BATON ROUGE, LA—It’s a scary situation when a tornado outbreak happens in your area, like what we saw on Tuesday, February 7th.
New Orleans/BR NWS Science and Operations Officer Michael Koziara, “What we were in for was a very abnormal situation yesterday. We had a very powerful sequence of meteorological parameters that came together to produce a rather significant tornado outbreak across southeast Louisiana.”
Koziara says the winter months aren’t Louisiana’s primary seasons for this type of severe weather.
“Our primary severe weather season is April, May and in the fall into October into early November,” says Koziara.
This event falls almost a year after the tornado outbreak on February 23rd, 2016.
“Normals are generally established over a 30 year period. And we’re just talking about two episodes that occurred in the two year time stand. They are a couple of outlier episodes.”
And Koziara says though we’ve been seeing abnormally warm temps, there are more weather factors that go into a tornado outbreak.
“Sometimes in weather there are unusual events that occur.”
Local 33’s Weathercaster Carla Pesono says, “Remember to pay attention to the forecast every single day and make sure you have access to weather warnings like your phone. In case a severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning goes into effect. You have to have the plan in place beforehand. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.”
Koziara adds, “Tornadoes are a rare event but they can happen so one must always be weather-wise”