Tornado
Category archives for Tornado
Most Efficient Tornado Hunt Ever
Posted by Greg Laden on September 9, 2014 
Al Franken likes to joke about having run the most efficient campaign for Senate ever, referring to when he beat incumbent Norm Coleman by just a couple of hundred votes (on the first count … the number went up during the grueling recount). Now, we have an example of the most efficient ever tornado hunt.…
What about those tornadoes?
Posted by Greg Laden on December 5, 2013 
Are there more tornadoes because of global warming? Are they stronger? Do they occur more frequently outside of the usual tornado season, or are they more common in areas that formerly had few tornadoes? There are problems with all of these questions, and the main problem is the fact that the tornado data isn’t very…
How three storm chasers died, and what to do about it
Posted by Greg Laden on June 3, 2013 If you want to walk down Main Street, in downtown America, you can do that, because it is America. This is a free country and public space is public. But if the Acme Office Building, on Main Street, is on fire, broken glass is blowing out of windows and fire trucks and other emergency vehicles…
Three Famous Storm Chasers Were Killed in Oklahoma #twistex
Posted by Greg Laden on June 2, 2013 
Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and their colleague Carl Young were killed yesterday when their research vehicle was crushed almost beyond recognition by a Tornado they were “chasing” in Oklahoma. If you ever watched Storm Chasers, the show on Discovery Channel (it is on Netflix) you may know of these guys. Tim Samaras’s team…
Understanding Storms and Global Warming: A Quaint Parable
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
A quaint New England rocky creek Imagine standing next to Parable Creek, an imaginary rocky brook in New England. The water is rushing past you from left to right, around the rocks that emerge tall above the surface of the stream, mounding over the top of those that are lower down. The deepest parts of…
Are there more tornadoes because of global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2013 
There are good reasons to believe that global warming leads to more storminess, but the exact nature of that transition is unclear and hard to measure. Part of the reason for this difficulty is that a given type of storm may become more likely under certain conditions caused by climate change, while a different kind…
Tornadoes: Safety is all about attitude.
Posted by Greg Laden on March 22, 2012 Do you hear that loud, repeated smashing sound coming from the general direction of the Upper Midwest and Plains? That’s us. Here in Minnesota, we have been breaking high temperature records left and right. Most of the TV weather reporters are wearing slings, eye patches, and bandages around their heads, it’s been so intense. And,…
Wow, it’s raining Apples!
Posted by Greg Laden on December 15, 2011 Coventry England experienced a downpour of apples. This happened to me once, but all I got were these lousy bits of foliage.
“My little Minnesotans deserve the best and need your help!”
Posted by Greg Laden on October 7, 2011 Sunday, May 22nd, 2011: That is a day people around here will never forget. I remember standing in the maw of my open garage holding an iPad with the weather radar running on it. The weather map showed that a tornado was on top of me. Amanda, Julia and Huxley were in the basement preparing…
Are all these tornadoes being caused by global warming?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 25, 2011 People are asking me: Is the recent spate of tornadoes caused by global warming? The usual answer to that question is that you can’t answer the question because a tornado is not caused by climate … it is cause by weather … and global warming (which is real, and which is cause by humans) is…