Severe Weather

September 15th, 2010 at 8:09 pm by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather
The Severe Weather Outlook Area for late tonight comes to Chicago and there’s a significant area outlined for tomorrow.   Already we’ve had reports of softball-sized hail from West Wichita KS (observed by an NWS employee!) and some hail reports in Minnesota.  They’ve had a tornado watch out for southern Minnesota.  Minnesota has had a record number of tornadoes this year (145).  They have had more tornadoes than any other state (by far, much bigger Texas is in 2nd place at 94 twisters).  Michigan has had 29 confirmed tornadoes this year, more than Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Indiana.  Georgia has only had 4 tornadoes in 2010.   Five states have recorded no tornadoes this year:  Alaska, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Idaho.  Michigan has reported 315 wind damage events this year.  That’s significantly more than Oklahoma (253) and more than double Louisiana (147).