The Morning Meeting with Al Tompkins is a daily Poynter briefing of story ideas worth considering and more timely context for journalists, written by senior faculty Al Tompkins. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.
When a storm kills two dozen Americans, and when a storm flattens a town like Amory, Mississippi, we all ask “why?” Have weather patterns changed? Have we done something to change them?
One thing we should realize is that tornado activity is shifting south. The National Weather Service points to research that said:
Both tornado reports and tornado environments indicate an increasing trend in portions of Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
(Policy Genius)
If they were making “The Wizard of Oz” now, you have to wonder whether they would choose Kansas for Dorothy’s home or if she would be from Jackson or Huntsville. Purdue climate scientist and professor emeritus Ernest Agee summed it up this way:
Tornado data tells us that severe storms that once were associated with the Midwest may be moving south. But the data on whether there are more tornadoes today compared to decades ago is clouded by our ability now to detect lower level tornadoes compared to decades ago. In 2016, my students and I published the first paper that clearly showed, statistically, the emergence of another center of tornado activity in the Southeast, centered around Alabama.
Oklahoma still has tornadoes, of course. But the statistical center has moved. Other research since then has found similar shifts.
But why is the center of tornadic activity moving? Professor Agree tells us:
We found a notable decrease in both the total number of tornadoes and days with tornadoes in the traditional Tornado Alley in the central plains. At the same time, we found an increase in tornado numbers in what’s been dubbed Dixie Alley, extending from Mississippi through Tennessee and Kentucky into southern Indiana
In the Great Plains, drier air in the western boundary of traditional Tornado Alley probably has something to do with the fact that tornadoes are a declining risk in Oklahoma while wildfire risk is growing.
Research by other scientists suggests that the dry line between the wetter Eastern U.S. and the drier Western U.S., historically around the 100th meridian, has shifted eastward by about 140 miles since the late 1800s. The dry line can be a boundary for convection – the rising of warm air and sinking of colder air that can fuel storms.
While scientists don’t have a full picture of the role climate change may be playing, we can certainly say we live in a warmer climate, and that a warming climate provides many of the ingredients for severe storms.
Todd Moore, associate professor and chair of the department of geosciences at Fort Hays State University, said that over the last few decades tornado frequency has increased in vast swaths of the southern Midwest and Southeast, while decreasing in parts of the central and southern Great Plains, a region traditionally known as Tornado Alley.
The shift in where tornadoes form is one change. The other major change is that tornadoes are more likely to arrive in clusters. Climate Central reports, “While there are now fewer days with tornadoes in a given year, there are more tornadoes on the days when they do occur. (Think for example of the tornadoes that roared through Kentucky and Tennessee in 2021 when he NWS confirmed 66 tornadoes in the deadly Dec. 10-11 tornado outbreak.) Second, the variability in the number of tornadoes in a month has been increasing.”
In other words, tornadoes do now seem to arrive in clusters.
(Climate Central)
To look for individual state trends, Climate Central compared the average number of tornado days in each state from the first decade of the analysis to the last decade. The core of Tornado Alley (KS, NE, OK, TX) has seen the average number of days more than one EF1+ tornado drop more than 50% during that 50 year timespan.
Why there is little proof that climate change causes more tornadoes
Intuition is not a reliable guide to finding the truth. At times like these, it is tempting to wonder if something about the weather has changed. The Mississippi and Alabama storms over the weekend followed a stunning California twister.
But looking coldly at the data, National Geographic says, “There is no real evidence that tornadoes are happening more often. A lot more are being recorded now than in 1950, but a closer look at the data shows the increase is only in the weakest category, EF0. There’s been no increase in stronger twisters, and maybe even a slight decrease in EF4s and EF5s.”
Climate change has been more closely linked with hurricanes, heat waves and droughts, but there is some reason to believe climate change may reduce the incidence of tornadoes.
National Geographic continues:
Linking any particular weather event to climate change is always tricky, because weather is inherently random. But weather patterns can speak to a warming planet. Scientists can detect that extreme rain events, for instance, are already happening more often than they used to, and that a warmer atmosphere with more water vapor in it is making such events more likely.
Tornadoes are different. Global warming may well end up making them more frequent or intense, as our intuition would tell us. But it might also actually suppress them—the science just isn’t clear yet.
Fewer tornadoes? How could that be possible?
Yale Climate researchers say, “An average of about 1,200 U.S. twisters are observed each year, with some years bringing as few as 900 and others as many as 1,600-plus.”
(NOAA)
National Geographic explains that tornadoes need two main ingredients to form. To get energy, they need warm, moist, unstable air, like the southerly winds that come off the Gulf of Mexico, or more recently the air that came inland off the Pacific.
Tornadoes also need wind shear. That is exactly what it sounds like; winds change speed and direction between the ground and higher up in the atmosphere and that causes instability. Wind shear is determined by the strength of the jet stream.
Climate change appears to have the potential to weaken wind shear because it suppresses the jet stream. The jet stream is the product of the difference between the tropics and the cold poles of the earth and, as you know, the poles, especially the artic, are warming. As National Geographic put it, “The same phenomenon that is rapidly melting the Arctic ice cap and marooning polar bears could lead to a weaker jet stream and fewer tornadoes.”
