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On December 10th, local time, the southern and central parts of the United States were hit by storms, and tornadoes swept through six states, resulting in more than 100 deaths, flattened houses and a mess all over broken walls. Climate scientists say that people need to be prepared for more frequent and severe weather disasters.

Kentucky after a tornado

The whole house was uprooted and the town was razed to the ground.

According to Washington post, from Friday night to Saturday morning, local time, tornadoes traveled 250 miles in northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, northwestern Tennessee and western Kentucky, causing damage along the way, tearing everything apart for more than three hours and then throwing it into the sky. Sometimes, the debris of objects was thrown 9 kilometers high.

The worst-hit town was mayfield, Kentucky, where a tornado uprooted the whole house. After the storm, the whole town was razed to the ground.

Andy Bacher, governor of Kentucky, said that according to the latest report, 70 people have been killed in the state.

According to other media reports, this tornado is not a single one or a few, but more than 30 huge tornado disasters. Up to now, the number of deaths caused by this disaster has exceeded 100.

The scale of this tornado can enter the top ten in American history

This tornado disaster has a large scale (more than 30 times), a wide span (sweeping through six states) and many deaths (more than 100 people at present). According to the analysis of climate experts, it can be among the top ten tornadoes recorded in the United States.

According to the records of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 10 deadliest tornadoes in the United States since 1900 are as follows (in descending order of death toll):

1. 695 people died. March 18th, 1925, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

2. 216 people died. April 5, 1936, Tupelo, Mississippi.

3. 203 people died. Gainesville, Georgia, April 6, 1936.

4.181 people died. April 9, 1947, Woodward, Oklahoma.

5.158 people died. May 22, 2011, Joplin, Missouri.

6.143 people died. April 24th, 1908, amit, Louisiana and Purves, Mississippi.

7.116 people died. Flint, Michigan, June 8, 1953.

8.114 people died. May 11th, 1953, Waco, Texas.

9.114 people died. May 18th, 1902, Goliath, Texas.

10.103 people died. March 23, 1913, Omaha, Nebraska.

Why do tornadoes frequently occur in the United States?

Why do tornadoes happen so frequently in the United States?

Li Xiaoquan, chief meteorologist of China Weather Network, said: "The United States is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the east, the Pacific Ocean in the west and the Gulf of Mexico in the south, and the water vapor conditions are very good. When water vapor condenses, a large amount of latent heat of condensation is released, and cumulonimbus clouds are easy to generate and grow; Canada is the north of the United States, which is the birthplace of cold air. The terrain of the United States is transparent from north to south, lacking the barrier of east-west mountains, and hot and cold air can drive straight in. When cold and warm air meet, it is easy to produce strong convective weather such as thunderstorm, strong wind and tornado. Every spring is the frequent season of tornadoes in the United States, because the cold and warm air are evenly matched at this time, and it is easy to cause tornadoes when colliding. "

The United States is a veritable "Tornado Kingdom", with an average of 1,141 tornadoes recorded from 2000 to 2020, and the trend is increasing slightly every year. Comparatively speaking, during the 30 years from 1991 to 2020, there were only 38 tornadoes per year in China.

From 2008 to 2020, the average number of deaths in the United States due to tornadoes was 87 per year. Since the 1950s, there has been an EF5 tornado in the United States every year on average. Can destroy houses and blow up cars).

On May 3, 1999, Oklahoma and Kansas were swept by 66 tornadoes in one day, and the direct economic loss exceeded $1.2 billion. Historically, the number of tornadoes in the United States is 1884, and the number of tornadoes is 944.

Relatively speaking, the number and scale of tornadoes in winter in the United States are relatively small. Since records began, the deadliest one in December was December 5, 1953, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, which killed 38 people. The scale of this tornado easily broke this record.

Global warming may be the culprit.

After the tornado disaster that ravaged the United States this weekend, scientists from the National Weather Service warned that although the exact connection between climate change and tornadoes is still uncertain, higher temperatures may aggravate such violent disasters as tornadoes.

Victor Kingsney, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University, said: "When people see such a disaster today, they will ask, Is this the new normal? It will take us some time to determine what role climate change plays in such an event. But in a warming world, we can say that it is easier to produce tornadoes. "

However, other climate and weather experts point out that tornadoes are one of the most difficult events associated with global warming, in part because tornadoes are relatively few and have a short duration.

Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at the Severe Storm Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States, said that in recent decades, tornado activities in the United States have become "more changeable", and the number of days when tornadoes are seen has decreased each year, but the number of tornadoes has increased these days, which means that they have become more concentrated in a short period of time.

Although the relationship between tornadoes and global warming cannot be confirmed for the time being, Professor Kingsney pointed out that the continuous warming of the earth is making a series of extreme weather disasters more serious, including longer bad weather seasons and large-scale natural disasters that are not common in history.

This is consistent with the findings released by the United Nations Panel on Climate Change this summer. The survey found that weather-related disasters are becoming more and more extreme and affecting every part of the world as humans continue to emit gases into the atmosphere that cause global warming.

Although the report does not draw a conclusion on the relationship between tornadoes and climate change, it points out that the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation in the United States are increasing.

"The population is growing, the cities are getting bigger and bigger, and we are producing more and more things," Kingsney said. "I am sure that with the continuous expansion of our human footprint, there will be more disasters."

Original title: The scale of tornadoes in the United States can enter the top ten in history, sweeping through six States, razing towns and killing over 100 people.

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