Looks like another “divergence problem” as tornadoes don’t follow the climatology
From NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center:
NORMAN, Okla. During a month when severe weather typically strikes, this March has been unusually quiet, with no tornado or severe thunderstorm watches issued by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center so far. And, National Weather Service forecasters see no sign of dramatic change for the next week at least.
Since the beginning of 2015, the SPC has issued only four tornado watches and no severe thunderstorm watches, which is less than 10 percent of the typical number of 52 tornado watches issued by mid-March. The approximately 20 tornadoes reported since January 1 is well below the 10-year average of 130 for that time period.
“We are in uncharted territory with respect to lack of severe weather”, said Greg Carbin, SPC’s warning coordination meteorologist. “This has never happened in the record of SPC watches dating back to 1970.”
There is no one clear reason to explain the lack of tornadoes, Carbin said.
“We’re in a persistent pattern that suppresses severe weather, and the right ingredients — moisture, instability, and lift — have not been brought together in any consistent way so far this year.”
Forecasters expect a change soon, however. April and May are typically the busiest months for severe weather and tornadoes. Patterns can change in a few days, Carbin said, and it’s important to be prepared for severe weather when it occurs.
Analysis of the ten lowest and ten highest watch count years through the middle of March reveals little correlation to the subsequent number of tornadoes through the end of June. For example, early 2012 was particularly active with 77 watches issued through mid-March. The subsequent period through the end of June was unusually quiet for tornadoes with about 130 fewer EF1 and stronger tornadoes occurring than what would normally be expected. On the other hand, 1984, with a relatively low watch count of 28 through mid-March, became more active and by late June had about 100 EF1 and stronger tornadoes above the long-term mean of 285.
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‘More tornadoes’ is nothing but spin.
LOl that’s a new twist on things 🙂
That’s a circular argument 😉
You guys are getting carried away
Come now, let’s not blow this out of proportion.
No comments from Oz?
Surely gone with the wind…
I’d say a bit like… spitting in the wind…..then again we might be watching which way the wind is blowing….or to put a finer point to it.. we might be twisting in the wind….They should remember that he who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind!! That’s all from Oz!!
The next US presidential elections are just around the corner. Let’s see what happens to the politics of climatastrophy.
The stakes could go from “national security” to “galactic peril” but, just as well, the whole matter could be a complete no-show in the next electoral programs.
Punsatawney Phil must have seen his shadow.
IF he did see his shadow it would be a miracle… The Liberal politician dropped him last year and killed old Phil… The new guy was in a glass cage this year to keep him from biting him… 🙂
So much for climate weirding.
“Climate Change” (or “Climate Disruption”, or “Global Weirding”) will be cited as the cause of no tornadoes thus far; mark my words.
Arrggh.. should read “..so few tornadoes..”. Danged autocorrect 😉
Of Course…. Dont you know that all the wind you guys should have had by now is down here destroying Antarctica by undermining the exposed glaciers and creating huge whirlpool in the sea that suck all the extra heat that CO2 has been helping create. ? That explains a few things, mainly why the temperature has not increased……
It only takes one for the propaganda to continue. Remember “super storm” Sandy?
We’ll just have to bring our own bad weather …
Riders on the Storm
+1, thanks for posting.
Thanks – I posted on this my Facebook with a statement that there are no tornadoes in March so far and probably not for the whole month…
You have to admit, being wrong with every prediction you make would be as tough as actually getting them right. To maintain a 100% failure level has got to be extremely difficult. When you consider that many of the predictions were 50/50 propositions, maintaining that level of incompetence would be very, very difficult to maintain. Hats off the the IPCC for proving that while absolute failure may indeed be extraordinarily difficult, it is not impossible.
I better go now. They’ve predicted a huge ice storm. I’m off to buy some sunscreen, beer, an ice chest and beach towels. Its good to be prepared.
Two wrongs make a Left.
The rest is a bonu$.
3 lefts make a right…
3 lefts make a Troika…
That level of failure is truly remarkable. I’ve mentioned that before that it would be almost impossible to predict anything 100% with a 50 – 50 probability. Pulling all the red marbles out when they should be white or flipping the coin and getting tails when you are predicting heads. What’s even more amazing that they are using science to predict those outcomes. They’d be better off breaking bones to see which way it cracks. They’d at least get a few right.
