tagged w/ Tornadoes
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Six more weeks of winter, eh? The bizarre weather outside is more like spring, with a blizzard in Denver and tornado warnings and watches elsewhere all in the same day.
One day after the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil "forecasted" six more weeks of winter, a potentially record-breaking blizzard is socking Denver today (Feb. 3). By the time the storm passes on Sunday, it could set a February snowfall record in the city. This storm is odd because big snowstorms in Denver are actually more common in spring than winter.
And more springlike weather is sweeping across the southern United States as well, with tornado watches and warnings under way from Oklahoma to Louisiana.
Rare winter storm
In Denver, a foot (0.3 meters) of snow has fallen this morning, forcing schools to cancel classes and grounding more than 400 flights at Denver International Airport, according to AccuWeather. With temperatures around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 12 degrees Celsius), winds of 40 mph (64 kph), and whiteout conditions due to snow falling at rates of up to 2 inches (5 cm) an hour, the weather in Denver is downright nasty.
Adding insult to injury, the snow is falling east of the Continental Divide, where many ski resorts are, so they will get little benefit from the blizzard.
A winter storm warning is in effect for Denver until 5 a.m. Mountain Time (7 a.m. EST) tomorrow (Feb. 4). Close to 2 feet (0.6 m) of snow could fall by then. [Weirdo Weather: 7 Rare Weather Events]
This blizzard is unusual for Denver because big storms typically hit here in the fall and spring, not the winter, according to the Weather Channel's Eric Fisher (A wild snowstorm hit Denver this past October).
Southern 'spring'
Springlike conditions are also sweeping the South, with a tornado watch in effect this morning for parts of central Oklahoma and the southeastern Texas panhandle.
"We have a fairly warm and somewhat unstable air mass over the area right now and that's partly contributing to the rounds of severe weather," said meteorologist Andy Patrick with the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles, La.
Earlier this morning, tornado warnings were issued for parts of the Texas-Louisiana border, but no tornadoes were reported to the nation's Storm Prediction Center. This springlike weather will continue to move east throughout the weekend, and "could make it somewhat favorable for some tornadoes," Patrick told OurAmazingPlanet.
A "tornado watch" is issued by the NWS when conditions in the atmosphere are favorable for tornadoes. A "tornado warning" is issued when a tornado has been spotted or after radar suggests that a tornado has formed. A "tornado emergency" is the highest level of warning, and is issued when a large, violent tornado could cause widespread damage.
While winter in much of the United States has been wimpy with little cold or snow, January saw above-average tornado action. January tornadoes are not as common as spring tornadoes, but severe weather can strike any time of the year.
Central Alabama, where tornadoes took a deadly toll in 2011, is braving the twisters again in 2012. Alabama had 10 tornadoes on Jan. 23 and another one on Jan. 26. The tornadoes included an EF-3 on the tornado damage scale, and three people were killed during the outbreak.
More at the linkSix more weeks of winter, eh? The bizarre weather outside is more like spring, with a... more
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Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting assault of extreme weather in 2011.
Severe weather across much of the nation has raised the question of whether global warming has already begun to influence shorter-term weather patterns, and the specter of even more extreme years to come as global temperatures continue to rise.
STATES OF DISASTER: TOP 10 STATES
#1- Texas
#2- Alabama
#3- Missouri
#4- North Carolina
#5- Oklahoma
#6- Tennessee
#7- Kansas
#8- Connecticut
#9- Vermont
#10- New Jersey
According to climate studies, the short answer is- yes: the new climate environment created by global warming is more conducive to some extreme events, particularly heat waves and heavy precipitation events: these are now more likely to occur and be more intense when they do take place. Climate models have more difficulty predicting how climate change may be influencing other types of extremes, such as severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, but a warming climate provides more fuel to these events in the form of increased water vapor and heat in the atmosphere.
And those extreme events -- searing heat waves, parching drought, deadly tornadoes, blizzards and floods -- cost billions of dollars in damage, affected millions of lives and tragically, killed more than a thousand people across the U.S.
By some measures, 2011 was the most extreme year for the U.S. since reliable record-keeping began in the 19thcentury -- and the costs have been enormous: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2011 set a record for the most billion dollar disasters in a single year. There were 12, breaking the old record of nine set in 2009. The aggregate damage from these 12 events totals at least $52 billion, NOAA found.
More at the link-click on the picture here to see more.Texas, Alabama and Missouri topped the list of states hardest hit by the unrelenting... more
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A severe storm some suspect may have involved a tornado struck the Ontario community of Goderich Sunday afternoon, causing widespread damage in the town centre.
