Violent Thunderstorms Get More Violent

News from Arkansas, Mississippi and western Tennessee has been bad for folks there.  Thirteen dead is the count for Monday, and the total for several days at twenty-nine.  Houses, whole town smashed, cars hurled through the air, normal defenses not good enough.

Though nobody wants to talk about climate change in conjunction with this outbreak, it is at least worth watching the patterns of such events.  Getting bigger, smaller?  Wider? Shorter? The news is not promising. Here are graphs of mean path length and width — both of which have been increasing.

The losses due to extreme thunderstorms, of which tornadoes are one kind, have increased by seven fold since 1980.

I’d say the ‘pay attention’ needle is quivering at top speed now.