Despite claims of “severe weather is increasing”, and even after several days of tornado activity in the Midwest and the South, 2014 is still below normal compared to recent years according to data published by Greg Carbin of the NOAA Storm Prediction Center.
Here is the data from SPC:
TORNADO TOTALS AND RELATED DEATHS...THROUGH TUE APR 29 2014
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0506 PM CDT WED APR 30 2014
...NUMBER OF TORNADOES... NUMBER OF KILLER
TORNADO DEATHS TORNADOES
..2014.. 2013 2012 2011 3YR 3YR 3YR
PREL ACT ACT ACT ACT AV 14 13 12 11 AV 14 13 12 11 AV
--- -- -- --- ---- ---- ---- -- -- --- -- --- -- -- -- -- --
JAN 4 4 75 79 16 57 0 1 2 0 1 0 1 2 0 1
FEB 41 -- 39 57 63 53 0 1 15 1 6 0 1 7 1 3
MAR 25 -- 18 154 75 82 0 0 43 1 15 0 0 10 1 4
APR 173 -- 86 206 758 350 31 1 6 363 123 8 1 1 43 15
MAY -- -- 268 121 326 238 -- 41 0 178 73 -- 5 0 9 5
JUN -- -- 125 111 160 132 -- 1 4 3 3 -- 1 2 1 1
JUL -- -- 72 37 103 71 -- 0 0 0 0 -- 0 0 0 0
AUG -- -- 46 38 57 47 -- 0 0 2 1 -- 0 0 2 1
SEP -- -- 21 39 51 37 -- 0 0 0 0 -- 0 0 0 0
OCT -- -- 61 37 23 40 -- 0 0 0 0 -- 0 0 0 0
NOV -- -- 79 7 44 43 -- 8 0 5 4 -- 3 0 2 2
DEC -- -- 18 53 15 29 -- 2 0 0 1 -- 2 0 0 1
--- -- -- --- ---- ---- ---- -- -- --- -- --- -- -- -- -- --
SUM 243 4 908 939 1691 1179 31 55 70 553 227 8 14 22 59 33
PREL = 2014 PRELIMINARY COUNT FROM ALL NWS LOCAL STORM REPORTS.
ACT = ACTUAL TORNADO COUNT BASED ON NWS STORM DATA SUBMISSIONS.
COMPARISONS BETWEEN PRELIMINARY AND ACTUAL COUNTS SHOULD BE AVOIDED.
..CARBIN..04/30/2014
Source: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html
What is most interesting is that the recent tornado outbreak that stretched from Arkansas to Georgia marked the end to a streak of 159 days without a tornado ranking an EF3 or higher on the Enhanced Fujita scale (which goes from 0 to 5).As we reported earlier on WUWT, we were in a tornado drought: Tornado season so far may be the slowest in a century
Greg Carbin, the man in charge at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) provided this graph and says:
Likely the slowest start to tornado activity in any year in modern record, and possibly nearly a century!
It got busy very fast though. There were only 20 tornadoes up to April 20th, then 93 tornadoes in storm reports up to April 24th, but then SPC recorded 87 tornadoes in storm reports alone on Monday April 28th, many with fatalities (preliminary data, and may be subject to revision once investigations are made on storm events).
I find it interesting to note that he past three seasons have all been well below the 2011 tornado season, which had the second highest tornado count on record and was much ballyhooed by climate alarmists as the defining link between severe weather and climate. 2012, 2013, and 2014 so far seems to be an inconvenient anomaly for those claims.
Another claim was that the flooding in Pensacola, FL, which got over 29″ of rain, setting a new record, was related to climate change.
