Vlad Valasiuk

TORNADO SEASON BEGINS SOON: Alabama’s tornado season runs from November through May, so we will be in that season in less than one week. Here's a map that needs a little explaining. It's from Dr. Victor Gensini's group at Northern Illinois University — a 'top ten analogs' map for Week 3, November 10–16. Dr. Gensini is a friend and they do wonderful work at NIU. Here's what that means: they found the ten past weeks whose large-scale patterns best matched the one expected that week, then plotted where tornadoes happened in those weeks. Each dot is a tornado report from those analog weeks. Red dots are significant tornadoes, EF2 or stronger. Total: 290 tornadoes across the ten weeks, an average of 29 per week, with 39 significant ones. Notice where they cluster: the Deep South, including right here in Alabama, plus parts of the Midwest. That's the classic fall severe weather setup for “Dixie Alley”. Important: this is NOT a forecast of 290 tornadoes that week, and it doesn't mean your town gets hit. It's a heads-up: the pattern shaping up for mid-November has historically produced elevated tornado activity in the Southeast. Stay weather-aware as we get into November.