When hurricanes, hail and wildfires are most likely to strike

Welcome to hurricane season. Jun. 1 to Nov. 30 is the official season for hurricanes in the Atlantic. Forecasters are predicting fewer than average storms this year, though that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be less deadly than other years.

Data scientist Seth Kadish, who runs the blog Vizual Statistix, recently created this graphic showing the “seasons” for 10 different weather-related events across the U.S., including wildfires, tornados and hail, between 2005 and 2014.

Here’s how to read the graphic: Each of the boxes represents one calendar day, starting from the top left-hand corner (Jan. 1) and then counting downward to Jan. 7 before jumping to the next column. The color of the box indicates how common the weather event is, with light yellow indicating that the event is rare on that day and green showing that it happens frequently.

You can see that hail, funnel clouds and tornados are mostly spring and early summer events. Flash floods, heavy rains and lightning storms go hand in hand in the summer months of June, July and August, while dense fog is mostly a winter event.

The trends around wildfires are more interesting – Kadish points out the unusually dark square on Jan. 1, when wildfires might have been started due to New Year’s fireworks.