The Gods of nature are upset with them for they have said they are predictable. Human folly.
What about examining chicken entrails?
I prefer tea leaves. At least that way you get some tea out of the exercise.
In the game of keno, you can actually start winning money by being 100% wrong if you’ve chosen enough losing numbers. Maybe they should have the next big global warming conference in Vegas and they can all hit the keno lounges instead of droning on and on with their meaningless speeches.
Ha! I’ve lived in NV for 42 years, I’ll have to try that strategy.
FWIW a guy I knew decades ago played Keno relentlessly. He had moved to NV in ’64 and the very first game of Keno he ever played hit for $25k. He said it was the worst thing that ever happened to him, as he had since paid back that $25k to the casinos many times over playing Keno. ;-(
Of course the reality that every year is bad for the CO2 causes more dangerous weather mean is lost on the climate kooks.
I am as opposed to all the alarmism and bad information about this subject as anyone but I must say I do not understand the point of this post.
As SPC states “Analysis of the ten lowest and ten highest watch count years through the middle of March reveals little correlation to the subsequent number of tornadoes through the end of June.” The lack of severe thunderstorms so far this year is just weather and it is certainly not unprecedented. In 1981 we went almost 100 straight days without a severe weather watch being issued and so far this year we are only at 51. It also looks possible that we will see quite an uptick in severe thunderstorms in April and May. Joe Bastardi is already hitting this forecast quite hard.
Should that happen, I think the comment that “this being a bad year for severe weather caused by climate change” will look rather silly.
Something that has never happened before in weather is news and interesting.
The point is that it is so far below normal and that AGW has predicted terrible outcomes from rising temperatures. Further, the rise in temperatures AGW allude to is below the lowest predictions of the relationship between co2 and temperature. Of course the weather could turn bad. However, AGW has no problem screaming when even normal bad weather is evidence of climate change. It is remarkable how quite AGW is when opposite things occur from what they predicted. If by the same meme we could say this is a trend, then promptly forget it as soon as things start to be become active again. I understand the article perfectly and what it is accomplishes.
They only need one storm in order to prove that the weather – oops climate – is exceptional. After all, if you get an unprecedented storm, which it obviously will be, then by definition the conditions are exceptional.
“A [recent] persistent pattern that suppresses severe weather” – It MUST be caused by global warming.
One has to wait for spring to actually arrive and winter to pass…ooops winter just won’t go away! :0
Surely you’re not considering that looking at a period of less than 3 months can hold any significance at all regarding long-term phenomena such as climate? This is like trying to watch the stars through a microscope. All you see is noise. I have seen some thorough and useful articles on this site, but this one is certainly not one of them.
Its news! something that has never happened before. Hey we watched an eclipse from an airplane that nothing to do with the debate. The title does say “so far” and it is a puzzle.
Aran,
In your haste to deride the post, you find yourself characterizing climate as a phenomenon.
This is a misunderstanding of a term that you obviously take seriously.
Storms are phenomena, droughts are phenomena and deluges are, too, but climate is no such beast.
You cannot observe climate, it doesn’t occur; it’s an abstraction. We conjure it up with observations as our inspiration.
There you were, so keen to school us on the difference between weather and climate but your condescension turns out to be embarrassment.
You make a lot of assumptions about me, which I don not particularly like. Anyway, you are right about the incorrect use of the word phenomena. I actually spent some time trying to think of something better, but nothing came to mind. I am not a native English speaker, so I sometimes have to make do with a more limited vocabulary than those who are. I will refrain from responding to the rest of your contribution, because I like to focus on content rather than semantics or insinuations.
Global warming is frying his brain!
Aran, It’s not proof, no, and I must agree. Anthony, you are putting far more weight on this than you should. I think we should be putting more emphasis on the long-term changes (or more specifically, lack thereof).
However, it’s evidence against the “climate heck” claims of the warmists. As they’ve been claiming every hurricane is proof of global warming for years. Even Sandy, a sub-tropical storm which while far north, wasn’t unprecedented, and Katrina, a hurricane hitting New Orleans, which is about as unusual as the Cowboys fumbling a pass. Both were heralded as announcements of Global Warming.