The moment a Mississippi meteorologist stopped to pray
In the years that my wife, a therapist, and I have done stress and trauma work with newsrooms, some of the most gut-wrenching conversations we have had have been with local TV meteorologists who were on the air tracking what they knew would be deadly storms. Here is such a moment from WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, as a deadly line of storms targeted Amory, Mississippi.
Minutes before the storm ripped through the town, the meteorologist, Matt Laubhan, stopped for a few seconds of prayer.
“We got a new scan coming in as we speak. Oh man, like north side of Amory, this is coming in. Oh man,” he said, “Dear Jesus, please help them. Amen.”
Then he turned back to the storm on his radar screen, now seconds from demolishing sections of the town.
(WTVA)
The per capita death toll from tornadoes has actually gone down in the latter half of the past 100 years. So as bad as these new outbreaks are, science, technology and — I would say — local meteorologists are saving lives at a faster rate than storms are killing people.
In the span of my time in journalism, weather forecasting moved from folksy weathermen and perky weathergirls to women and men who are scientists and treat their craft as the professionals they are. Local meteorologists save lives. They walk the delicate line between not being alarmist and needing to shake viewers out of inaction.
I am grateful to these professionals, and I am thankful for the scientists and computer programmers who made it possible for meteorologists to alert us of potential danger sometimes days before it arrives.
How to help storm victims
The (Jackson, Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger is monitoring volunteer needs. The New York Times generated a relief help list:
- If you live in Mississippi, check the websites and social media pages of your city government, as well as local police and fire departments, to see if they are coordinating donations from your area. Officials are doing so in several cities, including Greenville, Gluckstadt and Olive Branch.
- The Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service, better known as Volunteer Mississippi, is also sharing updates on local donation centers on their Facebook page.
- United Way of West Central Mississippi is collecting donations of water at their office in Vicksburg, about an hour outside of Rolling Fork. Check their Facebook page for updates on the location and timing. They are also accepting monetary donations on their chapter website, and ask you specify “Rolling Fork” in the notes field to route your donations correctly.
- The American Red Cross has trained disaster workers on the ground and is deploying additional workers and aid supplies. You can donate specifically to help people affected by the tornadoes here or by texting the word TORNADO to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
- GoFundMe has created a dedicated page for various fund-raisers for people and communities affected by the storm.
The Center for Disaster Philanthropy is focusing on long-term recovery needs such as rebuilding homes and mental health services.
What is the ‘Parent’s Bill of Rights’ just passed in the U.S. House?
House Republicans just passed a bill they call the “Parent’s Bill of Rights” (H.R.5). It imposes a lot of federal restrictions normally reserved for state and local education officials. The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate is expected to ignore the House bill and the Biden administration does not support it, so expect this to be another talking point for all sides.
The Parents’ Bill of Rights would require public school districts to:
- Publicly post information about curricula for students, including providing parents with a list of books and reading materials available in school libraries.
- Require schools to offer at least two in-person parent-teacher meetings annually
- School districts would have to publish budget details for each school
- Notify parents of violent activity occurring at schools or at events sponsored by schools
- Require parents to consent before any medical exams, including mental health or substance use disorder screenings, take place at school.
- Require state and local school board to “empower parents to communicate regularly” with decisionmakers about the future of education.
The bill also included an amendment requiring parents to be notified if their child’s school allows a transgender individual to use a bathroom or changing room that does not correspond with their biological sex, and another that says parents have a right to know if the child’s school facilitates, athletic programs or activities allow transgender individuals to participate in sports that do not correspond with their biological sex.
Read the bill here. Read more about the arguments for and against the bill from The Hill.
Why hockey fans are upset about uniform changes
To those of us who do not spend $100+ on sweatshirts that promote another person’s business, none of this matters.
The NHL is changing its supplier of on-ice and authentic jerseys from Adidas to Fanatics. Fanatics will use the same Canadian factory as Adidas beginning in the 2024-25 season. Fans are not pleased about the deal.
The Daily Faceoff’s Mike Gould explains the pushback:
The general sense around Fanatics, and this has been the case since they’ve been partnered with Adidas, is that they make the cheaper alternatives for the jerseys, the quality is not great as well. Some people have pushed back on the idea that Fanatics has, in a way, started to monopolize the NHL’s apparel game — and this leads to a bigger step towards that with a 10-year deal now. People are not happy. The PR of this is not good at all. And when you look at other major sports leagues, Mike. MLB, NFL, NBA, they all have Nike and Jordan and all these big brands supplying their merchandise. For the NHL to have Fanatics?
Nike is the “official outfitter” of Major League Baseball, but Fanatics has made MLB’s Nike-branded uniforms for all 30 teams since 2017, when it acquired Majestic. Fanatics also makes authentic NFL jerseys that also carry a Nike logo, which are sold online and in retail stores.
Teams have been known to do a total rebrand when a new gear-maker signs on with the NHL.
When Reebok made its debut, teams like the San Jose Sharks, Washington Capitals and Vancouver Canucks took the opportunity to remake their kits.
Typically, teams inform the NHL around April that they’re thinking about doing a jersey or logo change for the following season. Many of them aren’t acted upon: Either a team gets second thoughts, or it goes through the design process and doesn’t find a good alternative.
