The past few weeks have seen extreme weather across the United States.
While the West braces for the peak of a record heat wave, several Midwestern states are being battered by massive snowstorms and hail. Meanwhile, communities in the Southeast and along the East Coast are battling severe storms that could cause flooding and wind damage across the region.
In certain areas, these storms can produce the most deadly weather disasters – tornadoes. Multiple tornadoes struck the Midwest earlier this month, resulting in multiple deaths. There have already been several twisters this week, including in Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina. Tornado warnings extended as far north as New Jersey on Monday night.
This is consistent with subtle changes scientists have observed in the locations where these weather events occur, with tornado frequency increasing in parts of the Northeast, Southeast, and Midwest. At the same time, researchers are observing a decline in atmospheric conditions that are conducive to tornado formation in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, where the threat of tornadoes has historically been high. As my colleague Kylie Bense reported, there are some signs that climate change is playing a role in this trend and the slight changes in tornado behavior in recent decades.
But tornadoes are notoriously difficult to predict, and the relationship between tornadoes and climate is even harder to infer, scientists say. Many questions remain, but any changes in tornado activity or range could have a major impact on the populous Southeast and East Coast.
twister recipe
March is the start of the major severe weather season in the United States, so it’s not necessarily surprising that storms, hail, and tornado threats are occurring simultaneously in different parts of the country (though, as we reported last week, the intensity of the heat wave in the West is unusual).
Spring atmospheric conditions often provide factors that promote storm development, including moisture, instability, lift, and wind shear. As warm air rises, it creates instability, and when that warm air collides with a cold front, it creates lift. However, wind shear (changes in wind speed and direction due to the rise of unstable atmosphere) is the main characteristic of thunderstorms that produce tornadoes.
Tornadoes are relatively rare and most are weak. But with about 1,000 tornadoes occurring annually in the United States, violent twister events are especially dangerous. There have already been more than 75 tornadoes this year, including one that struck southwest Michigan in March and killed four people.
So, like many other extreme weather events, is climate change accelerating these deadly whirlwinds? The answer to that is complex, and for the most part we currently don’t have a solution.
“Each tornado is a local creature, making it difficult to link them directly to global climate trends,” meteorologist Bob Henson wrote in Yale Climate Connections in 2021.
Still, some answers are emerging about how tornado behavior changes over time. More data exists as storm chasers and social media users post photos and videos of tornadoes.
Of course, that can make it difficult to tell if a change is occurring or if you’re just monitoring the situation. But as scientists explain this, studies show that tornado activity is becoming more concentrated, occurring less frequently in the spring and summer and more often in the fall and winter. A landmark 2018 study by scientists at Northern Illinois University and the National Institute for Severe Storms confirmed the possibility of eastward movement and found that the region will experience three to four more days of tornado conditions over the next decade.
I reached out to Steven Strader, an atmospheric scientist and disaster expert at Villanova University, to see if there had been any updates since then, and because this increase seems…small. He said scientists were still working to understand the effects of climate change, but even this small increase could have devastating effects, especially in the southeast and northeast.
“A tornado that passes through a remote part of Alabama is going to do more damage than a tornado that passes through a remote part of Kansas,” Strader said, adding that many of the homes in the Southeast are manufactured and are highly vulnerable to tornadoes. In fact, studies have shown that residents of these types of homes are 20 times more likely to be killed than residents living in site-built homes.
He illustrated it with one of the most iconic tornadoes in movie history. “In ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ there’s a scene where Dorothy runs to the shelter and a tornado dances across the landscape behind her, and that same scene is happening in the Southeast. But…the tornadoes aren’t dancing through fields, they’re dancing through subdivisions, through forests, hitting all kinds of objects. So it’s a much bigger impact.”
Hail changes
Hail, another possible byproduct of intense convective storms, forms when strong updrafts carry raindrops high enough to freeze. Measured by the total fiscal cost of the United States, these ice balls are more important than tornadoes, with hailstorms costing the United States $46 billion in 2023 alone. This represents about 80 percent of fire losses caused by hail, tornadoes, wind, and lightning strikes combined, Science reports.
The impact of climate change on hailstorms is also becoming more apparent. A growing body of research shows that human-induced global warming is increasing the likelihood of large, destructive hailstorms. My colleague Bob Barwin recently highlighted new research that for the first time links anthropogenic warming to hail size in a single thunderstorm. This is a study in Paris.
A supercell storm spawned a tornado last week. and Long live Indiana and Illinois. Scientists confirmed the hail was 7.125 inches wide, which, if confirmed, would be the largest in Illinois history, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
But Strader cautions people to remember that “science is a slow process” and climate attribution studies are complex.
“We know we’re going to see more storms, more severe weather, more disasters,” he said. “The question is: Will there be more hail? Wind? Tornadoes? Where? When? That’s what we’re trying to answer, and that’s where we can make our best guess. It’s just that there’s a large margin of error. It’s a little hard to tell the public.”
More top climate news
According to new research, Global warming could further reduce the potential for outdoor physical activity around the world, potentially increasing the risk of health problems Chloe Farrand reports for the Guardian about illnesses such as heart disease and cancer. Researchers analyzed physical activity and climate data from 156 countries from 2000 to 2022 to model the effects of rising temperatures by 2050. Models showed that physical inactivity increases by 1.5 percentage points globally for each additional month in which the average temperature exceeds 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Climate change and pollution are increasing algal blooms in mountain lakescould threaten alpine food systems and freshwater supplies, Cody Cottier reports in Scientific American. Cottier chronicles his journey with researchers studying the trend in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, even as algae blooms are on the rise around the world, from the Alps to the Himalayas. In many regions, climate change is causing nutrient loads from a variety of sources, including car exhaust and wildfires that release nitrogen from plants.
According to new research, Climate change coverage in the news has fallen by nearly 40% since 2021Kate Yoder reports for Grist. In many cases, researchers say this is due to a flood of other stories flooding the news, such as coverage of the Epstein file and President Donald Trump’s constant orders and directives reshaping U.S. laws and initiatives. Whatever the reason, this decline has implications for climate change awareness and policy, which experts say is difficult to enact without public attention.
… Postcards from New Hampshire
I decided to post one of my photos for this week’s Postcards From because while it was getting a little warmer in New York the other week, I was thinking back to last year’s balmy summer hike in New Hampshire. After climbing the mountain enjoying the views and coming back down exhausted, my hiking partner and I were walking to the car when, looking through binoculars, we spotted a group of bobcat kittens playing nearby. Now that conditions are getting warmer, I can’t wait to get back on the trail!
Today’s Climate readers, what are you most looking forward to as the seasons change? Do you have any fond memories from last year that you’re looking forward to reliving? We like to feature photos of nature, whether you’re in the city, suburbs, forest, or somewhere in between. Please send your photos to (email protected).
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kylie price
reporter
Kylie Price is a reporter for Inside Climate News with a particular interest in wildlife, ocean health, food systems and climate change. She writes ICN’s newsletter, Today’s Climate, which features the most pressing environmental news each week.
She earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Wake Forest University. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, Time, Scientific American, and more. She is a former Pulitzer Press Fellow who spent a month in Thailand covering the intersection of Buddhism and the country’s environmental movement.
