A viewer tornado question
NORTHERN MICHIGAN -- From: Frederick Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 11:44 AM
To: jcharlevoix@tv7-4.com
Subject: A weather question
I like watching the weather trivia, and after the question about what the best tornado detector is, I guessed the wrong answer but I do have a question that I am unsure about. When is our peak season for tornado's. I was thinking spring because the weather is changing so much from cold to warm to cold so quick. But then again, that happens in the fall too.I am really unsure about this. Hopefully you can help me out with this. Thank you for your time.
Frederick Scherf/Rapid City
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Hi Frederick,
Thank you very much for watching and writing your question. You would be correct that for the Southern States and the Southern/Central portion of the Great Plains, tornado season is in mid/late spring. For us here in Northern Michigan however, peak tornado season historically has been July. June and July both have the highest amount of reported tornadoes, and that’s because by that time of year, it is warm enough and we have higher dewpoint/humidity levels to feed severe thunderstorms that could produce tornadoes.
In fact, looking even further, most tornadoes in our region (although there are not that many) have occurred between 3:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. during the peak heating of the afternoon/evening. Again, not all of them, but many of them occur during those hours.
I appreciate you writing Frederick and again, thanks for choosing TV 7&4 for your local news/weather/sports.
-Joe Charlevoix/7&4 Storm Team Meteorologist
