Pirate's Cove

Because tornadoes never happened before people drove fossil fueled vehicles and had freedom

Are There Climate Fingerprints in Tornado Activity?

It’s been a weird few weeks for weather across the United States.

While the West braces for the peak of a record-breaking heat wave, massive snowstorms and hail pummel several states in the Midwest. Meanwhile, communities in the Southeast and along the East Coast contend with severe storms that could trigger flooding and wind damage throughout the region.

In certain areas, these storms could bring some of the deadliest weather disasters: tornadoes. Several tornadoes ransacked the Midwest earlier this month, with multiple fatalities confirmed. A few more twisters have already hit this week, including in Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina. Tornado warnings extended as far north as New Jersey Monday night.

You mean like always?

This aligns with a subtle shift scientists have observed in the places these weather events hit, with rising tornado frequency across parts of the Northeast, the Southeast and the Midwest. At the same time, researchers have seen a decrease in the atmospheric conditions that support tornadoes in some parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado—where they’ve historically been a greater threat. There are some indications that climate change has played a part in this trend and slight changes in tornado behavior in recent decades, as my colleague Kiley Bense reported.

But tornadoes are notoriously difficult to predict, and sussing out their climate connection is even harder, scientists say. While many questions remain, any changes in tornado activity and ranges could have major consequences for the more populated Southeast and East Coast.

You can see where they’re going: “we do not really know for sure, but, hey, you should still believe this is all Someone Else’s fault”

“Each tornado is a localized creature, which makes it difficult to link directly to global climate trends,” meteorologist Bob Henson wrote for Yale Climate Connections in 2021.

Still, some answers to how tornado behavior is changing over the long term are coming into focus. More data exists as stormchasers and social media users contribute photos and videos of tornadoes.

Let me ask: can they make comparisons to previous Holocene warm periods? If not, no scientific determination can be made as to if anything unusual is going on.  How much does land use and Urban Heat Island effect have on twisters? None of this matters to the cult, it’s all about prognosticating doom to create stronger governmental control.