The Storm Prediction Center shared a cool animation on their facebook page today showing all of the storm based Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Warnings from 2012. All of the Tornado Warnings are shaded in red and the Severe Thunderstorm Warnings are shaded in blue. I thought it was interesting to see just how quiet the D.C. area was even through the months of April and May before some of the bigger systems came through during the summer months (ahem, derecho).

Here's the animation:

Here's another graphic that Senior Meteorologist Bob Ryan showed me from the Storm Prediction Center as well showing the number of Tornado Watches and Warnings and the departure from normal below.

2012 Tornado Watches (Top Left) T-Storm Watches (Top Right) and Departures (Bottom left and right)

It's interesting to see the "hot spots" in this graphic with the highest number of Tornado Watches issued per county in southern Mississippi and the highest number of T-Storm Watches in TX, OK as well as IL, OH and KY. The D.C. Metro actually had a positive departure of Tornado Watches (meaning there were more issued then average) but it was close to normal for T-Storm Watches Watches.