It's a Twister!! It's a Twister!!!

[gblowfish]

Meanwhile, Katie is getting moist:
(graphic from Tony's KC website: http://www.tonyskansascity.com/ )

http://www.kctv5.com/weather/22719117/detail.html

FAIRWAY, Kan. -- The Storm Track 5 Weather Team is focusing its sights on the upcoming severe weather season and what it will mean to the viewers in the KCTV5 area and those following along at KCTV5.com.

This season will be similar to 2003 and 2007, when it was really active across the Southern Plains and relatively early in the season. Those two years saw a fair share of tornadoes across the region.

On May 4, 2003, the Kansas City area was hit with a major outbreak of tornadoes. Four twisters struck in the immediate metro area. One touched down on the grounds of Fort Leavenworth, while Kansas City, Kan., was hit by another tornado.

Additional tornadoes damaged Gladstone and Liberty on the Missouri side.

Exactly four years ago to the day after the Kansas City outbreak, the town of Greensburg, Kan., was leveled by a devastating EF-5 tornado. It was the strongest tornado touchdown in the United States in eight years.

With tornado season right around the corner, the weather staff will be tracking the storms at KCTV5, and viewers can track the storms on KCTV5.com. We will be unveiling new technology that will allow you to track our storm chasers live in the field, run your own radar and zoom down to your neighborhood for greater detail.

It's probably hard to think about spring weather after the cold and snowy winter Kansas City has suffered. It's not just us. It has been a messy winter across many parts of the country. Record snow fell in Atlanta and Dallas, while mudslides wreaked havoc in California.

The wild winter weather was caused, in part, by El Nino. El Niño is the warming of the ocean waters in the Pacific that causes the jet stream, or the storm track, to strengthen across the southern United States.

"Currently we are actually in a moderately strong El Niño and that's expected to weaken slightly over the next couple of months," said meteorologist Greg Postel.

The United States has had two other El Niño episodes over the past decade, with our current El Niño being the strongest. The severe weather season this spring is forecast to be similar to the spring of 2003 and 2007, as they all came off of an El Niño winter.

An exact correlation between El Niño and tornadoes is unclear. However, based on past El Nino years, the frequency of strong to violent tornadoes has slightly increased coming off an El Nino winter.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Kansas City area will be directly affected, however. A slightly more active tornado season than 2009 is forecasted for the metro, along with an active severe weather season across the Southern Plains.

Keep in mind, only one day, or one outbreak of tornadoes, can mean the difference between an active or quiet tornado season.