(April, 19, 2011) - From raging wildfires in the west to devastating severe storms and tornado outbreaks in the east, National Weather Service Southern Region forecast offices faced a week of extreme weather challenges.

From April 14th through the 18th, 15 Southern Region offices issued well over 500 Tornado, Severe Thunderstorm and Flash Flood Warnings in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. More than 50 tornadoes were confirmed and the average tornado warning lead time was an exceptional 27 minutes, which is more than double the national average.

While 17 people died during the high wind and tornado events in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama, it's believed the total could have been much higher without the lengthy warnings. In addition to the warnings, many of the offices provided first mentions of the potential for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes in Hazardous Weather Outlooks hours and, in some cases, days before the storm system fired up.

And even as the southeast was being pounded with high winds, hail, drenching rainfall and tornadoes; the west, especially Texas, continued to be plagued with rapidly growing wildfires. During the period, at least 80 new wildfires burned more than 850,000 acres, destroyed at least 60 homes and threatened hundreds more in Texas alone.

Several Incident Command Centers have been established by the Texas Forest Service to direct an estimated 1,300 volunteer firefighters working major blazes throughout the state. All have been getting a wide range of decision support services from National Weather Service forecast offices.

"Our forecast offices have been providing decision support to local, county, state and federal partners in advance of these high impact events since early in the week," said Southern Region Meteorological Services Chief Tom Bradshaw. "By Thursday, the pace of local office briefings increased to a high level with numerous conference calls, individual phone briefs and an array of graphical and text products; and Emergency Response and Incident Meteorologists were deployed to on-site command centers."

Armed with the knowledge of pending long-term severe to extreme drought conditions outlined in the NOAA Climate Prediction Center Seasonal Drought Outlooks, forecast offices in the region began preparing the public for a critical fire weather season as early as the fall of 2010.

"Our office and neighboring forecast offices have worked hard to get the word out leading up the wildfire outbreaks of the last several weeks," said Justin Weaver, meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service office in Lubbock. "Working with the Texas Forest Service, numerous fire weather workshops have been held for first responders and the media in anticipation of the wildfire spring of 2011."

Extreme drought conditions continue across much of Texas, southern New Mexico and southern and western Oklahoma. These regions have seen little to no rain over the last two months and no immediate relief is in sight.

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