Northwest Iowa — Experts tell us that we are past the “peak” tornado season in Iowa — and we have had fewer tornadoes this year than normal.
Phil Schumacher is a meteorologist and serves as the Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Sioux Falls. He says their office has not warned for very many tornadoes this year.
He says considering recent years, that’s much below average.
According to Schumacher, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
He also says that since this is farm country and hail can do a lot of damage to crops, he checked those stats as well, and found there have been fewer reports of large hail in the area this year as well.
He says that while he’s not sure if ocean temperature events like El Niño and La Niña have had any effect, he does have a theory as to why there have been fewer thunderstorms this year, and he explains what we would need for thunderstorm development.
The Weather Service says we’ll have a chance of thunderstorms many days this week, and in the next couple of weeks, we can expect warmer than normal temperatures, and more than the usual precipitation.
