When Americans hear the word tornado, their minds may bolt to huge twisters rolling across northern Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas, like a scene out of “The Wizard of Oz.”
When Americans hear the word tornado, their minds may bolt to huge twisters rolling across northern Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas, like a scene out of “The Wizard of Oz.”
But the deadliest U.S tornado in six years didn’t strike the Great Plains — instead, it touched down Sunday hundreds of miles away in Alabama and Georgia. On Monday and Tuesday, search crews, aided by dogs and drones, sifted through wreckage caused by the violent tornado, which blew across 30 miles with winds reaching up to 170 miles per hour. So far, the storm has killed 23 people, including three children, and dozens remain missing.
While this weekend’s storms took the Southeast by surprise, the events fit into a growing trend for a region meteorologists now call Dixie Alley. Since the turn of the millennium, the Dixie Alley has witnessed an ever-increasing onslaught of tornadoes.
“Whether this is climate change or not, what all the studies have shown is that this particular part of the U.S. has been having more tornado activity and more tornado outbreaks than it has had in decades before,” said Mike Tippett, a Columbia University applied mathematician who studies the climate.
Continue reading via PBS.
Image via PBS.
