I was very encouraged by this part of the story:
“If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it’s agreed upon by the tornado community that it’s not a real increase,” said Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University.
“It’s having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we’re seeing them more often,” Dixon said.
But he said it would be “a terrible mistake” to relate the up-tick to climate change.
Full story here. h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard.
Hmmm, where have we heard that technology-population-aware argument before?
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If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly
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Horse bull hockey!
The number of “intense” tornadoes has been going down since 1950.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/warmer-temperatures-mean-fewer-tornadoes/
REPLY: But the overall number of tornadoes, especially the F1-F2 smaller ones, are on the increase, many of which went unnoticed before.
Have a look:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/april-tornadoes.png
– Anthony
Surely this guy (Dixon) is a f%@ur momisugly#*n climate change denier paid by Big Oil and that’s it.
And we all know that climate “scientists” are so diligent with their work that they never make terrible mistakes.
Interesting that the previous time this happened was in 1974 – same year we Aussies experienced extensive flooding similar to this year’s floods.
REPLY: But the overall number of tornadoes, especially the F1-F2 smaller ones, are on the increase, many of which went unnoticed before.
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Which is like saying hurricanes are on the increase….
…when they name every two clouds within talking distance of each other
if only for one minute
All things equal, and they are, it’s hard to miss an intense tornado.
The fact that intense tornadoes have decreased is the real number.
“but it’s agreed upon by the tornado community that it’s not a real increase”
I thank them for that…..
The Sun has gone quiet.
Before the Sun became quiet, the Earth had been experiencing a gradual rise in Global temperatures. This rise was due to the “recent” [1650 until now], increase in output as per the Sunspot record, i.e., more Sunspots, more active Sun.
Now we have a warm oceans [due to Solar heat storage], and cooler continents [due to lack of Solar energy input]. The result is warm, moist, ocean air masses colliding with polar cold, dry air masses. As we know, this can produce violent storms.
So, I disagree with the statement -> “But he said it would be ‘“a terrible mistake”’ to relate the up-tick to climate change.” It is just that the climate change [warming] has been the result of increased Solar activity and higher ocean (storage) temperatures over hundreds of years.
Note: Solar warming has been going for hundreds of years before the AGW concept was weaned.
Absolutely shocked watching what has gone on in the US over the past couple of days. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by these storms. I noticed that Joe Bastardi had been warning for the past week of the potential for severe storms in the affected areas, and has gone into some detail about why the storms are happening.
I really hope common sense prevails when reporting these tragic events, and that the story is not hijacked by those with an agenda to push.
This most current outbreak of tornadoes just happens to be generated with the same type relationship to the timing of the 1974 out break, from three days after maximum South lunar declination [4-21-0211 + 3= 4-24-2011] till the moon crosses the equator headed North on 4-28-2011.
These same conditions are responsible for most of the large tornado outbreaks, in the past history. The study of the lunar declinational atmospheric tides has been very profitable in the prediction of these episodes of tornado and related severe weather [hail and strong wind events] it is a shame that the Main stream meteorological services don’t use the process to better predict life threatening weather occurrences like these.
Multiple posts in regard to how this happens can be found on my web site. It has nothing to do with the background levels of CO2.
“Multiple posts in regard to how this happens can be found on my web site. It has nothing to do with the background levels of CO2.”
..or with oddball lunar alignments.
’74 was clearly Nature’s previous “switchback”. Cooling from ’42 to ’74, then warming from ’74 to maybe 2005, now cooling again. For a few years around the inflection points, the gradients get unstable and indecisive, with violent results.
…actually I think the statement is entirely factual. The large-scale climate changed from an El Nino to La Nina state twice during the past 4-years. The Arctic vortex has been spectacularly strong for the past several weeks, with a strongly positive Arctic Oscillation. The very cold air-mass over the higher latitudes was unable to modify, and effectively trapped a huge pool of cold, dry air. Now at the end of April, the subtropical and tropical moisture sources are considerably more than during March. Thus, the setup was perfect for a powerful extratropical cyclone development that would spawn many tornadoes, due to strong directional shear mainly due to upper-level energy.
