dorothyalert.com / trends
One storm is an event; a season is a pattern. This page tracks the rhythms DorothyAlert members watch year after year — when severe season peaks from the Plains to the East Coast, when tropical systems bear watching along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, how northern winters compare to southern storm seasons, and how each season compares to the last.
| Season | What we watch | Group notes |
|---|---|---|
| Spring (Mar–May) | Peak severe season. Cold fronts colliding with warm, humid air bring the year's best chance of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes across Tornado Alley, the Southeast, and the Midwest. | Outlook posts get more frequent; this is the group's busiest alert season and prime storm-photography time. |
| Summer (Jun–Aug) | Pop-up thunderstorms, heat, and the start of hurricane season (June 1 – Nov 30). Afternoon storms fire fast; lightning and flash flooding are the everyday threats. | Lightning photos peak. Tropical tracking begins — most U.S. tropical trouble historically arrives late summer into fall, along the Gulf Coast, Florida, and the Southeast. |
| Fall (Sep–Nov) | Tropical peak, then a second severe mini-season. September is the heart of hurricane risk for the Gulf Coast, Florida, and the East Coast; late fall fronts can spin up brief tornadoes in the Southeast and Midwest. | Hurricane outer-band and flooding reports dominate early fall; damage documentation season follows any landfall. |
| Winter (Dec–Feb) | Snow, ice, and deep cold — depending on where you are. The northern U.S. gets blizzards and lake-effect snow, the South and mid-Atlantic get ice storms near the rain–snow line, and cold snaps can reach the Gulf Coast. Winter extremes look different in every region, and members report them all. | Ice-storm photography, road-condition reports, and the annual debate about whether this is finally a real snow year. |
Every member has a phone camera now, so every funnel gets filmed. The group tries to separate real pattern changes from the fact that we're all watching — and recording — far more than we used to.
In every region, certain low roads, creek crossings, and coastal spots flood again and again. Years of member reports from across the country have built a shared map of them — the Trends page is where that local knowledge, from dozens of states and a few other countries, gets written down.
U.S. tornadoes were once thought of as a spring story in the Plains. Members increasingly log fall and even winter events in the Southeast and Midwest — often spun up by tropical systems or strong cold-season fronts — plus severe weather reports from international members year-round.
Coastal landfall is only the start: tropical systems regularly bring inland states their heaviest rain, worst flooding, and spin-up tornadoes, sometimes hundreds of miles from the coast. Inland is not the same as unaffected — a trend every season reinforces.
DorothyAlert members are enthusiasts, not meteorologists. Trend posts compare seasons, share official National Weather Service and NOAA information, and argue cheerfully about what it means — but official forecasts and climate data always outrank group opinion, and posts say so.
Season wrap-ups — “how this spring compared to last” — are posted in the Facebook group at each season's end, and the lasting conclusions land on this page. Bring your own rainfall totals, storm counts, and photos; the more records from different states and countries, the better the pattern shows.
Trend discussions happen in the group all year — wettest month, worst ice storm, best lightning night. Your records are welcome.
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