So yes, putting this and the extreme snowfalls up makes sense. While not proof of truth or falsehood, it undermines the claims that have been put forth for decades now, and while it’s near impossible to prove something true, proving something false is much, much easier.
I don’t agree completely, but maybe that’s more a case of personal preference rather than anything else. I don’t think ignorance should be opposed by reverse ignorance. If any single event is being claimed as proof for global warming, then this can be refuted by pointing at the bigger picture, rather than simply using the same fallacy to claim the opposite.
Am I the only one who looks at this and sees it isn’t a warm year so far for the region tornadoes form in? In fact, it’s been most unusually cold and snowy.
Just because there are not more severe storms occurring and no trend of more occurring doesn’t mean there is not more severe weather being caused by CO2 emissions.
Experts and others are telling us more are occurring and will be occurring because of CO2 emissions.
That is the real measure of storm severity and frequency. What we are told.
The alarmists who show up here regularly all seem to be students of “Believe What You Are Told” school.
I’m pretty sure that was sarcasm, Eustace.
Yes I know it’s sarcasm. Was my reply too subtle?
Mmm Me think that you have to go and have a look at this site….http://climatechangepredictions.org/ lots of GOOD predictions there!!
And as we all know, global warming causes unusual snow and cold
“as tornadoes don’t follow the climatology” — right, they follow the weather. And since the weather this winter has been similar to the weather last winter, I expect the tornado count will be similar too.
The more interesting question is why the odd winter pattern for two years.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/03/why-has-weather-been-so-unusual-past.html
Note the top graph is not climatology based since it is only based on ten years. NOAA has lots of interesting graphs and charts. The one just below this graph on the NOAA web site http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/ is “United States Annual Trends of LSR Tornadoes” and it shows a separate line for each year.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/torngraph-big.png
All of the recent 10 years have been near or below the average of those same 10 years except 2008 and 2011, which are way higher. And 2011 was a late bloomer.
Steve Oregon…you left of the stupid/sarc tag. And you can quit contributing to CO2 by staying off the computer.
Justthinkin,
He didn’t need the sarc/ tag. It is possible to employ sarcasm on-line through extreme exaggeration.
The most ardent CAGW devotee would not have written what Steve wrote.
“There is no one clear reason to explain the lack of tornadoes, Carbin said.”
I guess I must be smarter than him then. Took me ten minutes to find the reason. Like I thought, it’s because of the cold. All those years with long stretches of no tornadoes were cold years for the region tornadoes form.
Q.E.D.
Obviously you must impose a Carbin tax on him.
That was clever. But I was serious.
Just realized I wasn’t clear enough. Compare the periods of no tornadoes with the temperature at the time. No tornadoes equates with cold in the east and central US.
Don’t take my word for it. Check the data.
I call it “reversion to mean.” Some years are high. Some years have to be low. Unless you live at Lake Wobegon, which is the favorite hang-out of Liberals who don’t understand statistics.
the extreme weather is hiding in the deep oceans, or the volcano ate my tornado
OK, I confess. I stole the severe storms. Guess I’m a convective felon…….. Wonder who my cell mate will be…
You must be under a lot of pressure knowing that soon you will be behind bars.
It’s important to report “abnormally” benign weather phenomenon to counter the warmunists’ 35-yr propaganda campaign of hyping any “extreme” weather event that takes place anywhere in the world.
The public must be made aware of warmunists’ distortion of reality (aka as lies) for science to “win” the propaganda battle. CAGW is no longer about science, it’s devolved into a political propaganda battle, which the Left is starting to lose by attrition.
Looking at the science, there hasn’t been any statistically significant evidence of increasing trends in frequency nor intensity of severe weather for the past 50~100 years for: typhoons, cyclones, hurricanes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms, sub-tropical storms, etc., and yet far too many people still think all these weather phenomena have been RAPIDLY increasing at “unprecedented” levels over the past 35 years, due to increasing CO2 levels… It just ain’t so…
This inaccurate perception has been created through Leftist propaganda… Science and empirical evidence is, unfortunately, irrelevant to too many of the aggressively ignorant….
