April 20, 2022 – It’s never too soon to start thinking about severe weather, even in the middle of a cold spring.

“It seems like we’re getting more and more severe weather than we have in the past,” said Charlie Shortino, chief meteorologist at Madison’s WMTV NBC 15. “More flooding, more severe thunderstorms, stronger winds.”

Shortino spoke with the State Bar of Wisconsin earlier this month about Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness Week, which was observed April 4-8.

Shortino said severe weather season in Wisconsin typically begins in mid-April and runs through September.

During his interview, Shortino discussed why thunderstorms rarely hit the West Coast and how lightning during snowstorms in Wisconsin works.

In addition to his weatherman duties, Shortino serves as an expert witness in legal cases that involve weather.

In one recent case, Shortino analyzed the path of a snowstorm after being hired for the plaintiff’s lawyer in a personal injury case.

A truck driver was speeding southwest from Green Bay and rear-ended a car near Dodgeville, causing significant injuries to the car’s occupants.

“He was claiming that he just all of a sudden came across snow,” Shortino said.

“I went in 15-minute increments to see where he’d been and what the weather was like, and we proved that it began snowing just after he got through Fond du Lac and it was snowing all the way through Madison and all the way to Dodgeville.”