Col. Morris Brause, commanding officer of the Essex-Kent Scottish regiment, was caught in the midst of the storm as he drove through Goderich, a community on Lake Huron, while hail, the size of golf balls, rained down.
He described the scene as chaotic. Roofs were torn off the tops of houses, trees were uprooted, windows in the business centre were blown out.
"The downtown has been completely devastated," Brause said by telephone. "There’s no doubt in my mind this was a tornado. Goderich has been very badly hit."
The Ontario Provincial Police is asking the public to stay away from the town as emergency crews attempt to respond to calls. Traffic is being detoured and police are not allowing motorists to enter the downtown area.
Witnesses to the storm have been posting their accounts on Facebook.
One witness said she was still shaking after the storm passed through her yard.
"Mass destruction. Goderich is completely shut down. I have no hydro but hear that houses are gone."
Brause said the sky darkened very quickly as he drove on Highway 21, approaching the bridge that leads into Goderich’s downtown area. It began to hail so hard that it appeared as though the surroundings were being blanketed in a grey fog.
"We couldn’t drive," he said, adding that cars had to stop at the side of the road because it was impossible to see.
"It was the worst kind of hailstorm," he said, adding that it reminded him of a scene in the movie Twister. "People are shaking their heads in disbelief."
Goderich is about 225 kilometres west of Toronto.A severe storm some suspect may have involved a tornado struck the Ontario community... more
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Last month, 350.org founder Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed about the failure of the media and others to connect any dots between recent extreme weather events and climate change. Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia has combined McKibben’s words with striking images.
Underscoring McKibben’s point is an uber-lame New York Times story today, “As Arizona Fire Rages, Officials Seek Its Cause,” which, you guessed it, is dot free. Meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters wrote Friday, “The return of critical fire conditions this weekend means that the Wallow fire will likely become Arizona’s largest wildfire in history.”
Before taking on the NYT piece, let’s look at the video:
McKibben’s piece is a nice work of rhetoric. After April saw records set for most tornadoes in a month and in 24 hours, I examined the climate-tornado link in great detail here, looking at the data, the literature, and expert analysis. That piece concluded:
1.When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.
2.Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.
The NY Times has been doing some very good science reporting recently (see NY Times Bombshell: “The latest scientific research suggests” climate change is “helping to destabilize the food system”). But their overall reporting team is not connecting the dots (see, for instance, my May piece “New York Times blows the Dust Bowl story“).
The NYT had promised two years ago to do more coherent reporting, as the Columbia Journalism Review noted at the time:
Environmental S.W.A.T. Team
On Thursday, The New York Times will launch a new, crack environmental reporting unit that will pull in eight specialized reporters from the Science, National, Metro, Foreign, and Business desks in a bid for richer, more prominent coverage.
Not.
The more prominent coverage simply never happened, as I detailed in the second half of my January piece, Silence of the Lambs: Media herd’s coverage of climate change “fell off the map” in 2010, which shows that in all of 2010 none of “the largest lead headlines” in the paper dealt with climate. As professor Robert Brulle, an expert on environmental communications, wrote me at the time:
Apparently, the editorial board of the NY Times has yet to fully grasp the importance of global climate change to our collective survival. As the science becomes stronger and more dire, the editors of the NY Times bury their head deeper into the sand.
Today’s Arizona story is a case in point. Now I don’t necessarily think that every single story written on the record Arizona wildfires must focus on or even mention climate change. But the NYT story is quite specifically on the “cause” of the fires. Worse, the newspaper has no difficulty repeating dubious right-wing myths as to the cause of the fires
Many wildfires are caused by humans — and investigators say this one may have been started by two unattended campfires — distinguishing them from hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes….
Residents heaped plenty of blame on Mother Nature as harsh winds spread the flames and low humidity left the forest full of fuel. But residents and experts also pointed their fingers at a variety of policies that they said had contributed to wildfires that seem to have grown in intensity over the years.
Some complained that it was environmentalists who had caused the forests to become tinderboxes by preventing the thinning of trees as they sought to protect wildlife. Others, like William Wallace Covington, a forestry expert at Northern Arizona University, countered that the leading factor was the grazing of forest grass for generations. The government’s longstanding practice of quickly extinguishing forest fires was also seen as adding to the thick clusters of highly combustible trees.
Seriously.
