What's going on??

[Karen]

I have a theory that it is more to do with the fact that every bit of news related to a disaster is picked up and makes headlines everywhere because of the 24-hour news cycle, and while a lot is happening, and it is sad.

Japan for example is on an active fault line, and has earthquakes often, just this one was unusually large. And the fault lines and continental plates are all, of course connected to each other, so it is not really surprising that NZ and Japan both had big quakes near each other, if you at plate tectonics.

[pomtzu]

Earthquakes - understandable.

Erratic weather???

[Lady's Human]

Nothing new. If it bleeds, it leads.

Tornadoes in the midwest? Tornado alley, anyone?

We had range fires constantly at Ft Hood, some of them huge, cnn didn't cover them in 1990.

24 hour news cycle coupled with human reaction to sensationalist reporting.

[pomtzu]

However, tornadoes this season have been much worse than any season I can ever remember - and I've been on this old dirt ball for a lot of years!
All weather patterns in general have become very unpredictable in recent years, as compared to years gone by - IMO of course!

[Lady's Human]

How quickly the tornado clusters in OK in 1999 are forgotten. Finger of god that re-wrote the fujita scale?

[chocolatepuppy]

This was in my town last night! Thank God it didn't touch down! Funnel clouds all over the place, sirens going off. The furkids and I spent an hour in the basement. I wondered if it was our last evening.
But, this happens at least 5 times a summer where I live in NE Ohio, nothing new. Usually not so many funnel clouds, but all I had was a bit of wind, have seen a lot worse! By the middle of May, you should have your 'tornado center' set up in the basement and a 'furkid plan' ready to roll.

[pomtzu]

This was in my town last night! Thank God it didn't touch down! Funnel clouds all over the place, sirens going off. The furkids and I spent an hour in the basement. I wondered if it was our last evening.
But, this happens at least 5 times a summer where I live in NE Ohio, nothing new. Usually not so many funnel clouds, but all I had was a bit of wind, have seen a lot worse! By the middle of May, you should have your 'tornado center' set up in the basement and a 'furkid plan' ready to roll.

That's darn scary! Glad to hear that you're okay and that it didn't touch down. We've had a couple of very small ones nearby to here in the past, taking down trees, ripping siding off houses, knocking down chimneys, but that's about all - and that's more than enough for me!
Thought we might get something a couple of nights ago - got that green sky - but it passed. I get really nervous when that green sky comes up...

[pomtzu]

How quickly the tornado clusters in OK in 1999 are forgotten. Finger of god that re-wrote the fujita scale?

Not forgotten at all - I remember quite well.........
And as I said in my previous post - all this is just IMO!

[K9karen]

There was a 1.0 tornado close to where my 97 y.o uncle
lives, in a busy, residential area of Phila. I know that's minor to some, but it did a lot of damages to buildings, and, well, we are totally unprepared for tornados in my neck of the state.

I have a fear of storms. i try to stay calm for Logan, but many times, during a severe summer storm with heavy rain, hail, winds, thunder and lightening, I'm in the basement with her. And the sky turns reddish. I'm a wreck. The severity of mother nature astounds me.

CP..I'm so relieved you're OK. I know there's a PTer who lives in Joplin and I pray that she's OK. It's the 1st thing i thought of.

I'm one of those people who believe in global warming slowly showing it's ugly head. JMO.

[Bonny]

However, tornadoes this season have been much worse than any season I can ever remember - and I've been on this old dirt ball for a lot of years!
All weather patterns in general have become very unpredictable in recent years, as compared to years gone by - IMO of course!

I agree with you Pomtzu. The weather is very very extreme. We know longer get a nice morning shower of rain but winds to the maximum with deluging downpours.


I don't think 1,500 people missing in Joplin is anything to ignore or think it is hyped up news. Tornado's can & do touch down with a number of funnel clouds in one area. One can follow the other in a trail of destruction.

There are more people now & larger towns then when I grew up so more destruction.

[Randi]

There's no doubt that we're experiencing extreme weather right now, and I suspect it'll get worse - and unfortunately faster than anyone had expected just 15 years ago.

There are tons of info on the subject and it's simply mind blowing.

There are some interesting articles in this link:
http://knowledge.allianz.com/climate...limate-history

[Lady's Human]

FUkishima Daichi was played out, and logic was starting to beat out the sensationalism, so they had to move on to something else.

Flooding in the Mississippi river valley? There's a reason the great plains are so fertile. The Mississippi floods. If you build your house/camp/whatever in the shadow of flood relief gates, well..........Darwin 1, humans 0.

Tornadoes? Again, it's called tornado alley. Oklahoma has had far worse in terms of tornadoes, and they've done less damage. Maybe different building codes played a part?

The year after Katrina, (Natural storm turned man-aided disaster, building a city below sea level....well......) they alarmists predicted record hurricanes and damages as the global warming catastrophe reached the tipping point. The result? Nothing, and it was dismissed as not being able to predict one year due to global warming, it's still going on, it's just an aberration in the data.

Sorry, when your calculations include a "fudge factor" as part of the programming, you've exhausted all scientific credibility.

Here in upstate NY, we've actually had some pretty nasty rain damage. The floods in 2006 got huge national coverage, because there wasn't much going on, and they had to have something to feed the news cycle.

Five years later, 2011, Otsenengo Park is underwater (again, happens almost every year) the town of Conklin flooded (again, happens almost every year) parts of JC and Binghamton flooded (again).....but no national stories for almost the same flooding as 5 years ago, and only a touch worse than the annual floods. No coverage, though, because there are other disasters to talk about, and upstate NY just didn't panic when the water came in, like it does to some extent almost annually.

[momoffuzzyfaces]

Nothing new. If it bleeds, it leads.

Tornadoes in the midwest? Tornado alley, anyone?

We had range fires constantly at Ft Hood, some of them huge, cnn didn't cover them in 1990.

24 hour news cycle coupled with human reaction to sensationalist reporting.

Yep, tornado alley. But I have lived here my entire 60+ years and I can assure you we've never had a year like this with this many and this big of tornadoes. Just to be sure, I checked with my bro who is 3 years older. He agrees. Makes me wonder if there may be something to the 12/21/2012 thingy.

The tornado that hit Joplin was an F5 with 200mph winds. Wouldn't that be more like a hurricane force?

[Lady's Human]

Hurricane winds are normally much lower than tornado winds, hurricanes are usually in the 75-125 MPH range.

The Tornado that hit Norman, OK a few years ago was an aberration, it was the first time a tornado had actually hit Norman in recorded history.

We've had tornadoes reported around here, but mainly because the radars have gotten better, and they sent weather teams out to go look at the damage to see if it was really a tornado.

A large % of what are now named storms would have never been noticed 60 years ago, because they are now picked up on weather satellites. Given local experience the past couple years with tornadoes being reported, it doesn't take that much of a jump to logically conclude that teh weather isn't getting worse, but reporting is getting more accurate and more hyped.

[momoffuzzyfaces]

Well, a tornado just touched down in Kansas City, Kansas. And several others have been spotted. No word if there are damages.

And while they may not have shown every tornardo in past years, they have kept records of how many there were.