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| Screenshot from a video showing a tornado blasting through Montebello, California Wednesday. It's already been a busy year for U.S. tornadoes, and factors are coming together that could make for many more twisters, |
These developments come as some factors are coming together to make the dawning core of the tornado season especially dangerous. More on that in a moment.
The tornado that hit Montebello, California was a high-end EF-1 with top wind speeds of 110 mph. It injured one person, and damaged 17 buildings. Eleven of those buildings had serious damage.
It was the strongest tornado to strike the L.A. metro area in 40 years.
Another tornado touched down in a mobile home park in Santa Barbara County, California.
The storm that spawned the California twisters has pushed east now. This is a rather unscientific comment, but I've noticed that most times when there's a tornado or two in California, a much more serious tornado outbreak flairs up in the Plains, South or Midwest.
Which brings us to today.
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says there's a moderate risk of severe storms and tornadoes in an area surrounding the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. That's a level four out of five alert levels, or second highest risk ranking.
As of 2:30 p.m. Friday, a tornado watch was already in effect for parts of far east Texas, Arkansas and Louisana,. This tornado threat will grow and spread east through the late afternoon and evening.
BUSY TORNADO YEAR?
Long range forecasts extending into early April suggest a continued rather busy storm track from the southern Rockies and southern and central Plains, on into the Great Lakes and New England.
Each storm could carry a tornado risk south of the parent storm track. There's no way of knowing if that busy storm track will continue on toward the peak of tornado season in May
On top of that, the Gulf of Mexico is much warmer than normal for this time of year. As the Washington Post reports, this could intensify the frequency and strength of tornadoes in the next couple of months or so.
A crucial ingredient for tornadoes is very warm, humid air. Winds coming off the Gulf of Mexico would be warmer and carry more moisture if the water temperatures there are higher. So it stands to reason that this would contribute to a busy tornado season.
Of course, tornadoes need a bunch of other ingredients, such as winds that veer and change speed with height, blasts of lingering cold air coming down from Canada, and punches of dry air coming in from northern Mexico and the Desert South west.
If those and other factors don't happen this spring, then the bulk of tornado season in 2023 could end up being pretty mellow, despite the hot, wet breath of the the Gulf of Mexico.
The Washington Post correctly points out that predicting tornado seasons is still not very easy. Scientists are still having trouble figuring out months in advance whether a season would favor tornadoes or not.
We do know the water in the Gulf of Mexico was toastier than normal all winter, and that was one contributor to an oddly busy winter for tornadoes.
The U.S saw 168 tornadoes in January, the second most on record for that month. February saw 55 tornadoes, about double the average for the month. Tornadoes touched down in oddly northern areas for winter including Ohio and New Jersey.
We have so far caught a bit of a break in March, with just 44 tornadoes reported through Wednesday, which is running a little behind normal. However, as noted above, the number of twisters this month seems poised to increase, perhaps dramatically.
FLOODING?
By the way, all that hot, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico isn't only a tornado problem. It's a flood problem. At least potentially.
The hotter and wetter the air, the more rain can be wrung out of the atmosphere as storms pass by.
The storm expected to cause tornadoes tomorrow is also likely to unleash quite a bit of flooding in the Tennessee and Ohio River valleys today and especially tomorrow,
That area has been getting a lot of rain all winter. On the bright side, that rain and snow has extended westward to the Mississippi Valley. Water levels were at near record, dangerous low levels last fall, but water levels have now recovered so there's no longer any problems with barge traffic.
VERMONT EFFECTS
As we know, we don't see many tornadoes in Vermont. We average perhaps one a year, and the bulk of those occur in the summer, when the warm Gulf of Mexico doesn't matter as much.
I suppose the warm Gulf could get us off to a somewhat early start with severe thunderstorms in late April or May, but that's just a guess. Flip a coin if you want the truthful answer
If the storm track across the nation remains busy, and most of the storms end up in New England, I suppose that could increase the flood threat somewhat over the next few months.
Already, the year is running a little ahead of normal for precipitation. Burlington on Thursday just went a bit above normal for rain and melted snow for the entire month of March, and we still have eight days to go in the month. Another storm is expected to dump another third to a half inch of rain and melted snow and ice tomorrow and tomorrow night.
The year 2011 was a landmark, extreme busy spring for both U.S. tornadoes and flooding here in Vermont. I can almost guarantee this year won't be anything like 2011 in Vermont.
There's much less snow in the mountains to melt than there was at this time in 2011. March that year was much wetter than average. April and May, 2011 saw record high rainfall amounts in Vermont. I really doubt history will be repeated this year
That said, Vermont is a flood-prone state. It wouldn't surprise me if we do see some flooding this spring as I noted the other day. It's just that the risk isn't all that extreme.
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