This is the stuff of nightmares for people like me who grew up in the ‘Tornado Belt’ in the U.S.:
[quote]Daylight illuminated a scene of utter devastation across many areas of the South Thursday, following storms of near-epic proportions that killed at least 202 people in six states.
The vast majority of fatalities occurred in Alabama, where as many as 149 people perished…Mississippi emergency management officials also added 14 previously unreported fatalities to the count, increasing the death toll in that state to 32, officials said. At least one person died in both Arkansas and Tennessee and 11 died in Georgia. On Thursday, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said eight people were dead.[/quote]
Here’s hoping y’all and all your friends and loved ones are safe.[strike][/strike]
Title has been edited from 200 to 468 to reflect latest tragedy.-- DB, May 24, 2011
A player from the University of Alabama was seriously injured and his girlfriend killed when a tornado ripped through their house. He was tossed 50 yards out of his. Obviously I’m not trying to take away from the other 280+ people that were killed but it shows that nobody is safe from the wratch of mother nature. I very moved to Oklahoma City 2 years ago and one of the places I looked at buying my house was Moore but after researching found it was one of the hardest hit places in the state year in and year out. As it turns out I didn’t move there but having never lived in a place that has tornados it would have been interesting.
On the news, they were showing a house that had been moved almost half a meter off its foundations. It looked like a giant had just pushed it aside. The rest of the devastated town was described in Chinese “as if Mazinger had stepped on it”.
Edit:
The images are surreal. Horribly scary, death and destruction at a degree few times seen. Our thoughts with the people affected.
This has been the biggest year for tornadoes in the US ever, I think. Over a thousand tornados so far, and the season has just begun. 362 tornadoes just between April 25 to 28, with 350+ dead in Alabama and six other states. Now 116+ dead in Missouri, one in Kansas, and one in Minneapolis.
Hundreds dead. Great time to take a political shot. :bravo: What a fucking embarrassment.
Chris - we should use the science for the deductive value it was designed to deliver. Yes, temperature rises are expected to cause more storms. No, we can’t say which particular storms are attributable to the anthropogenic contributions of climate change.
Thoughts & prayers for the victims & their families.
[quote]An emerging body of research points to a cyclical drop in temperatures in the Pacific Ocean as part of the answer. Called La Nina, the cycle lasts at least five months and repeats every three to five years. This year La Nina is pushing a strong North American jetstream east and south, altering prevailing winds. The jetstream’s river of cool air high in the atmosphere pulls warmer, more humid air from the ground upwards, forming thunderstorm “super-cells.”
Such a pattern drove the outbreak of more than 300 tornadoes that swept from Mississippi to Tennessee in late April, killing at least 365, experts say. But it’s too early for them to know whether La Nina alone accounts for what is shaping up to be a disastrously record-breaking tornado season, said tornado expert Grady Dixon of Mississippi State University. “La Nina is probably part of it,” he said. “But it’s not the only reason.”
…
Tornado experts predicted a devastating season this year, and many have begun studying whether global climate change is driving more frequent — and more intense — tornado-spawning thunderstorms. Such work is at an early stage, making it difficult to draw conclusions.
…
“Climate change could be boosting one of those ingredients [for tornadoes], but it depends on how these ingredients come together,” said Robert Henson, a meteorologist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.
[quote]The April total of 875 U.S. tornadoes shattered the previous record of 267 set in April1974. The first two weeks of May were relatively quiet until this weekend’s outbreak of tornadoes.
[/quote]
A new tornado has killed at least four people and injured more near El Reno, Oklahoma. Early reports indicate it appears to have grabbed cars on the interstate highway during rush hour. Fortunately, traffic isn’t very heavy so far west of Oklahoma City.
Hundreds dead. Great time to take a political shot. :bravo: What a fucking embarrassment.
Thoughts & prayers for the victims & their families. [/quote]GC - yeah…WTF do you think the “global warming” crap is? good science?.. :roflmao:
Springfield, Massachussetts, hit with tornado. No fatalities yet, but plenty of damage. More storms to come. No tornados in the area since 1954. Record heat, though.
