Experts suggest that 2024’s wave of tornado outbreaks stands out in a year full of extreme weather.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States saw 1,762 tornadoes from January through November (the most recent month for which official statistics are available), the most in ten years.
The records indicate that the twisters, particularly the exceptionally violent tornadoes that emerged from Hurricane Milton in October, tended to be severe and destructive.
According to Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University, it was similar to dying from 1,000 paper cuts. When you add them all up, you get a rather substantial year for severe weather, even though we didn’t have an exceptionally high number of strong tornadoes or a month with absolutely amazing activity in terms of outbreak after outbreak.
Among the most expensive weather and climate disasters in the country this year were tornado outbreaks. At least $1 billion in damage was produced by each of the 24 weather catastrophes that NOAA had recorded as of November 1. Six tornado outbreaks occurred during those events, including a three-day cluster of storms in July that produced over 79 tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New York. The list also included an outbreak that struck Iowa in May, which resulted in a destructive tornado that killed five people and ripped a 44-mile path across the state’s southeast.
An already substantial and expanding set of worries regarding the rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather is heightened by the flurry of tornado activity. Researchers are still trying to figure out why this was such a remarkable tornado year, including any potential linkages to climate change, in contrast to phenomena like heat waves or wildfires, which are obviously related to rising temperatures.
The so-called Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale is used to categorize tornadoes. With maximum speeds of 110 mph, the weakest tornadoes, known as EF-0 and EF-1, usually inflict only minor damage. The strongest, known as EF-5, typically cause catastrophic damage and have winds of above 200 mph.
One of the deadliest tornadoes of 2024, the EF-4 tornado that devastated a large portion of Iowa in May. Cars were thrown and houses were torn from their foundations as it tore through Greenfield. That day, over a dozen twisters sliced through the state, including this one. NOAA estimates the total damage from the storm cluster was $4.9 billion.
According to NOAA’s topreliminary estimates, tornado outbreaks through November killed at least 52 people this year. Although noteworthy, the figure is insignificant when compared to some of the worst tornado years in the nation, which claimed hundreds of lives. In 1925, an EF-5 tornado killed 695 people, making it the deadliest storm in American history.
Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, said the US was fortunate to avoid a large death toll in 2024.
According to Brooks, there have been 27 deadly tornadoes so far this year, and the greatest fatalities from a single incident have been seven. Having so many deadly tornadoes without any of them being major events is a little out of the ordinary.
Nevertheless, some central and southern states suffered significant damage as a result of the tornadoes that made landfall.
Damage from the more than 79 tornadoes that occurred in July totaled $2.4 billion. In addition, an EF-3 tornado in Texas was among the more than 110 tornadoes that caused $3.4 billion in damage during a tornado outbreak in late May that was distinct from the one in Iowa. In these situations, winds that are strong enough to level buildings, bend utility poles, and scatter debris far and wide are mostly to blame for the damage.
Experts were also taken aback by a number of tornado incidents this year. One occurred a few weeks ago when an uncommon tornado made landfall north of Santa Cruz, California. Five individuals were hurt by the twister, which was eventually categorized as an EF-1 with peak speeds of 90 mph. The National Weather Service issued its first-ever tornado warning for San Francisco as a result of the storm.
The significant increase in the frequency of powerful tropical tornadoes generated by hurricanes in 2024 was another unexpected development. As Hurricane Milton approached landfall on October 9, it wreaked havoc on western Florida and spawned hundreds of damaging tornadoes throughout the state.
While tornadoes are not completely unheard of during hurricanes, they are usually not as strong as those seen in relation to Milton. Less than 1% of all reported tornadoes created by tropical storms that have touched down in the United States have been EF-3 or more powerful. Four of the five hurricanes that hit the United States this year resulted in EF-3 tornadoes.
According to Gensini, Milton is probably going to be remembered as the hurricane that produced the most tornadoes in history. Those tornadoes were comparable to those found in the Great Plains, Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Tornadoes of that intensity and frequency during hurricanes are extremely uncommon.
Why Hurricane Milton produced so many tornadoes is unknown, but according to a June research, if fossil fuel emissions keep on their current rate, the number of tornadoes might rise by up to 299% by the middle of the century.
However, scientists are still unsure of whether climate change has a significant impact on tornadoes in general. According to current research, atmospheric instability—a crucial component in the formation of thunderstorms—can be exacerbated by global warming. Strong columns of rotating air within storms are fueled by temperature and air density variations, which frequently cause instability in the atmosphere.
However, a lot of things about tornado science remain unclear, such as what makes certain tornadoes stronger while others disintegrate. According to some research, climate change may even reduce the likelihood of tornadoes by reducing vertical wind shear, which is the phrase used to describe how winds intensify and shift their direction at varying air heights. By reducing wind shear, storms may be less likely to produce tornadoes by limiting the amount of warm, rising air.
It’s still difficult to identify any clear connections between particular tornado outbreaks and climate change because of those unanswered questions.
We are aware that increased instability and warmer temperatures might encourage more tornadoes, bigger hail, and other similar events, Gensini stated. However, it is currently very difficult to make those assessments for any one tornado.
Tornado outbreaks could yet occur in the days before the year closes.
This last quarter has been pretty quiet for tornadoes, but it s not unheard of to have tornadoes and perhaps even strong ones in late December, in the cool season, Gensini said.
In fact, there might be more twisters to come: Severe storms and tornadoes are possible across parts of the South and Gulf Coast over the weekend, and NOAA s counts for the year do not yet include tornadoes that were reported Thursday in Louisiana.
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