WASHINGTON – The most extreme tornado outbreaks are mysteriously spawning many more twisters than they did decades ago, a new study claimed.
The once-every-five-years-or-so outbreak that might have involved 12 tornadoes 50 years ago now has on average about 20, said Columbia University applied physics professor Michael Tippett, lead author of the study in Thursday’s journal Science.
The study comes in the end of a year that has been on track to have the fewest tornadoes on record, but is also on the heels of the outbreak Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that killed five people and injured at least 46 in Alabama and Tennessee â?? precisely the kind of outbreak Tippett studied.
As of now, there were 36 tornado reports Tuesday in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, half of them were the stronger type Tippett studied, said meteorologist Patrick Marsh of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Tippett and colleagues looked at just the most extreme outbreaks and tornadoes that are above the minimal wind rating and found a steady uptick in the biggest outbreaks since the mid-1960s.