Saturday, June 01, 2024

DOOM!! DOOM!!! Tornadoes!!!! (Nope. Not Really.)

Your local weather-reporter likes attention, and the advertising sales that follow said attention.

So DOOM!! DOOM!! DOOM!! from tornadoes is perfect.  Tornadoes get attention.  Then the "news" people can tell you that TORNADO DOOM!!! is a result of Climate Change, which YOU cause by merely existing with some comfort, such as heating, cooking, hot water, automobiles, (etc.)

But in fact, critical thinking must be applied to any Media Narrative.  So the AOSHQ got to it, and we have actual facts.

.....Tornadoes are neither more frequent, nor more intense. In fact, there is currently a trend of decreasing numbers of the strongest tornadoes, which itself is just part of a cycle, of course. From the “Climate at a Glance - Tornadoes” page at The Heartland Institute, here is a graph using NOAA’s own data which shows that EF3 or higher tornadoes in the US (on a scale of EF0 to EF5) have been decreasing over the past half-century....

...While there may not have been an increase in the strongest of tornadoes in recent decades, there has been an increase in the total number of tornadoes detected in recent decades. But this is not due to there being more actual tornadoes, rather it’s due to improved technology that is able to record tornadoes that would otherwise be undocumented. Shockingly, NOAA still confirms this simple truth at its website....

Those EF-0 and EF-1 events used to be called "strong winds."  But we all know that "strong winds" do not mean CLIMATE DOOM!!!!!!--so we prefer MO' TORNADOES!!

"Well, yes," they say, "but there is more TORNADO DOOM in Wisconsin this year!  You are DOOMED!! DOOMED!!"

Not really.

... Part of the great dishonesty in reporting “extreme” weather events such as tornadoes is that the likelihood of any specific location suffering a direct hit is very low, just like the odds of winning a raffle are very low. But it is an absolute certainty that someone will win the raffle, and it is also an absolute certainty that about 1,200 tornadoes per year are going to touch down in the United States. Certain communities are going to get hit by a tornado for the first time, an “unprecedented” event. That is not climate change, it’s probability and statistics....

Wrong place, wrong time.  That's all there is to that. 

In SE Wisconsin, the number of TORNADO WARNINGS DOOM DOOM DOOM!!!! has jumped upward--but no DOOM DOOM DOOM followed because EF-0 and EF-1 events are not long-duration and typically create very little damage.  

There is a benefit to that:  you notice that your basement really needs cleaning.

So does the Weather Department.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Call it "Weather Porn" ...because it is exactly what it is.