- Joined
- May 4, 2020
- Messages
- 911
You read the title, it really has been!
The last documented EF-5 Tornado was the May 20th 2013 Moore Oklahoma tornado. Lets talk about it. (i love meteorology)
Really quickly, I'll briefly touch on how tornadoes are given EF ratings. (Enhanced Fujita Scale)
The EF scale is used to classify how strong a tornado is. It depends on the speed of winds measured in MPH and the severity of the damage.
This means if a tornado has 200+ winds, but doesn't cause much damage, it is classified below. So if a 200+ mph tornado just pulled up some trees, it would get around an EF-2 rating.(The infamous El Reno tornado in May 31st 2013 had winds of 296 mph! And was the widest tornado ever recorded of 2.6 miles wide! But, it got an EF-3 rating, how strange.)
Anyways, back to it.
I wanted to ask and answer the question of "Is it due to climate change?" In my opinion no. Climate and Weather are two very different things.
1.
The Number of Annual tornadoes in the US has not been going up or down, and seems to be quite regular.
This does not link with the increasing annual temperature in the USA as there is not very much correlation.
In the graph we can see that 2015 had a temperature average of 54.4 Fahrenheit, with 1,177 documented tornadoes. However a year such as 2017 with an average temperature of 54.55 Fahrenheit had 1,429. This support weather and climate being very different.
2.
So where are these tornadoes happening? Most EF-5 tornadoes occur in towns because they need to cause immense damage to earn their rating. The last 10 EF-5 tornadoes have occured in Oklahoma, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, Manitoba (Canada) and Kansas.
All these occurred in North America, however tornadoes can happen in other places too. In the USA, there is Tornado Alley, spanning through Central USA through Texas all the way to North Dakota, being most prominent in Oklahoma and Kansas. Then there is Dixie Alley, spanning multiple states, most prominently being Mississippi and Alabama.
However, unfortunately for many living eastern, research has found that Tornado alley is moving eastern, there is still research on the impacts of climate change and the tornado alleys.
3.
How do tornadoes happen? This is much more complicated than I'm going to put it, but I find it helpful to know. To put it simply, tornadoes are rapidly rotating pillars of air which is touching the ground, and the storm clouds above. Most violent tornadoes occur in the Supercell.
Supercells (A type of cloud) create the strongest tornadoes, and they are infamous for being extremely violent. They are complicated, so do your research on your own time.
Now, tornadoes are made when downdraughts within the supercell storm bring the rotation to lower levels, the rotation may become so strongly-focused that a funnel or violently rotating air forms. When or if it touches the ground, the tornado has arrived. Tornadoes can look different depending on the debris or dust it picks up, and they are often "rain-wrapped" meaning you can barely see them.
4.
Where are we now? Isn't it good that there aren't any EF-5s? Well yes, but I see it as we aren't able to research further into this phenomenon we call a tornado. They happen across the world, and one day there will be another very powerful tornado, that may potentially strike a large city, or town. Research into tornadoes help protect us, which is why I find it important to document them, and learn more. Especially if Tornado Alley, is moving to places that have never experience the forces of a storm.
I find this to be an incredibly interesting topic, We'll just see when the next one strikes. Stay safe
waluweebgi
, its still May :^)
The last documented EF-5 Tornado was the May 20th 2013 Moore Oklahoma tornado. Lets talk about it. (i love meteorology)
Really quickly, I'll briefly touch on how tornadoes are given EF ratings. (Enhanced Fujita Scale)
The EF scale is used to classify how strong a tornado is. It depends on the speed of winds measured in MPH and the severity of the damage.
This means if a tornado has 200+ winds, but doesn't cause much damage, it is classified below. So if a 200+ mph tornado just pulled up some trees, it would get around an EF-2 rating.(The infamous El Reno tornado in May 31st 2013 had winds of 296 mph! And was the widest tornado ever recorded of 2.6 miles wide! But, it got an EF-3 rating, how strange.)
Anyways, back to it.
I wanted to ask and answer the question of "Is it due to climate change?" In my opinion no. Climate and Weather are two very different things.
1.
The Number of Annual tornadoes in the US has not been going up or down, and seems to be quite regular.
This does not link with the increasing annual temperature in the USA as there is not very much correlation.
In the graph we can see that 2015 had a temperature average of 54.4 Fahrenheit, with 1,177 documented tornadoes. However a year such as 2017 with an average temperature of 54.55 Fahrenheit had 1,429. This support weather and climate being very different.
2.
So where are these tornadoes happening? Most EF-5 tornadoes occur in towns because they need to cause immense damage to earn their rating. The last 10 EF-5 tornadoes have occured in Oklahoma, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, Manitoba (Canada) and Kansas.
All these occurred in North America, however tornadoes can happen in other places too. In the USA, there is Tornado Alley, spanning through Central USA through Texas all the way to North Dakota, being most prominent in Oklahoma and Kansas. Then there is Dixie Alley, spanning multiple states, most prominently being Mississippi and Alabama.
However, unfortunately for many living eastern, research has found that Tornado alley is moving eastern, there is still research on the impacts of climate change and the tornado alleys.
3.
How do tornadoes happen? This is much more complicated than I'm going to put it, but I find it helpful to know. To put it simply, tornadoes are rapidly rotating pillars of air which is touching the ground, and the storm clouds above. Most violent tornadoes occur in the Supercell.
Supercells (A type of cloud) create the strongest tornadoes, and they are infamous for being extremely violent. They are complicated, so do your research on your own time.
Now, tornadoes are made when downdraughts within the supercell storm bring the rotation to lower levels, the rotation may become so strongly-focused that a funnel or violently rotating air forms. When or if it touches the ground, the tornado has arrived. Tornadoes can look different depending on the debris or dust it picks up, and they are often "rain-wrapped" meaning you can barely see them.
4.
Where are we now? Isn't it good that there aren't any EF-5s? Well yes, but I see it as we aren't able to research further into this phenomenon we call a tornado. They happen across the world, and one day there will be another very powerful tornado, that may potentially strike a large city, or town. Research into tornadoes help protect us, which is why I find it important to document them, and learn more. Especially if Tornado Alley, is moving to places that have never experience the forces of a storm.
I find this to be an incredibly interesting topic, We'll just see when the next one strikes. Stay safe
waluweebgi
, its still May :^)
