Recent wacky weather trends don’t appear to be over

While conditions Monday maybe warm and sunny, things were a little bit more interesting on Sunday when a funnel cloud was spotted in the Bone area.

“A lot of times they don’t do anything,” John Keyes of the National Weather Service said of funnel clouds. “They’re just a nice picturesque view to look at, occasionally they do touch down.”

According to Keyes, it’s not a tornado until a touchdown is officially confirmed. The Gem State generally averages about 12 twisters each year, but Keyes says you shouldn’t be too concerned.

“They’re these smaller tornadoes, now they do damage, we don’t want to minimize that,” he said. “They can cause damage, but they’re not the big tornadoes that you see that are on the ground for miles and miles.”

Keyes said that it’s likely we’re seeing more tornadic activity due to newer technology that allows groups, like the national weather service, to identify and record the storms.

While there aren’t any more tornadoes in our current forecast, it does look like the recent rainy weather is making a comeback.

“In the next two weeks, there’s the potential for it to remain on the wet side overall,” Keyes said.

This wet weather seems to have pushed back the start of fire season, but it could ultimately make things worse.

“I think a lot of people say ‘well it’s wet, we’re not gonna have a fire season,’ that’s not necessarily the case,” Keyes said.

“What you have to look at when you have these really wet patterns is the fact that you get a lot of grass and brush and stuff that really gets going and grows.”

At that point, all it takes is a spark.

But overall, the next few months are expected to be just about average, if not slightly off.

“The trend is for it to be a little bit wetter than normal, but it’s going to be warmer than normal so we’ll have to see how that plays out.”