More extreme weather changes, natural disasters on the horizon?
Over the weekend (and let’s not even get started on the last year or two), there were some pretty severe storms said to have been caused by La Nina due to the warming of our planet due to climate change and pressure. There was even a very large waterspout filmed in the Tyrrhenian Sea near Rome, Italy – a country that seems to have gotten quite a few up-close encounters with waterspouts in the last few weeks.
Reports started flooding the newsrooms between Friday and Saturday with reports of long-lasting tornadoes across the U.S. Five states were affected due to these weather conditions – leaving hundreds-if-not-thousands of people homeless and more than 100 reported dead.
While the Midwest has long been known for its susceptibility to tornadoes these tornadoes are said to be unlike any other tornadoes experienced by this area for more than 100 years – in fact, it crushes records for the worst ever recorded tornadoes even 100 years ago.
These tornadoes are extending over areas less likely to experience these catastrophes, and they are lasting much longer than they ever have before.
According to The Seattle Times, the mixture of warm and cold weather has led these tornadoes to terrorize the land for more than a few hours, as opposed to just a few minutes, devastating everything in their path.
“A few factors, which meteorologists will continue to study… Spring-like temperatures across much of the Midwest and South in December helped bring the warm, moist air that helped form thunderstorms. Some of this is due to La Nina, which generally brings warmer than normal winter temperatures to the Southern U.S. But scientists also expect atypical, warm weather in the winter to become more common as the planet warms.”
“One word: remarkable; unbelievable would be another,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. “It was really a ling type of setup in the middle of December. Tornadoes typically lose energy in a matter of minutes, but in this case it was hours," Gensini said.
"That’s partly the reason for the exceptionally long path of Friday’s storm, going more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) or so, he said. The record was 219 miles (352 kilometers) and was set by a tornado that struck three states in 1925. Gensini thinks this one will surpass it once meteorologists finish analyzing it.”
“In order to get a really long path length, you have to have a really fast-moving storm. This storm was moving well over 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour for a majority of its life,” Gensini said. That’s not the speed of the winds but of the overall storm movement.
The Seattle Times states that attributing a specific storm like Friday’s to the effects of climate change remains very challenging.
“Less than 10% of severe thunderstorms produce tornadoes, which makes drawing conclusions about climate change and the processes leading up to them tricky,” said Harold Brooks, a tornado scientist at the National Severe Storm Laboratory.
Experts such as Brooks and Gensini point to climate change as creating the “basic ingredients of a thunderstorm” and explain that as the planet warms during a cool season, these storms will become more common – in fact, we can almost count on seeing an increase in “these types of severe weather outbreaks,” especially as national temperatures rise above the long-term average – with fewer events taking place during the summer.
These storms indirectly reached as far east Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania as residual winds took out a number of trees and permanent structures before cutting the power to thousands of homes in the Trumbull County and Mahoning Valleys. Across the Midwest, entire cities were leveled, leaving many without necessary shelter, food or electricity, as many continue to search for lost pets and family members.
Speaking of Ohio, the state experienced another record-breaking occurrence, as the southernmost part of the state felt the effects of a 3.0 magnitude earthquake – extremely rare in this part of the U.S.
To add, WKBN-TV reports that “Though uncommon, Ohio has seen at least 200 earthquakes of at least a 2.0 magnitude since the first record in 1776.”The local news station also reports that most of these earthquakes have been limited to the area around the Western Ohio Seismic Zone, which includes Allen, Auglaize, Mercer and Shelby counties, and the Northeastern Ohio Seismic Zone, which consists of a broad area from eastern Cuyahoga County east to the Pennsylvania border and south to the vicinity of Akron.
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They also disclose that although no earthquakes have ever been recorded in the Mahoning County, there was a 4.0 quake 5 miles northwest of Youngstown in Trumbull County in 2011 and that the Shenango Valley saw a 5.2 quake centered on the Mercer and Crawford county line back in 1998.
HOW HAS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTED YOU, PERSONALLY?
Are you seeing an increase in severe weather and natural disasters where you live? What are you doing to prepare for the next disaster? Are you protected in case of long-term power outages, loss of food and shelter? What's your plan? Sound off below
References:
#climatechange #severeweather #naturaldisaster #electricgrid #lanina
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