Posted on 05/21/2021 7:46:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Tornadoes killed 553 Americans in 2011, the deadliest year since 1925. May 22 marks the 10th anniversary of the Joplin, Missouri tornado that killed 161, the first triple-digit toll since 1953. The U.S. had been averaging 60 tornado deaths annually.
This death toll shocked the public, weather forecasters, and researchers. Improvements in weather radar, National Weather Service warnings, and the advent of real-time, street-level tracking had seemingly rendered such death tolls a historical relic.
Some experts had a ready answer for the devastation: man-made climate change. Bill McKibben took a tongue-in-cheek tack in the Washington Post, with a headline, “A Link Between Climate Change and Joplin Tornadoes? Never!” He opined, “When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that.” Researchers Kevin Trenberth and Michael Mann also stated that global warming is making tornadoes worse.
When the unexpected happens, researchers need to ask why and examine the data. Kevin Simmons and I had just published a book on the societal impacts of tornadoes. We sought to assess whether the 2011 death tolls were due to the tornadoes which occurred, societal vulnerability, or perhaps some other factor. We published our findings in a book, Deadly Season: Analysis of the 2011 Tornado Outbreaks, and a paper in Natural Hazards Review.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Joplin was a beast.
Good article with great factual back-up to deflate the ever-present claims on “global warming” for any weather anomaly.
I am affiliated as a storm-spotter volunteer with the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service. In our 2012 training after the Joplin tornado, the meteorologists presented info from an NWS study about the level of injuries/fatalities in Joplin. For a large part, it came down to people not heeding warnings about what was headed their way.
The storm was outside the Tulsa warning area but the Tulsa NWS had it under radar observation and knew it was going to be bad. They gave a heads-up to NE OK area first-responders to be ready to move to Joplin to assist. A friend was one of those responders with his search dog and he has horrible memories of what was found that evening and the next day.
The strong language about potential storm effects used today in storm warnings is largely a result of what was learned in Joplin about the general public ignoring warnings. There have been several iterations of changed wording that began in 2012 with the latest implemented in recent days.
EVERYTHING is climate change. Until it isn’t. And then when the statistics flip the OTHER way, it due to climate change.
Example:
An increase in fatal tornadoes?
A: Climate change.
Same amount of tornadoes?
A: Climate change.
Fewer tornadoes?
A: Climate change.
If tornadoes were not ever a problem, “Rye Cove” would have never have become a traditional bluegrass song. I moved from Wichita County, Texas, to NE Mississippi and seen some of the worst of them. I now live forty miles from Joplin...go figure.
The larger the population the more deaths. Supercells were reported by Native Americans centuries ago. The multiple vortex tornadoes were called “dead man walking”, meaning you would quickly meet the Great Spirit.
as the US population and density grows then, yes, there will be an increase in the number of deaths from tornados.
Also - the number of annual tornados will increase and decrease as the climate naturally changes over time.
Its not the climate changing, its weather
Ditto for hurricanes, floods, wildfires, heat waves, drought... anything bad.
The climate and the weather are two different things. They both are always changing.
HMMMmmm...
1925 USA population 117 million
2011 USA population 311 million
Exactly. And if you peruse the Joplin video on Youtube, there are a slew of local commentors who rode out the storm who, to a man/woman, said, "We disregarded this warning because we got. so. many. in the past, that didn't pan out."
Which btw, I'm not at all attempting to insinuate the blame lies with NWS at all. As you know, warning fatigue is a tough paradox the NWS battles with every day...
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