Are we expecting severe storms?

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Well, typically mid to late May can be one of our most active stretches in that severe weather season for this part of the country. And yes, we have some storm chances in the forecast the next several days, but we're not exactly concerned about severe weather. And here's why.

[00:00:12]You need four main ingredients for severe weather to happen. You need lift, which we'll have at times over the next several days. You need moisture. We're actually going to have an abundance of that over the next several days. And you also need instability, or we would like to use the term storm fuel. So, we'll have all those three things, but the fourth thing that we're going to be missing, and that is wind shear. And when I say wind shear, we're talking about the change in speed and the change in direction of winds as you go aloft in the atmosphere. And if the direction of your wind at the ground is blowing east, and it's also blowing that same direction in the sky, well, there is no directional wind shear.

[00:00:46]And if your winds at the ground are like 10 mph and they're also like 10 mph as you go higher up in the sky, there's no change here, so there's no speed shear.

[00:00:55]And not having wind shear is good news because I think we can both agree we don't want any more severe weather from the rest of this spring.