Our recent weather has seen a stormy change when compared with the drought filled summer. One reflection of this is shown by the featured chart of accumulated severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for each of the past five years. The top chart shows the nationwide accumulation while the bottom chart is for warnings issued by the NWS offices with Iowa coverage (includes some warnings slightly outside of Iowa). A logical correlation with drought conditions is the lack of heavy rainfall associated with severe thunderstorms. After being ahead of each year in late May for Iowa (purple line), the lack of many summertime storms now has 2012 as being the least of the past five years in early September.

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Tags:   nws   2012