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL 1100 AM CDT FRI MAY 2 2014 ...RECORD APRIL RAINFALL... PENSACOLA... PENSACOLA RECORDED 29.53 INCHES OF RAIN IN APRIL WHICH WAS 25.21 INCHES ABOVE NORMAL...MAKING IT THE WETTEST APRIL AND WETTEST MONTH EVER RECORDED. PREVIOUS APRIL RECORDS 24.46...2005 17.03...1937 15.52...1964 13.90...1918 WETTEST MONTHS 29.53...APRIL 2014 24.46...APRIL 2005 21.43...AUGUST 1935 21.14...JUNE 1994 NOTE: PRECIP AMOUNTS FOR 04/29 AND 04/30 WERE ESTIMATED FROM NEARBY WSR-88D DUAL POL RADAR DATA DUE TO A POWER FAILURE ON THE AUTOMATED OBSERVING SYSTEM AT PNS ON THE EVENING OF 04/29.
Scott Sistek reports:
At one point Tuesday, Pensacola received 3.39 inches of rain — in 27 minutes! They were up to 3.95 inches in 34 minutes, 5.68 inches in 1 hour and 15.55″ in 24 hours! Actually, the 15.55 is an estimate as their automated rain gauge failed amidst the deluge. A separate weather station nearby recorded 17.7 inches, while other estimates in the area were as high as 22 inches.
With rainfall rates like that, street flooding is no surprise.
Eric Holthaus, who some may remember as “get a vasectomy to save the planet” guy said on Slate:
‘It probably wouldn’t be correct to say that climate change caused Pensacola’s floods, but it surely made them more likely. Climate change is playing a role in extreme rainfall events like the one on Tuesday’
I loved Dr. Ryan Maue’s reply:
http://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/461596711904116736
But, look at this table, and note when the events occurred – well before our current spate of worry about “climate change”.
I think localized areas near Charlottesville, VA on the Blue Ridge got an estimated 30″ rain over ~8 hrs from the remnants of Hurricane Camille in August 1969. No “official” raingauge, but estimated by the VA weather service from numerous open barrels and buckets in the area. Whole mountainsides, forest & all, slid down into valleys.
@beng – Nelson county. Which is merely a valley between 2 mountains to begin with. 128 deaths in a county with a total population of about 5000.
Huh. Just finished reading that corn yields are affected by hot and dry weather while noting that corn yields are up. Now I find that tornadoes are increased by global warming and tornadoes are down. I’m starting to approach 99% confidence that their predictions are 100% crap.
Joshua says:
May 3, 2014 at 4:14 am
2014 tornado counts are so low that it broke the previous record for the first F3 tornado (Mar 31) by a whopping 26 days. Even more remarkable is that these low nominal counts are *before* you adjust for increased population and better tracking technology.
===
Much play is made of the under-counting earlier in the record in an attempt to dismiss the whole record as unreliable.
After all if the data shows vastly more tornadoes in the 70s at the coolest part and much less in the 2000s when it was considerably warmer, well the data MUST be wrong. It must need some “bias adjustment” or better still it should be thrown out all together.
Not much adjusting to do if stick to EF2 and greater.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=218
World political leaders say that “Climate Change is real, it is happening now.” Since climate is defined as normal, or typical weather (usually over a 30 year period), what are the changes in the climate we can observe?
Average Temperature
In the past, there have been periods where on balance temperatures have risen, and periods of cooling. The present climate situation is a global temperature plateau following a period of warming. It is uncertain how long the flat trend will continue, and whether it will end with warming or cooling.
It has been at least this warm in the Medieval period, certainly warmer in the preceding Roman and Minoan periods, and those temperatures were a boon for human civilization.
Extreme Temperatures
The average temperature since 1900 has been increasing. However, that average increase was due to warmer shorter winters with no increase in summer temperatures. In fact, the hotter summer temperatures have dropped. The average mean yearly temperature is highly correlated to the number of days a year is above 30C (hot days), the number of days in a year the temperature is below –20C (very cold days) and the length of winter in days. All three of these are decreasing, meaning more moderated yearly climate today as compared to the period before 1950.
