The recent fatalities from a strong tornado in Oklahoma over the weekend continues the trend for what has been a deadly year for tornadoes so far.

Article Link: Deadly U.S. tornado year trend continues; deaths in every month so far

Interesting and certainly sad but by no means unusual and maybe not what I'd call a trend. You dont have to go too far back to find years where there have been fatalities in every month from Jan to April.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/fataltorn.html#2009

Its really hard to pick any discernible trend from the data for the past 60 years on a month by month basis in terms of frequency each month.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/monthlytorcharts/

Certainly over the past 10 years some have been below the long term average and some above.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/torngraph-big.png

At least the article in question didn't try to link it back to climate change.

This latest outbreak was a much better result than what happened last year.

Storms last year were further east in the more populated areas of Dixie Alley. These storms were a bullseye for Tornado Alley. If storms keep forming in this area is hard to see how this year could be even close to as deadly as last year.

The best video to come out of the US storm season so far, without a shadow of a doubt...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aym3-y3qihM

Mesmerizing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKwbyybUmmc

Wow.

Yes love to be filming that. They are beautiful when out in the open .cheers Doug