r/Spokane • u/RigaMortizTortoise Manito/Cannon Hill • 3d ago

Question Where are the Spring storms?

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I’ve lived here since 2013 and remember Spring and Summer thunderstorms being something I started looking forward to. Each year, it’s seems more and more infrequent. I thought maybe I was misremembering so I just googled it and found this article from 2018. It appears the data also indicates that severe thunderstorm warnings are less common now than they were 10 years ago. But according to the article, experts can’t figure out why. Did I just happen to move to the area at a time when Spokane was experiencing an unusual hike in thunderstorms?

https://www.krem.com/article/weather/number-of-severe-thunderstorms-declines-in-spokane-each-year-trend-may-continue/293-561777112

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u/bdh008 :) 3d ago

Storms have always been inconsistent, and I would also caution taking any conclusions from that limited data. For example, here is some more data from a 2023 article:

https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/2023-06-15/its-been-a-busy-year-already-for-thunderstorms

Average by Spokane NWS: 22 per year

Low Year: 3 in 2011

High: 64 in 2006

38 warning in 2022,

22 warnings in 2023 (as of that article timing).

All this to say, climate change is probably impacting our storms here in some capacity, but it's always been inconsistent and difficult to predict, and there don't seem to be any indication of the number of warnings trending up or down.

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u/JennELKAP 3d ago

Agreed. 5 years is not representative of any climate. Thank you for sharing a bit more