[Sixstrings]

Weird thing about this one is a HAARP conspiracy theorist appears to have predicted it in advance

Thank for being up on the expert scientific analysis

What's the position of Niburu, btw? Did that have anything to do with it?

Yeah that was weaksauce I was just trying to spark some interest in this FREAK devastation of the entire South between tornado outbreaks and raging wildfires in Texas -- even 3 oil refineries shut down in Texas, still nobody here wants to talk about it.

I try to post doomer bread and butter, but the same people who complain about the birther thread won't post in this one.

These tornado outbreaks and the fires are pertinent to this forum, whether we're seeing climate change in action or you'd at least think peak oilers would be interested in raging infernos in oil country.

Also I notice mainstream TV news hasn't been covering the tornado outbreak OR the Texas fires. They need to drop the politics and start covering some news now and then.

[Sixstrings]

Some topics for discussion..

This tornado outbreak forced a shutdown of three TVA nuclear reactors. Thank God the diesel backup didn't fail eh?

Storms knock out TVA nuclear units, power lines
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/27/us-utilities-tva-storms-idUSTRE73Q98920110427?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Also a high resolution video of one of the Tuscaloosa twisters.. very scary stuff, multi-vortex monster with tornados orbiting around a central core, the smaller twisters look like tendrils. Debris flying in the tornado, looks just like that movie Twister:

Video:
http://vimeo.com/22970879

[Plantagenet]

Is it another unfortunate by-product of global warming?

Bigger temperature contrasts between the last of the winter cold and rapidly warming summer storms could produce bigger tornados?

[mos6507]

They need to drop the politics and start covering some news now and then.

Why don't you set an example first.

[WildRose]

The south is overwhelmingly conservative christian republican and conservative christian republicans are deeply religious, born-again. These 'folks' believe in creationism and man's supremacy over the land and so consequently it must be God's will that their shopping centers should knuckle under His ^ wrath. Thus the tongue-talking racist perkerwoods will rebuild their Churches of Consumption and Devotion. To the Baby Jesus and Little Barbie. Amen.

Just a bit of rain on your parade, they may rebuild like Greensburg, Kansas did following their 2007 F5 twister, becoming "greener and better",

http://www.greensburgks.org/recovery-planning

[Sixstrings]

Rare Sideways Tornado Captured on Video

A rare sideways tornado was captured on video as it spun off of a massive twister that roared through downtown Tuscaloosa, Ala., yesterday (April 27).

Just how rare are these sideways spinners?

"There's not even a settled-upon name for those," said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with the National Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

In the video, horizontal, rope-like funnel clouds periodically twist off of the main funnel cloud. At 1:20 in the video, a large sideways funnel cloud forms in front of the twister.

Sideways funnel clouds are usually seen only with the biggest and baddest of tornadoes, and yesterday was no exception, Henson told OurAmazingPlanet. The huge tornado may have carved a path from downtown Tuscaloosa to downtown Birmingham, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) apart. The tornado appears to be a mile wide and seemed to be on the ground for more than two hours.
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/sideways-tornado-video-110428-1454/

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohIVzIZLuQ&feature=player_embedded#at=285

[vision-master]

So what's going on here.

Can't be climate change, because you're a denier. Must be Obama's fault, right? God is angry at talk about raising the debt ceiling.

Earth Changes - Armageddon, the Apocalypse - End Times - 2012 (end of the Mayan calendar) - The Harmonic Convergence. lsol

[vision-master]

The south is overwhelmingly conservative christian republican and conservative christian republicans are deeply religious, born-again. These 'folks' believe in creationism and man's supremacy over the land and so consequently it must be God's will that their shopping centers should knuckle under His ^ wrath. Thus the tongue-talking racist perkerwoods will rebuild their Churches of Consumption and Devotion. To the Baby Jesus and Little Barbie. Amen.

[mos6507]

Earth Changes - Armageddon, the Apocalypse - End Times - 2012 (end of the Mayan calendar) - The Harmonic Convergence. lsol

You missed the part about cats and dogs living together.