Well I’ll be darned. I guess the climate boffins aren’t quite as dumb as I thought and the can indeed learn from past mistakes. It was a mistake to say that hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 were the result of global warming. They aren’t going to make that particular blunder again. Winds is winds. Got it? Write that down.
The man must be a meteorologist first and a climatologist a far second, the heresy is appalling, AWG/CC/ICS causes everything.Sarcasm now vented.
And I have been extensively criticized for including papers on Tornadoes in my list,
900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm
I agree with Ryan Maue. This is further south than the usual Spring track through Kansas
Better detection and more people living in the same areas? More houses in the same areas? Just askin’.
My head hurts!!! Heeeeeelp!!!
Does anyone know how much our detections capability has changed between 1950 to 2011?
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/april-tornadoes.png
“I really hope common sense prevails when reporting these tragic events, and that the story is not hijacked by those with an agenda to push.”
Are you kidding? It’s not common sense…it’s an agenda. If some among the AGW crowd were saying that global warming caused the Japanese earthquake…do you think they’ll even blush to use this as ‘proof’…but, ya know, when it snows in Wisconsin in April…it’s just weather and has nothing to do with ‘climate change’.
Nice. Guess how many F5s touched down in the US in “The Hottest Decade EVAR!!!”
Two.
One, two, buckle my shoe.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F5_and_EF5_tornadoes
Also notice how many F5s were reported during the 1960s and 70s when we were, ahh…cooling. Kinda blows away (see what I just did there?) the theory that warmer = more violent weather. Yes/No?
Does this severe weather have anything to do with a record snow cover in the northern hemisphere, a negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a strong La Nina, and warm gulf water? If so, then it could be called climate. As you all know, the earth has been cooling since 2005. It’s just a thought. I may be wrong.
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff
Well of course. We’ve been talking about this fact since I first had this explained to me in my meteorology classes 25yrs ago at UW Madison. Another case of non-homogeneousness.
There are so many polistra, Ryan Maue, JanHM, seem to me are right on the spot. The only thing I will add is an apparent shift of the dry line. That may or may not be the case. It normally, on the average anyway, sitting over the Oklahoma-Texas border extended both north and south. Texas Panhandle rather dry and mid-east Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas getting the moisture and the collision is where tornadoes are common. This year mid-Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas have all been abnormally dry, as if that dry line has shifted eastward ~250 miles and it has done that very thing many times in the past.
I see nothing unusual with this behavior at all. It does remind me of the 70’s. In 1969 is the year two tornadoes tracked directly across Oklahoma City itself in the nighttime, which is rather rare.
Ryan, is it not the case of frigid upper air, as you mentioned above, that causes the nighttime tornadoes? Have always wondered, if I might lean a bit on your knowledge.
Also, I wish they could stop calling ‘1 tornado’ ‘40 tornadoes’ just because 40 people call in saying they have seen the tornado. Brother!! People my age would never do that if we already knew it was present and down on the ground. It’s real important to real people to know accurately if there is really, actually two tornadoes down instead of one. That can cause loss of life. If they have said where it is, and where it’s headed, for God’s sake please don’t call it in!
“Joe Bastardi had been warning for the past week of the potential for severe storms in the affected areas, and has gone into some detail about why the storms are happening.”
Yes it’s called the lining up of available atmospheric parameters all in a row and bowling a strike. Happens occasionally and these past couple of weeks, with the overall longwave and shorwave patterns conducive, have resulted in mayhem.
Re: the devastating tornadoes hitting the southern U.S., Joe Bastardi did an excellent job on The O’Reilly Factor this evening of explaining the causes and taking “climate change” out of the equation – in spite of O’Reilly’s interruptions.