The Forecast Feed: Severe Weather Just Hit Peak Season—Here's What's Coming

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]All right, on the feed, we're going to be talking about what severe weather.

[00:00:03]Why? Because, as you'll see, we are in the heart of the severe weather season.

[00:00:08]And so far this season, you know, what severe weather has been a little up and down. You know, we have times where we've had a lot of severe weather, then it goes quiet, then it comes back.

[00:00:18]It's not that unusual, but I did want to show you where we are for the season here.

[00:00:24]Uh I want to show you the tornado. Now, these are the reports. But again, we could we could gain something by looking at where we are so far this year compared to historical average for tornado reports here. And here we are.

[00:00:38]And here's the number now. So, the average from so far this season is about 597.

[00:00:46]So, that's what the average is. We're at 622. You know, to me, it's been an average severe weather season as far as the numbers are concerned. Now, let me go back a second. And then I want to show you something else. How about the wind reports? And this is where it gets a little interesting here. These are the wind reports that we've seen. About 2,500 is the historical average. We're closing in on 3,900.

[00:01:15]You know, in my mind, I think it's been a pretty robust severe weather season.

[00:01:18]Now, when you look at severe weather, a lot of people focus that on tornado production. But also, you know, wind is is something else to look at here. The hail, by the way, is about near average.

[00:01:29]So, I would say it's been exceptional as far as the numbers are concerned. And I do think moving forward here, things are going to be pretty quiet as we go over the next week or so. Until you can get warmth established and a flow coming in from the Gulf, you're not going to have a lot of severe weather. But this time of the year, it's pretty easy to get at least spotty severe thunderstorms here. Because, as I mentioned, you know, historically, look where we are right now as far as the uh severe weather season. I mean, here it is. This is the daily occurrence of tornadoes, you know, all year. And the it goes from 1950 through 2020. And when you look at the data, you see the ramping up here in March and April, and then you hit a the crescendo here late May.

[00:02:21]So, mid to late May is a very volatile time. And then you can see a quick drop-off here as we get June and July.

[00:02:28]And then you see another little increase here as we get into the fall months.

[00:02:33]This is the second severe weather season during the fall that uh we can sometime get here. So, that's where we are right now. The question is is what's going to be happening over the next couple of days. And I I really don't think we're going to be looking at a lot moving forward here. Now, beginning tomorrow, there's a dip in the jet stream coming across the central part of the United States. Here it is. I mean, you can see it right in here coming down across Midwest. Look, vigorous system, no doubt about that. I mean, you've got you've got some pretty good energy here denoted by the yellow and the orange shading.

[00:03:07]But, here's the problem.

[00:03:09]Uh when you look at the uh surface map, you can see that there is the the the uh modeling showing some some convection here. But, boy, I'll tell you what, this is pretty scant.

[00:03:23]Pretty scant here. Let me go to Let me go to the evening. See right in here, you have some precipitation here. But, right off the bat, that doesn't look like a whole lot, and there's a reason for that.

[00:03:34]Because you don't have a lot of moisture coming into this system. You have energy. Do you have enough warmth? Well, yeah. Look at temperatures tomorrow in there across Indiana and and Missouri and in the you know, uh middle to upper 70s.

[00:03:48]Middle to upper 70s. Do you have some wind You do have some wind energy? Not bad. Look at the low-level jet up in here. So, you've got some pretty good wind here across Illinois and Michigan.

[00:04:01]A little bit of wind about 30 knots here Indiana and Illinois, but here's the key.

[00:04:08]Here's the key. When you look at the temperatures, again, the best warmth for this is going to be downstate Illinois and in the Missouri, but the best wind when you look at it is up northern Illinois and northern in and Wisconsin and Michigan. And then when you look at the dew point temperatures, here's the other problem.

[00:04:27]These dew point temperatures, your 60° dew points are right down in here. I mean, the threshold is around 60°. It's in the middle 50s.

[00:04:36]You see a little surge coming northward.

[00:04:39]You see that? Right there.

[00:04:41]Not much. So, that tells me what severe weather we see is going to be very limited. And even into the northeast as you take the system out into the northeast on on Wednesday. Again, not a bad drop digging south and east. The model's showing, you know, some showers and thunderstorms here. No doubt about it as we get into the Wednesday afternoon. But again, let's look at the low-level jet. What does it look like?

[00:05:07]You know what? Not bad.

[00:05:09]Right in here across across Virginia and and and certainly in New England, but that's going to be too far north because you can see look at how cool it is. Where do you have the warmth? The best wind, let's go back to that. The best wind is up in here across New Jersey and northeastern New England, right? As far as the energy. That's the way you measure wind. But then when you look at the temperatures, wow, you have temperatures in the 70s in the southern New Jersey and Virginia, but you're in the 50s in New England. So, to me just looking at this and then you look at the dew point temperatures, again, what are your dew point temperatures? Middle 50s.

[00:05:52]The low level jets down in here.

[00:05:55]You go back to the surface map, tells me that maybe there's some isolated severe weather in Virginia, maybe in the south southern New Jersey Wednesday Wednesday night.

[00:06:05]And then that's it. I don't think there's much in the way of severe weather with this. Now, when you look at the pattern going forward, I do think by the time we get into uh next week, you're going to start getting warmer air in. You see that? Look at the dips in the jet stream. You start looking at temperatures here. Let's take a look at temperatures moving forward here as we get into Friday. Here comes the warmth in the plains. Look at the 80s. And then by the weekend, you start bringing warmer air in. The dew points are up.

[00:06:38]And then I think there's a possibility of severe weather as we get into the weekend and next week. We'll keep an eye on it.