Tornadoes! Almost everyone’s favorite weather related subject! Wisconsin isn’t necessarily known for their severe weather but some years can change prospectives. The 2011 severe weather season was a very active year for the state of Wisconsin, started out with a big bang, and ended as the 4th busiest tornado season on record.
April 10th was the busiest Severe Weather day of the year in Wisconsin. It all started out with a strong warm front that pushed northward into northern parts of the state. Temperatures soared into the 80s, we had very unstable conditions, the right amount of wind sheer and CAPE (convective available potential energy), and a approaching cold front/low pressure area that helped generate thunderstorms by 3 pm. Most of that State (excluding SE Wisconsin) were under Tornado Watches. By days end there were 15 tornadoes, which set a new record for the most ever on a April day. The strongest tornado was a EF-3 tornado near Merrill.
The 38 tornadoes that touched down in the Badger State put this years total at number four all time for most tornadoes in a year, tying with the 2008 season. Keep in mind that these tornadoes occurred on ten days: April 22nd, May 22nd, June 8th, June 19th, June 21st, July 1st, July 19th, August 8th, August 19th, and August 23rd. Most of these tornadoes were on the weak side---13 EF-0’s and 17 EF-1’s. Unfortunately, there was one fatality this year related to the tornadoes in Marinette County when an older gentleman’s oxygen machine shut down due to the loss of power.
Now that we can safely say that the 2011 Tornado Season is over, what will 2012 have in store for us as we approach Spring? All I know is we'll always be able to look back on the 2011 Tornado Season as a season to remember!
this was a weird spring and summer as far as tornado outbreaks the joplin twister still bothers me even thou i wasn't there it seamed like we had fewer twisters than previous years and most of them were in the south with one in wisconsin none as i remember being reported in illinois which was strange because we always get one or two if not more some times we had less violent weather except febuary 2011.
ReplyDeleteThis whole tornado season this year was weird...we had so many tornado outbreaks and I must say VIOLENT outbreaks. The Dixie outbreak in late April was the worst I've seen in my life time and it might be the worst seen in this generation. I really hope we do not see anything like that for a long time!
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