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On The Origin of Tornadoes - 4

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Ben McMillan @ StomChasingVideo
During this series there has been both a record or near a record low number of tornadoes and a record high number reported.

A peak was reached a couple of years ago when 1,777 tornadoes were counted, then a significant drop in the number of tornadoes took place after part of the Arctic Vortex spun off and brought the U.S. a surprise cold winter (compare On The Origin of Tornadoes - 3, The Damaged Global Climate System).

Regular readers can benefit from the large database of tornado information Dredd Blog went through and presented, going all the way back past the second industrial revolution, on back to the first industrial revolution (On The Origin of Tornadoes, On The Origin of Tornadoes - 2, On The Origin of Tornadoes - 3).

Since the global climate system is damaged, it generates strange patterns of weather even to the point that surprises happen more and more often (e.g. Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? - 6).

Climate change means that there is no longer a steady predictable pattern, rather, it is more and more a helter skelter pattern.

The only thing  predictable on a "long term" basis is that the CO2 and other greenhouse gases continue to be pumped into the atmosphere as the global average temperature continues to rise along with that greenhouse gas surge.

In terms of tornado surprises, yesterday a rare "double tornado" event took place as many meteorologists scratched their heads because they had never seen the likes of this type of equal, large, double wedges about a mile apart:
“It’s less common for two tornadoes to track together for so long, especially with that same intensity,” she said. “By no means is it unprecedented. But we don’t see it often.”
Business Insider

Tornadoes form from a supercell thunderstorm, which contains a large column of rotating air. It’s not uncommon for one twister to dissipate before another forms out of the same supercell.

But it’s much less common for the primary twister to keep going when the new one forms, producing the two simultaneously, said Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center.
(Washington Post). Another good thing is that deaths from tornado destruction are down as is the cost of property damage.

How long this slow down continues is unpredictable.

But, the danger from typhoons, heat, droughts, fires, floods, and other storms increases in some places around the globe to the point that it seems like areas of the globe take turns experiencing the worst, then sometimes experiencing a reprieve.

Our greatest danger now is triggering feedback loops and reaching tipping points of no return.

The previous post in this series is here.




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