Tornadoes — and especially F3 or stronger tornadoes — are becoming increasingly rare as the Earth continues its modest warming, but the media are claiming a rare outbreak of recent tornadoes in Kansas is “the new normal.”
The misleading nature of the media’s reporting may be frustrating, but it affords climate realists an opportunity to show everyday people why they should be skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.
On May 26, after a squall line resulted in tornadoes in Kansas, the Kansas City Star posted an article titled, “‘Here we go again’: Is latest spate of tornadoes a new normal in Missouri and Kansas?”
The article claims, “Notorious ‘Tornado Alley’ — the band of states in the central United States, including Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, that each spring is ravaged by hundreds of tornadoes — is not disappearing.”
As a result of global warming, the article claims, Tornado Alley “seems to be expanding to include more of the Midwest and the Southeast’s ‘Dixie Alley,’ a term coined in 1971.
That means a higher frequency of tornadoes in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and eastern Missouri.”
That sounds quite ominous and alarming. Most readers will take the Star’s assertion at face value and believe global warming is making tornadoes more frequent and severe.
The objective data, however, tells the opposite story. According to data reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tornado activity has been decreasing since the early 1970s.
Strong tornadoes, F3 or stronger, have been declining even more dramatically.
Prior to 2018, Oklahoma had never experienced a single year in recorded history without one or more tornadoes touching down by the beginning of May.
But 2018 broke that record as not just Oklahoma, but the entire heart of Tornado Alley – Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska – did not experience a single tornado through May 1.
Of course, tornadoes had to form somewhere, as they always do. NOAA reported that the tornadoes that did occur formed primarily in the southeastern United States.
In keeping with the overall trends since the early 1970s, the overall national trend was relatively quiet even with the Southeastern tornadoes.
Presented with this good news, alarmists were forced to present misleading claims and play semantic games to induce people into believing that global warming is making tornadoes worse.
While the Star’s claim may or may not be technically true that lately there is “a higher frequency of tornadoes in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, and eastern Missouri,” the more important story is that tornadoes as a whole are becoming less frequent and less severe.
Indeed, since NOAA began keeping records in 1954, a majority of the years with 30 or fewer F3 tornadoes have occurred since the turn of the century.
The media’s misleading coverage of tornadoes and global warming may be frustrating, but it also presents an excellent opportunity and illustration to show people that scary climate claims are merely overhyped alarmism.
Read more at CFACT
I suppose they will claim that Tornados are Gaia’s way of punishing all those in Kansas and Missouri for voting for Trump just like they did after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma Green Nuts are the most biggist cracked urns ever
“Media Claim Rare Tornado Outbreak Is The ‘New Normal’”
Nope! “They” are LYING. LYING by omission. LYING to promote an agenda. LYING to fundamentally change our world to their elitist world vision of “how we should live” LYING to take away our freedoms.
From the 1600’s through 1900 there are numerous reports of deluges, tornado outbreaks and wide scale flooding. More than I care to cut and paste here. These fairly common weather events explain why early settlers start building levees!!
A little research is sunshine to “their” LIES!
STORMS IN SOUTH AND EAST KILL 46 Toll of 34 Claimed in Arkansas Tornadoes; Flood Drives Hundreds From Oklahoma Homes BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The death toll of storms rose to 46 last night as weather disturbances swept over wide and Rocky Mountain States. More than 150 persons were areas of the South, Central injured.
CLIPPED FROM
The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles, California
12 Apr 1944, Wed • Page 1
Thousands Homeless In Four States Tornadoes, Floods and Severe Rain and Hail Storms Wreck Havoc (By United Press) KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 19. Combating exposure and disease, thousands of refugees of storm-swept southwestern states carried on rehabilitation work today. The toll of the tornadoes, floods and severe hail and rain storms which struck Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas, stood at several dead and two dozen or more injured.
CLIPPED FROM
Calgary Herald
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
19 Jun 1928, Tue
COMBINED STORMS Cause Suffering. Over Score Killed in Illinois Tornadoes. FLOODS ALSO CONTINUE Additional Damage Thru Plains Country When Twisters Visit Several Small Cities of State. ST. LOUIS, Mo., April 20. (UP) Tho element torn Mississippi basin today struggled towards relief for thousands of refugees made homeless by combined tornadoes and flood waters.
CLIPPED FROM
Lincoln Journal Star
Lincoln, Nebraska
20 Apr 1927, Wed
Estimate Corn Loss as High as 50 Per Cent Death Toll In Southern Illinois Reaches Three as the Entire Mid-West Is Swept by Deluge Accompanied in Some Instances by Tornadoes, Floods
The Decatur Herald
Decatur, Illinois
05 Sep 1926, Sun • Page 1
RAIN STORMS A LAND OF CLOUDBURSTS AND TORNADOES Floods That Sweep Away Miles of Railway Tracks and Embankments – Death Valleys Rain Storms
Fort Worth Daily Gazette
Fort Worth, Texas
30 Jan 1893
Notice to Contractors. Contractors to build Levee at Dalies Point and Horn Lake will be let out at a meeting of the Mississippi Levee Board, to be held at the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, at 9 o’clock a m., August 3, Specifications can be seen at the meeting. R. R. HOWE, Secretary Levee Board.
Memphis Daily Appeal
Memphis, Tennessee
31 Jul 1871, Mon • Page 1
1884 Possum Fork Levee a failure Arkansas City…
Very long article/to the editor. the gist being about levees intended to protect farm land and property… “will be unquestionably protected for all time to come” *signed. D Alexander
CLIPPED FROM
Daily Arkansas Gazette
Little Rock, Arkansas
14 Mar 1884
*I’m thinking “D Alexander” was a tad too optimistic.
Tornadoes are the alarmist dream weapons. Violent, deadliest in the dark of night. They insinuate that we’re bringing them upon ourselves.
I challenge them to draw a straight line from CO2 to violent weather. So far, they have not. I recall predictions of global heat waves and drought. “They” haven’t learned to stop predicting the unpredictable. They, the media, do not acknowledge their failings.