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And The Tornadoes Continue … — Why Now?
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And The Tornadoes Continue …

by Bryan

I have moved Dr Masters blog, the Tornado Map, and added the Severe Weather Threat Map to a new Weather section on the right sidebar, because this is looking like it is going to be a long term problem. Folks, the National Weather Service’s severe weather people had to evacuate their building in Oklahoma because of tornadoes yesterday. Today it looks like the mid-Mississippi Valley, although the area in around Chicago is already under severe thunderstorm/tornado watches.

Dr Masters has the recap on yesterday and the caution for today:

America’s deadliest tornado season since 1953 continued its relentless onslaught of violent tornadoes yesterday. Numerous destructive and deadly tornadoes raked Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas, killing at least nine people. Yesterday’s deadliest tornado hit El Reno and Piedmont, Oklahoma, about 30 miles to the west and northwest of Oklahoma City. Four people died, and one child is missing. Video of the damage from this tornado near the town of Piedmont shot by a news9.com helicopter shows damage characteristic of an EF-4 tornado, with many homes completely demolished and swept off their foundations. This tornado produced a wind gust of 151 mph at an Oklahoma Mesonet station in El Reno, Oklahoma.
…

The Joplin tornado is the 7th U.S. weather disaster of 2011 costing more than a billion dollars. With hurricane season still to come, 2011 has an excellent chance of beating 2008’s record of nine billion-dollar weather disasters. The billion dollar weather disasters of 2011 so far:

1) 2011 Groundhog Day’s blizzard (($1- $4 billion)
2) April 3 -5 Southeast U.S. severe weather outbreak ($2 billion)
3) April 8 – 11 severe weather outbreak ($2.25 billion)
4) April 25 – 28 super tornado outbreak ($3.5 – $6 billion)
5) Mississippi River flood of 2011 ($9 billion)
6) Texas drought ($1.2 billion)
7) Joplin tornado ($1 – $3 billion)
…

NOAA’s Visualization Laboratory has an impressive animation of the satellite imagery during the month of April, showing the locations of all the tornadoes as they happened.

What is it going to take to convince the ignorant jerks in charge that the climate change is real, and we had better start doing something about it.