By Eric Stock

LINCOLN – If there’s a good thing about record snow in April, it’s that severe weather has been almost non-existent in Central Illinois this year – or just delayed.

Chris Miller, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Lincoln, said severe weather season typically stretches into June and once the jet stream finally pushes to the north, it will feel more like spring.

“We don’t want to read too much into that and say that we’re not going to have any severe weather this year, we are just getting a little bit later start like everything,” Miller said. “The planting season, the thunderstorm season, everything is several weeks behind.

Miller predicts a stormy May across much of the Midwest so he said we shouldn’t “let our guard down.”

“We do see some indication that is going to hit pretty hard as we get into the month of May across a large part of the Midwest and the Plains which could include parts of Central Illinois,” Miller said. “We just have to keep an eye on that as we get closer.”

This is the first time since records have been kept that Kansas and Oklahoma haven’t had a tornado this late into spring. Illinois has had five, but all have been in southern Illinois.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].