A STINT WITH SEVERE WEATHER

It's no secret this severe weather season has been pretty slow. Typically around this time of year there would be multiple days of severe weather with few breaks. It seems to be the opposite this go round with periods of calm weather with some severe weather sprinkled in. This isn't a bad thing at all... but of course we still have many months to go of the season.

Here's a look at some numbers though.. the comparison of last year's tornado season versus average through May 17th.

We are almost half of normal for tornadoes this year and we're in the peak of tornado season right now. Here's a comparison of the number of tornado reports through May 17th from the last 13 years.

This is a small sample of years. However, looking at the years that had a similar mid-May tornado count, they all ended up below normal for tornadoes for the year. I'm sure there have been some exceptions, but of course it can become a destructive season based on the strengthen of the tornadoes and where they strike.

This week there was a big wind event in the NE United States on Tuesday. Then the weather quieted down. Now it's ramping up and strong storms have been moving through the Central Plains Friday evening.

Storms will continue through the night and move out early Saturday morning. Then the severe weather threat shifts further east Saturday afternoon and evening.

The big concern with these storms will be large hail, but tornadoes cannot be ruled out either, especially in that orange (enhanced) area.

Here's one of the medium range models, the NAM, showing the storms overnight into Saturday and Sunday.

Eventually storms make their way back into my local area. Right now there's still some uncertainty on how Sunday unfolds but there could be some strong storms near and south of I-80 in Iowa and Illinois in the afternoon.

This will be our brush with active and severe weather before it calms down early next week with warmth and typical afternoon showers and storms.

RK