It’s important that stories like this be posted on Twitter and Facebook, because the MSM will not report it, as it doesn’t fit the CAGW narrative. It doesn’t matter if later this year, there is a cluster of “unprecedented” tornado activity, because even if this occurs, such an event wouldn’t change the reality that tornado activity has actually been decreasing for the past 45 years (which even the IPCC admits):
Warmunist deceptively show tornado graphs showing F0+ tornados increasing, without explaining that Doppler Radar technology increased the detection of tiny tornadoes that weren’t even counted before Doppler Radar systems went online…
If we don’t win the propaganda battle, CAGW’s war on science will be needlessly prolonged.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
–
It is important to remember this is just a cyclical fluctuation in the weather. The climate isn’t changing differently than it has always changed. There is no cause for alarm.
Still, be vigilant. We are unlikely to be hurt by severe weather if we stay prepared and watchful. In the mean time, let’s all be thankful for the nice weather.
Jeeees Human beings are sooo full of themselves, time for the Sun to give a real good belch and show us who the real boss is.
100%
So you based your claim of “So far, 2015 seems to be a bad year for the ‘severe weather caused by climate change” meme” on just the tornado counts for one country?
Seems a small sample size.
“So far” it is.
I don’t think he’s doing that. If you look at world cyclonic energy for the last ten years it is at historic lows and has been for the last 4-5 years. ‘World Cyclonic Energy’ accounts for the ‘severity’ (as measured by the total energy content of Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Typhoons, etc worldwide. As an example there has not been a Cat 3 or higher Hurricane strike on the Contiental US in over 8 years, a historical record going back as long as we have been recording Hurricane activity.
North America, sandwiched between two oceans, has more tornado’s than the rest of the world combined.
Not when you think that the earth is covered 70 % by water. Two land masses are nearly covered by ice and snow. Additionally, other large parts ( like Siberia, northern parts of north America, deserts) are not habitable.
Tell you what, we’ll stop citing N America trends when the alarmists stop citing them, e.g. “See! Worst tornado damage in Oklahoma evah! More proof global warming is real and it is causing more extreme weather” Fair enough?
harrytwinotter,
Tornadoes have been steadily decreasing, as we see from the related tornado fatalities.
In fact, extreme weather events in general have been steadily declining. Another alarmist prediction bites the dust.
Lower storm activity seems consistent with warming at the poles and at night. Storms are driven by temperature differences, and warmer atmosphere should result in lower differences.
Alarmists’ stormy predictions may be wrong, but this is not ammunition for skeptics.
All alarmist predictions are wrong and all are ammunition for skeptics.
Check the archives. For 30 years we heard that a warmer climate will produce stronger and more frequent storms.
The fact that it’s not happening is most certainly ammunition for skeptics.
“Alarmists’ stormy predictions may be wrong, but this is not ammunition for skeptics.“. Well, the alarmists’ stormy predictions don’t just come out of thin air, they come from the climate computer models. These models are the most advanced models that have ever been built, they contain a phenomenal amount of climate knowledge, extraordinarily sophisticated logical processes, and are run on the most powerful computers on the planet. Only the most pig-headed anti-science idiot could even think of criticising them. Every single known facet of climate is embedded in the models, and they can predict every aspect of climate with complete accuracy over periods of years, decades, even centuries. They can tell us by exactly how much the oceans will rise, how the pattern of droughts and floods will change, exactly when the Arctic will be ice-free, exactly how the polar vortex will behave, exactly how temperatures will change in every one of Earth’s major regions from the poles to the tropics and even to the deep oceans. The idea that the models’ predictions of something as absurdly simple as the frequency and strength of storms could be even slightly inaccurate, let alone that they “may be wrong”, is so preposterous as to be laughable, criminal even. The sceptics’ notion that the measured frequency and strength of storms does not match the models’ predictions must be, to put it mildly, ridiculously wrong. So, Slywolfe, you are absolutely right – there cannot possibly be any ammunition here for sceptics. In fact, the climate models are so perfect, and climate science so complete, that there isn’t any ammunition for sceptics anywhere.
Actually the predictions would be even more perfect if the computations were done on Hex instead of those silly Intel processors.