Global Warming May Spawn More Southeast US Tornadoes
The same loopy weather patterns directing California’s ongoing drought and last year’s deep freeze across the East Coast may also change how often tornadoes strike the southeastern United States, a new modeling study finds.
Researchers examined how global warming will affect severe weather during the heart of tornado season — March, April and May. They found that while the yearly tornado total will climb by 2080, the number of tornadoes will also vary wildly from year to year. That’s because sometimes, the weather will get stuck in a pattern that favors tornadoes, and sometimes, conditions will stymie stormy weather, according to the report, published Jan. 15 in the journal Climatic Change.
“We see this trend in a lot of extreme weather,” said lead study author Victor Gensini, a severe storms climatologist at the College of DuPage in Illinois. “Changes in the jet stream are causing the jet to break down and get stuck in these blocking patterns,” Gensini said. “It just so happens it could be in a favorable pattern for tornadoes or a really bad pattern [for tornadoes].” [The Top 5 Deadliest Tornado Years in U.S. History]
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