Weather trends show FEWER tornadoes (Congress, controversial, stats, deaths)
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This article was written two days before tornadoes hit Oklamoha City and surrounding areas.
And it's still true.
Oklahoma gets lots of tornadoes. Every year. Without exception. Recent events aren't unusual.
And with some 98% of Oklahoma's land surface used for farmland, cow pastures etc., those tornadoes usually come down in empty areas and do little or no damage, even the big ones.
But occasionally they wander into populated areas. On those rare occasions, damage and deaths can be massive.
Posted: May 16, 2013 3:52 PM PDT Updated: May 17, 2013 9:19 AM PDT
Posted by: Jennifer Zeppelin, Chief Meteorologist - email
May typically has been our peak month for tornadoes, but after the warmest year on record followed by an ongoing drought and cooler than normal temperatures - our weather has been anything but normal for the past 12 months.
Meteorologists with the national severe storms laboratory track all the tornado stats for the U.S. and have noticed an interesting trend over the last decade - fewer tornadoes.
From January through early May this year, the U.S. has experienced 240 tornadoes, which is the lowest number recorded in recent years.
What's behind the record low numbers? The drought last year and cold start to 2013 have been the biggest contributing factors to the absence of tornado activity in the United States.
However, even with few tornadoes reported - Oklahoma's 30 year annual average ranks us fourth in the U.S. As for the number of fatalities during that same time frame, Oklahoma also remains one of the highest in country.
So the key is not to let your guard down.
Even though Monster tornadoes like the EF-5 and EF-4 that ripped across our state 14 years ago are very rare, an EF 1 can do some serious damage as we saw earlier this year in Bixby.
Dancing in the blood of babies? Did a Liberal start this thread? Who is disrespecting the memory of 9 dead babies now? Denyers will deny even when the storms are killing people in NYC. The agenda of the denyers is bigger than any 9 babies... its bigger than 9 million babies. Conservatives have no respect, no shame and no compassion. They only have their agenda. Oil and coal: cheap energy. Not cheap to buy, but cheap to make and therefore the PROFIT is high... for those who got in on the ground floor. They are RICH and get richer by the minute and they don't really give a **** if the planet dies because of their unwavering quest for more profit. They must have another planet stashed away to run to when this one gets unlivable. That's my guess. I've stopped participating in the endless AGW debates because they are unwinnable. The denyers just want to keep us talking. Every hour that we spend arguing vs. taking action, is another million in the bank for them. I think the smart thing to do is find the planet that they have targeted for human colonization and beat them there. Yeah... that's the ticket.
The 1991-2010 climatological average is seven violent tornadoes per year. In 2011, there were 23. Somewhat surprisingly, having just gone through it, that tally ranks only 4th for a yearly total. 1974 (36), 1965 (31) and 1957 (26) all saw more violent tornadoes than last year.
Constructing a climate picture through violent tornado days is more difficult than overall or significant tornado days due to the considerably smaller data set. Still, we can at least look at yearly values of violent tornado days. When doing so, we see the 2000s (so far) noticeably absent from the top-5 list. 1957 had 19 to top the group and 2005 had one at the bottom.
The current (1991-2010) average for violent tornado days is 4.6 per year. Looking at 10-year periods, the 2001-2010 decade had the lowest average number of days with violent tornadoes, or only 4.3 per year. Curiously enough, considering it’s likely under-representation of tornadoes overall, the 1951-60 period had a peak of 8 days which later held steady at 6.7 from 1961-70 and 1971-80. 2011 had six, but of course lots of ‘em packed into one day.
When it comes to tornado days by year, there is an overall sense of consistency, if also an observed trend slightly downward over time during the 1991-2010 period. The ten-year average for 1991-2010 was 193 tornado days per year, and it was 174 days for 2001-2010, with an overall 20-year average of 184 days.
Dancing in the blood of babies? Did a Liberal start this thread?
Sorry but it's already been used by other liberals in other threads not to mention two democrats in Congress.
Considering the graphs and information above it's simply not justified, send your complaints to Barbara Boxer for using a tragedy as an opportuinty to falsely make statements so she can further her political agenda.
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