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| This day care center with 70 children inside was destroyed by the tornado in Selma, Alabama. Miraculously, one child suffered minor injuries and the rest were unscathed as day care workers hustled the kids into protected areas of the building. |
That outbreak of twisters Thursday in the Southeast killed at least nine people and left a long trail of destruction from Mississippi to Kentucky to Georgia.
A large chunk of the damage and deaths were created by one long-lasting, intense supercell thunderstorm that traveled roughly 500 miles from Louisiana into Georgia, spitting out several tornadoes along the way. One of those tornadoes mauled Selma, Alabama.
Selma, known for its civil rights history, suffered widespread damage through several neighborhoods, including part of downtown, just as the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend got underway.
Seven of the deaths occurred in a town about 40 miles northeast of Selma, when that same supercell unleashed another tornado there.
Some of those tornadoes that thunderstorm produced were quite strong. The one responsible for the deaths northeast of Selma was an EF-3, meaning it had winds of 136 to 165 mph. The Selma tornado was deemed an EF-2, with winds of 111 to 135 mph.
The tornadoes extended into Georgia. The town of Griffin was hit hard, with several homes and businesses damaged or destroyed. News video showed the roof of the Hobby Lobby store in Griffin torn off.
Wintertime tornado outbreaks happen from time to time in the South. The region's proximity to the Gulf of Mexico means under some conditions, warm, very humid air can flood the Southeast, even in the dead of winter. That sets the stage for severe weather if a storm system approaches.
This one was one of the stronger January swarms of twisters that I can remember in both the number of tornadoes and number of deaths for the opening month of the year. At last check, there were 53 reports of tornadoes in seven states on Thursday.
But wasn't the worst January outbreak in U.S. history. On average, the United States sees about 36 tornadoes during the month of January. So on Thursday, we had about a month's worth in one day.
In January, 1999, though, a total of 212 twisters hit the U.S. the most on record for the first month of the year.
The deadliest January tornado outbreak since at least 1950 struck Mississippi, Kentucky and Tennessee on January 23, 1969, killing 32 people.
A January, 2017 tornado outbreak led to 20 deaths in the Southeast.
On average, about 80 people die in tornadoes yearly, but there's a lot of variability from year to year. Given that the bulk of these deaths normally occur between April and June, we're off to a bad start in 2023.
Recent winter outbreaks, including this one, might have been made worse by unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, which in turn is caused by climate change. Data shows there has been an upward trend in January tornadoes in the United States.
As I mentioned, tornado outbreaks need warm, humid air to develop. If the Gulf is warmer than usual, the air can in turn become warmer and hold more moisture. The warmer, wetter air can supply additional fuel for potential tornado swarms.
The link between increased winter tornadoes and climate change is still under a bit of dispute, but anecdotally, things are getting worse with tornadoes in the winter.
Two major twister swarms within a week in December, 2021 in the South and Midwest. The first of them on December 10 killed 80 people in and near Kentucky. The second, on December 15, part of a strange and super strong Plains storm system, unleashed a record breaking 120 tornadoes across the Midwest, an area that almost never sees winter twisters. .
In recent months, destructive tornadoes swarms have struck in mid-December, killing three people in the South. Nearly 50 mostly weak tornadoes hit on January 2-4 in the South.
We might not be done with this January's tornados just yet. It's possible more severe weather will break out in the Gulf Coast states during the middle of the upcoming week.
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