(Undated)– Weather researchers at Iowa State University say a shifting climate and warmer ocean temperatures are partially responsible for a record number of tornadoes this spring. More than 100 were reported in Iowa, in May alone. Eleven-hundred tornadoes were reported regionwide in May, from Texas to Minnesota and from West Virginia to Georgia. That’s more than twice the 30-year average. One of the fiercest killed five people and injured dozens in rural Greenfield, Iowa. I-S-U severe weather meteorologist William Gallus says extreme heat from a changing climate has increased ocean temperatures, and is one contributing factor to this year’s storms…
Gallus say the high number of tornadoes in the region was unusual, since climate change models predict Iowa and neighboring states west of the Mississippi should being seeing below average numbers, which they have in recent years…
Gallus says data show tornadoes occurring on fewer days each year, but coming in clusters and with greater intensity. He says some storms that have been listed as ‘Category F-3’ are probably ‘F-5’s,’ but measurement methods in some areas are not adequate to gauge the storms’ intensity.