What is actually, physically happening is a narrowing of the variability in temperatures with no net change in summer temperatures, except that there are fewer hotter days. This narrowing in variability is primarily due to warmer shorter winters. If this trend continues, the future of the planet is not one of warmer, harsher climate, but less variability in yearly temperatures below a summer normal that is not increasing, more tolerable winters, longer growing seasons, and lower heating bills.
Average Precipitation
Water vapor cycles through the atmosphere each 9 days. If water evaporates from a surface somewhere, on average it will rain out somewhere else 9 days later. Observations of monthly rainfall variability from 1940 to 2009 show a zero temporal trend in global mean precipitation, but a reduction in global land variation, meaning that wet places became drier and dry places became wetter
Rainfall patterns are such that presently 33% of the land is considered desert, defined as places where evaporation exceeds precipitation. Satellite images show that desert areas are turning greener in recent years.
The last time the Earth was 1.0 degree warmer, the Sahara had trees and lakes. The last time it was 2.0C warmer, 10 million years ago, there was so much rainfall, that the entire planet was forested with virtually no desert or grassland
Extreme Weather Events
During the recent warm decades extreme weather has not increased by any statistical measure. On shorter time scales (60-year cycles), the warm phases of AMO cycles correlate with extreme storms, but ocean circulation is not driven by air temperature or CO2. On longer time frames, Eg. comparing the Medieval warm period with the Little Ice age, it is clear that cooler periods have more extreme weather, not less.
The long-term intense hurricane drought means that a mere “regression to the mean” will see more hurricane landfalls and considerably higher damage in the years to come. A return to the “old normal” of, for example the 1950s-, would mean both hurricane damage and storms would increase dramatically in the years to come.
The most careful empirical studies show that, so far at least, there has been no perceptible increase, globally, in either the number or the severity of extreme weather events. These studies also show that, thanks to scientific and material progress, there has been a massive reduction, worldwide, in deaths from extreme weather events.
jim south london says:
“Why would you want to buy a house in somewhere called “Tornado Alley” anyway.”
It’s beautiful in so many places, check it out. Couple of examples… Come by Tennessee and The Grand ‘ol Opera House or the country & western shows Branson, Missouri and visit. You might not ever want to leave.
Some of us were born here, have families. Some of us are just plain stupid. Or both, me…
And on deck is the next polar low coming ashore in the west. The dry line is already forming across Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and the Dakotas… By mid week it should be over the central plains..
And many of those western states will have snow above 6 thousand feet… Winter is trying like heck to hold on for one last blast..
Greg says:
May 3, 2014 at 11:49 am
Much play is made of the under-counting earlier in the record in an attempt to dismiss the whole record as unreliable.
After all if the data shows vastly more tornadoes in the 70s at the coolest part and much less in the 2000s when it was considerably warmer, well the data MUST be wrong. It must need some “bias adjustment” or better still it should be thrown out all together.
Not much adjusting to do if stick to EF2 and greater.
==================
Indeed. I prefer to stick to EF3+ for an even smaller chance that we have missed things at that size. By my unofficial analysis of NOAA data 2008 and 2011 are the only years from this century that are even in the top 25 years for the record books…. Last week’s outbreak took 2014 from record low pace all the way up to about “49th out of 65” pace
http://www.climatenerd.com/tornado-stats.php?scale=3&mva=10&yrb=1950&yre=2013&mnb=1&mne=12
I’m with the folks earlier in the thread – please don’t jinx it by saying that it looks like it will be a quiet year. And count me as one who wonders if we’re just getting a later than average start with a later than average finish. I hope not, but we all know that Murphy was a meteorologist. 🙂
This information, cited by Greg Carbon is flat wrong. Just in the last days of April 2014, the 26th, 27th, and 28th, there were over 200 tornadoes, and Mort than 30 related tornado deaths. The overall total tornado count is above average for annual April tornado statistics in 2014, and the tornado death rate for April 2014 is significantly higher than most other April’s on record with one exception, April of 2011. This is entirely inaccurate reporting of weather statistics!