We’re over half way through severe weather season here in the Ohio Valley but it’s just getting started for areas to our north. Severe weather season migrates to the north with the sun. It begins across the Gulf Coast States in late winter, reaches the Ohio Valley during the spring and moves to the northern plains and the Great Lakes region in late spring and early summer. So far in 2006 the preliminary numbers for tornadoes indicates that it has been a very volatile year. So far 632 tornadoes have been confirmed which is about twice the normal number. We are also running ahead of the huge number of tornadoes posted in 2004 when over eighteen hundred tornadoes were reported for the entire year.

You heard of Texas large. How about Saturn huge? I read in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society of a storm spotted on the surface of Saturn. This storm is larger than the United States and is putting out lightning a thousand times stronger than that found here on earth. I wonder how many times they interrupt TV programming on Saturn for storm reports?

I already mentioned that the prime severe weather season is drawing to a close but hurricane season is just around the corner. With the record breaking hurricane season from last year still fresh on our mind, there is a lot of concern as to what this year might bring. The 2005 season was a record breaking record setter. More than a dozen records fell last year, I’ll list those for you in a later blog. Some will argue that that was all due to global warming but the stronger case is that this is part of the normal hurricane cycle. From the early 1900’s into the mid 1920’s, hurricane activity was at a low. Then in the mid 1920 into the late 1960’s, Atlantic Ocean temperatures warmed and hurricane activity was at a high. From the late 1960’s to 1994 once again the Atlantic was in it’s cool cycle and activity decreased. Since 1995 we have seen the Atlantic return to it’s warm cycle with an increase in hurricane activity again. Unfortunately, this cycle may continue for another 10 to 20 years with active hurricane seasons likely during this time.

More interesting weather stuff is crossing my desk even as we speak. I’ll be getting back to you soon.