How climate change influences tornadoes

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Forecasting Senior Director Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the Aptil 25 edition of Climate In The News.

Transcript

00:00Today we'll cover two climate stories ranging from temperatures to tornadoes.

00:05Starting first with tornadoes, Brett, an article from National Geographic about tornadoes,

00:10and are they getting worse than sort of what we know from a research perspective

00:13on the impacts of climate change on the frequency and intensity of tornadoes?

00:17Yeah, there's been a lot of studies on this, the relationship between climate change and tornadoes,

00:22and a lot of it's inconclusive.

00:25We've seen more observed tornadoes in the past 50 years or so,

00:29but a lot of that's due to the Doppler radar, storm chasers,

00:34Greenwood's getting out everywhere, better video technology and whatnot.

00:39One thing they did notice, though, there's no observed change in the number of major tornadoes

00:45in terms of frequency, what they're seeing.

00:47So, interesting study there.

00:49Now, one other thing I want to mention also is climate change adds heat to the atmosphere.

00:54Heat provides energy.

00:55So that's one thing you'd think, oh, we're going to see stronger tornadoes.

00:59However, with added heat, we're seeing weaker jet streams because the Arctic's warming very rapidly,

01:05so the temperature difference between the north and the south is less.

01:08Jet streams weaker, so you have less wind shear, which is critical for the formation of tornadoes.

01:13Yeah, so certainly a complex picture here in terms of the climate change impacts on tornadoes.

01:17One thing that has been seen, though, in the research is a shift in the sort of traditional tornado alley

01:22from the Great Plains in the last couple decades more to the southeast United States.

01:25Yes, and a lot of that, I think, is due to the Gulf of Mexico really warming up,

01:29adding a lot of heat energy to the atmosphere,

01:31and seeing some of those real strong tornadoes occurring out of normal season, late winter, early spring.

01:37Yeah, and that's a concern with the manufactured homes in the southeast.

01:40That means a more vulnerable population with those homes not being as secure to the ground.

01:44The fatality rate has decreased, though, in tornadoes, which is good news over the last couple decades with better technology.

01:50Our second story today from the New York Times focused on temperature swings in the extremes from cold to warm and then warm to cold.

01:57This study looking at the years from 1961 to 2023 and seeing an increase in frequency of these temperature swings.

02:04Yeah, by 60 percent. That's a dramatic increase there for sure.

02:09And what we're talking about is rapid warming, maybe one day is 70 degrees, the next day is 30 degrees,

02:16and that's never a good thing. You want normalcy for sure, especially when dealing with crops.

02:21Crops do not like that type of thing, especially, let's say, wine growing when it gets really warm in the spring

02:27and then a sudden frost or freeze. That can be very damaging to something like that.

02:32Also, power infrastructure, also very susceptible to big temperature swings as well as ecosystems.

02:38Yeah, the snow melting, obviously, and can refreeze under the ground as well during winter,

02:43and that can actually kill off some of the crops that are underground.

02:46That prevents animals from accessing food.

02:49Also, it seems like some mitigation here could be increased access to weather information, right?

02:52Yeah, exactly. That's one. Increased access to cooling centers.

02:56Also, the power grid needs to be more resilient to something like that.

03:00So certainly some more research in this area and some mitigation strategies in terms of temperature swings

03:05as well as the complex interaction of climate change on tornadoes.

03:09Well, thanks, Brett.

03:10And for more information about these stories and other climate information,

03:13you can find that at accuweather.com slash climate.

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