It looks like tornado season 2025 is beginning

Well, there was a blast of storm activity over the weekend with multiple tornadoes hitting the Midwest and South. Latest news that I was able to capture was 40 tornadoes and 34 deaths. That could change.

When a video from a certain tornado chaser, who is actually a scientist with a PhD, shows up on my feed, I know it is time to watch out. And his live video showed up Friday evening, 3/14/2025.

I find it fascinating to a limited extent what he does as he goes about chasing the storm. I say limited extent because watching him can quickly get boring because he is often just driving, scouting around for indications of a tornado about to form.

Drive, drive, drive, drive. Nothing is happening and I start to get bored.

But that is good! No one is getting hurt then. Or facing damages.

The other thing I find interesting is the comments section. It is in here that I can learn whether the tornadic activity is especially strong or historic. The first time I watched one of his videos, I read through the comments and some participants were providing information about the severity of the tornado activity. There were comments about the massive destruction that took place in a particular town.

The next day the news came out about this storm event being an EF4 and severe destruction. I believe it was a long-range tornado, hitting multiple towns with EF4 ferocity.

So, I often gauge how bad the storm activity is by reading those comments because I think some of those people have been tracking storms for quite some time and have become very knowledgeable.

Friday night, 3/14 (PI day!)

And today I’m seeing pictures of the aftermath. In Missouri, an entire forest had been debarked or stripped bare of branches and leaves. Buildings have been demolished but not swept cleanly away.

That news article I read was projecting a high EF3 tornado. The rating hasn’t been determined yet because the NWS (?) needs to go out there and survey the damage.

By the way, since Elon Musk has curtailed credit card use to $1, will the hurricane assessors be able to go out there? That will be interesting to see.

Climate Change?

One thing I must point out is that scientists do not talk about climate change when they talk about tornadoes. The guy that I watch videos won’t say climate change is having an impact on tornadoes because there are too many factors that play a role in creating a favorable environment for tornadoes.

But they have talked about the tornado valley shifting east or at least shifting to the east slightly. Again, I don’t think climate change is suggested as playing a role.

But, the storms this weekend came about because of the clash of cold air from Canada meeting with the warm moist air from the Gulf Coast. It’s along the interface of the two weather systems that the air becomes unstable and becomes ripe for severe storms.

What if the tornado activity is shifting east because of the more frequent rise of moist warm air from the Gulf of Mexico? As far as I can tell, the Caribbean waters did not really cool, or at least not enough, so the waters may be warmer than usual and thus contributing to more uplift of warm moist air.

Just a thought.

Hurricane Season

Hurricane season is not far behind.

Last year was dreadful; I don’t want to think about this year, especially with the current administration aiming to reduce or eliminate FEMA.

There is a really good reason for having FEMA. I suspect the poorer states just do not have the money to help people who suffer from devastation.

So, let’s hope FEMA is still around.