March-April 2016 tallied the highest national count on record for this season’s 20-yr events (20.0% of all participating 909 stations). Even without including 2016, the upward trend of +2.7% per century was already significant (p=99%). The national result was anchored by record totals in the Northern Rockies (33.6%; mainly in Nebraska) and South (41.3%). These two regions show significant upward trends in this season (just over 4% per century each), although the upward trend in the South did not even reach the 90% significance threshold before 2015. On the other hand, the Northeast ended up with not a single station reporting a 20-yr event, equaling a 0% total for only the 17th time in March-April in 116 years. This bucks a highly significant (99.99%) upward trend of 8.8% per century through 2015.

Texas and Louisiana suffered through multiple flooding events, most notably in the Sabine River basin on March 12th (5 fatalities; $2.3B) and around Houston on April 17-18 ($2.7; 8 fatalities). Among the total of six Billion-Dollar Disasters ( https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/events), two Texas hailstorms with combined damages of $5.9B are noteworthy as well (no fatalities).