In its 2013 Atlantic hurricane season outlook issued today, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Centeris forecasting an active or extremely active season this year.

For the six-month hurricane season, which begins June 1, NOAA’s Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook says there is a 70 percent likelihood of 13 to 20 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 7 to 11 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 6 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher).

These ranges are well above the seasonal average of 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes.

The life of a road warrior can be hard, not only on the traveler but also on his or her family. Experienced business travelers explain how they MAINTAIN THE PERSONAL-PROFESSIONAL BALANCE.

Late on a Monday night, road warrior Natasha Engan gets off the plane at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and drives her rental car southwest on I-55, heading 135 miles to Bloomington, Ill.

She’s a vice president of sales for a major technology ­company. She’ll be in meetings the next morning, back on a plane to O’Hare, then down to Dallas. Three nights later, she’ll head home to her kids, Samantha, 6, and Bennett, 4.

“I do [trips like] that almost every week of the year,” she says. “I’m in sales, and my customers are all over.”

Her husband, Irwin Schwartz, is also a road warrior. He’s a lawyer focused on business litigation and dispute resolution, and his clients are almost always a long way from his office. He’s gone 30 to 40 percent of weeknights, all year. “Natasha and I try not to be away at the same time,” he says, “but it happens.”

Their parents and other family are nowhere close, so how do they do it? Sure, they have great helpers — “tag-team nannies,” Schwartz calls them — but balancing home and work life is a tall order.

 

A monster tornado packing winds as strong as 200 mph roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, pulverizing block after block of homes, wrecking an elementary school and leaving fires burning out of control.

Crews were frantically searching an estimated 30 square miles of wreckage and only beginning to get a sense of the destruction as night fell. Initial reports from NBC affiliate KFOR said at least four people were killed in the suburb of Moore, including a mother and child, and hospitals reported several dozen injured.

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Severe storms hit Oklahoma City on Saturday, trapping people in cars and knocking out power for thousands after pelting far southwest Oklahoma with hail the size of baseballs.

Power lines block Penn. Ave. just north of 150th in Oklahoma City after a storm moved through the area on Saturday, May 18, 2013. A tornado watch covering much of the state had expired by about 11 p.m., though a severe thunderstorm watch was expected to remain in place south and northeast of the metropolitan area, including Cleveland County, until 3 a.m. More severe weather is possible Sunday afternoon in central and eastern Oklahoma, said John Pike, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, Norman.

Multiple tornadoes swept through north Texas on Wednesday, damaging dozens of homes and claiming several lives, NBC Dallas Fort-Worth reported.

At least six people were killed after a twister touched down southeast of Granbury, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds announced in a midnight press conference. Up to 100 more were injured, some critically, The Associated Press reported.

The official start of the 2013 Eastern Pacific hurricane season is Wednesday, May 15.

With the season set to get underway, the tropics are already brewing as an area of unsettled weather crosses the eastern Pacific Ocean several hundred miles to the west of Panama.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/14/eastern-pacific-hurricane-season-may-start-out-active/#ixzz2TJrBK6sW

From the State Farm Press Release:

Weather Conditions Put Kentucky in the Top Ten

Murfreesboro, TN (April 22, 2013)

Wind and hail storms remain some of the most frequent and severe causes of property damage. This year the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety Research Center conducted the first-ever indoor hailstorm, in an effort to research building products and ways to educate consumers.