a moderate risk plains event would be crazy for April or May, let alone March. April was abysmal overall with zero 15 hatched tor risk days, which I mentioned in a different post back at the end of April. There were a few notable events, but not very much. I will say though that the slight risk days have really been big time this year. I'm impressed by how many of them have overperformed.
Grade: B-
Local:
Flat out terrible, one of least active seasons I've ever experienced here. Had two great events, 4/9 and 5/27, but other than that this season was just dominated by cold shots and bad timing, as a few days looked good in advance, but the storms didn't get here until early morning and by that time they're basically just showers. Besides those two days, hardly had any thunder at all here.
Grade: D+
Again we still have June to go for the northern part of the country, and perhaps a good MCS or two here hopefully, although it's been a few years since we've had a solid June event here. Anyway I'll update this again at the end of June and see where we are at.
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I am in no way a professional. Take what I say with a grain of salt as I could be totally wrong. Please refer to the NHC, NWS, or SPC for official information.
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