You would never know from the NYT that this standard right-wing talking point has actually been examined in the scientific literature and found wanting. Back in 2006, Science magazine published a major article analyzing whether the recent soaring wildfire trend was due to a change in forest management practices or to climate change. The study, led by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, concluded:
Robust statistical associations between wildfire and hydroclimate in western forests indicate that increased wildfire activity over recent decades reflects sub-regional responses to changes in climate. Historical wildfire observations exhibit an abrupt transition in the mid-1980s from a regime of infrequent large wildfires of short (average of 1 week) duration to one with much more frequent and longer burning (5 weeks) fires. This transition was marked by a shift toward unusually warm springs, longer summer dry seasons, drier vegetation (which provoked more and longer burning large wildfires), and longer fire seasons. Reduced winter precipitation and an early spring snowmelt played a role in this shift.
That 2006 study noted global warming (from human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide) will further accelerate all of these trends during this century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCY-3XnqS0&feature=player_embedded
continuedLast month, 350.org founder Bill McKibben published a must-read op-ed about the... more
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Tornado EF5 Joplin Spectacular Lightning Strikes (Newly Relesed) June 11th 2011
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockingtornados
Joplin Tornado Rated EF-5 - Latest May 22, 2011 Joplin,
MO Tornado Stats The tornado that ripped through Joplin
has been upgraded to the largest Enhanced Fujita Scale
rating of EF-5. The winds were above 200 MPH.
This is the deadliest tornado since modern record
keeping started at the National Weather Service.
It is now ranked as the 8th deadliest in history.
As of the evening of 6/11/11, 153 have been
confirmed killed.
Ways to help:
kb http://www.redcross.org/Tornado EF5 Joplin Spectacular Lightning Strikes (Newly Relesed) June 11th 2011... more
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Tornado EF5 in Joplin Strikes Camera (Newly Relesed) June 11th 2011
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockingtornados
Joplin Tornado Rated EF-5 - Latest May 22, 2011 Joplin,
MO Tornado Stats The tornado that ripped through Joplin
has been upgraded to the largest Enhanced Fujita Scale
rating of EF-5. The winds were above 200 MPH.
This is the deadliest tornado since modern record
keeping started at the National Weather Service.
It is now ranked as the 8th deadliest in history.
As of the evening of 6/11/11, 153 have been
confirmed killed.
Ways to help:
kb http://www.redcross.org/Tornado EF5 in Joplin Strikes Camera (Newly Relesed) June 11th 2011... more
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Tornado blows up like an Atom Bomb (Amateur Video) Shocking 2011
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockingtornados
NWS's preliminary estimate is more than 180 tornadoes
have occurred during the month of May 2011.
The record number of tornadoes during the month of
May was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
The average number of tornadoes for the month of
May during the past decade is 298.
May is historically the most active month for tornadoes.
2011 Year-to-Date (and record annual) Statistics
NWS's preliminary estimate is that there have been
approximately 1,314 tornadoes so far this year.
The previous yearly record number of tornadoes was
set in 2004 with 1,817.
The overall yearly average number of tornadoes for
the past decade is 1,274.
Ways to help:
kb http://www.redcross.org/Tornado blows up like an Atom Bomb (Amateur Video) Shocking 2011... more
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Chile — An unusual storm bringing hurricane-force winds,
heavy rain and hail has damaged more than 100 homes in a
Chilean lake resort. Emergency officials were already
dealing with a volcanic eruption in the region. Winds
blew at nearly 125 mph (200 kph), the equivalent of a
Category 3 hurricane, ripping off roofs in Villarrica
in southern Chile. Several people were injured.Chile — An unusual storm bringing hurricane-force winds,
heavy rain and hail... more
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Tornado Another Amazing 2011 Amateur Video
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockingtornados
Ways to help and donate here http://bit.ly/lxFF07
Tornado,, 2011,tornadoes, "armature video", shocking,
"breaking news",twister, emergency,"ways to help",
devastation "severe weather", "tornado warning",fema,
donations, amazing,shockingTornado Another Amazing 2011 Amateur Video
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com... more
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Shocking Joplin Tornado Aftermath Raw Video (Please Share)
http://shockingtornados.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/shockingtornados
Joplin, Missouri, is still reeling from a
massive tornado with winds reaching 200 mph
The tornado is the deadliest since 1947,
claiming 126 lives.
Ways to donate and help call 1-800-SAL-ARMY
text "JOPLIN" to 80888 to make a $10 donation.
Category:
News & PoliticsShocking Joplin Tornado Aftermath Raw Video (Please Share)... more
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