[rockdoc123]

Not related to climate change but rather natural variability according to NOAA and other meterologists.

[url]http//www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-tornadoes-climate.html[/url]

"If you look at the past 60 years of data, the number of tornadoes is increasing significantly, but it's agreed upon by the tornado community that it's not a real increase," said Grady Dixon, assistant professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University.
"It's having to do with better (weather tracking) technology, more population, the fact that the population is better educated and more aware. So we're seeing them more often," Dixon said.
But he said it would be "a terrible mistake" to relate the up-tick to climate change.
However, the stronger-than-usual tornadoes affecting the southern states were actually predicted from examining the planet's climatological patterns, specifically those related to the La Nina phenomenon.
"We knew it was going to be a big tornado year," he said. But the key to that tip-off was unrelated to climate change: "It is related to the natural fluctuations of the planet."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/28/noaa-scientist-rejects-global-warming-link-tornadoes/

Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said warming trends do create more of the fuel that tornadoes require, such as moisture, but that they also deprive tornadoes of another essential ingredient: wind shear.
“We know we have a warming going on,” Carbin told Fox News in an interview Thursday, but added: “There really is no scientific consensus or connection [between global warming and tornadic activity]….Jumping from a large-scale event like global warming to relatively small-scale events like tornadoes is a huge leap across a variety of scales.”

and although the number of measured tornados of any size seems to be increasing (due to improved measuring techniques as noted above) the actual intensity of individual tornados is decreasing.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg

[rockdoc123]

Pstarr
What in gods name is wrong with you? You continually post cheery picked statments, are completely lacking in facts or analysis about pretty much every subject you post on.....it comes down to adhominem attack and very little beyond that. I'm surprised that you don't realize how silly you look. I point out that the NOAA has indicated they see no link between the current pack of tornados and climate change and you respond by suggesting this is just my opinion. You post a comment I made sometime ago suggesting it in someway indicatesthat I attritributed tornados to climate change, which I never did. Then as now I point out that weather and climate are always changing...always have and always will.

What you are all talking about here is weather, pure and simple. As an example I read somewhere this morning that we just ticked over the longest period in history that there has been an absence of landfall hurricanes. If hurricanes are linked to AGW then I'm afraid you have a negative correlation to explain. And yes, next year we might suddenly see a wealth of hurricane activity. This is natural variability pure and simple.

[dohboi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/us/29tornadoes.html

The cruelty of this particular April, in the number of tornadoes recorded, is without equal in the United States. The record for the month has been shattered, and preliminary assessments say that of the four biggest clusters ever recorded, two have occurred in the last three weeks.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-28/news/ct-met-twisters-20110428_1_severe-twisters-greg-carbin-tornado-belt

Preliminary data from the National Weather Service show that more than 600 twisters have touched down in April, smashing the existing record of 267 set in 1974.

And the month isn't quite over.

And May is generally known as the most tornado-prone month, iirc. We can only hope that Momma Nature (and Papa CC?) has gotten it out of her system.

[rockdoc123]

did you actually read the article you linked to? It says that the apparent increase in number of tornados is a product of better measurement techniques, more population and better reporting. It isn't a statistically real increase.

[dohboi]

It may or may not be. We can't be sure. There are certainly lots of unknowns when it comes to tornadoes:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/killer-tornadoes-horrible-and-still-unknowable/



The recent spate sure looks impressive, though.

Glad I wasn't in the middle of it.

[rockdoc123]

what is the most interesting factoid about this particular set of tornados is they hold a record (I believe) for ground time. This is why they were relatively devastating.
I've read what the scientific explanation is for what ground to air conditions existed that caused the inordinate amount of time spent on the ground, just can't remember it (hey, I'm old) or find it again.

[jupiters_release]

The individual tornados looked more impressive than the ones that hit LA in Day After Tomorrow. Now if we can get several of them together like in the movie, then that'll be something.