Welcome into this week's edition
of the Climate Friday newslette.
Meteorologist John Birchfield h.
It's been an active month of July, hasn't it?
With numerous rain and thunderstorm chances.
And this week was no different e
saw severe weather and across much of
the Midwest and Great Lakes regn
a number of tornado touchdowns.
So we're going to break down see
weather and what role climate ce
may be playing in this and recae
weather that we saw over the last week.
Good to have you with us.
You can be sure to
subscribe@wtol.com/email for new
content each and every Friday
and you can find us on YouTube,
online and on WTO L11 plus
and all those platforms.
Let's get into the science and
break down severe weather and t.
Role that climate change may be playing on
the prevalence of not only severe weather,
but also tornado touchdowns and a number
of other types of weather phenomenon.
So let's recap the weather
that we experienced this week,
both locally and across much ofe
Great Lakes and the Midwest reg.
From Wednesday evening,
12 preliminary tornadoes were
reported and that'll get filtered and
fine-tuned as the National Weatr
Service performs storm surveys.
Some of those survey surveys
are still ongoing.
And are being taken by a
number of different offices,
including the Chicago National
Weather Service Detroit as well
as the Northern Indiana one.
However,
we are seeing damage signs that indicate EF1,
if not stronger, tornado damage.
As far as house wind speeds,
that would correlate to that
represents over 100 miles an ho,
with some of the strongest
tornadoes likely achieving 110
As far as those peak wind speed,
in addition to the tornado
reports a lot of heavy rain acrs
central and northern Michigan.
And back towards Northern Illinois that
was the epicenter of severe wea,
where a number of tornadoes touched down
across the entire Lower Great Ls
Region 12 preliminary tornado reports,
many of those slowly but
surely being confirmed.
The National Weather Service near Chicago has
confirmed at least seven tornado touchdowns,
and all of those occurred
in several storm cells,
mainly to the West and northwest of Chicago.
And all the way up towards the e
line of Illinois and Wisconsin,
where those twisters touched
down again Wednesday evening,
several of which did damage and
EF1 damage has been represented.
What about our weather here?
Well,
we did see some of those cross
overlake Michigan and make theiy
into parts of Southwest Michiga.
And we saw some funnel cloud res
there to the north of Porter,
Michigan and also closer to Stu,
another funnel cloud was report.
There actually was confirmation
of a tornado touchdown.
This was just to the West of Hillsdale,
about 30 miles West of Hillsdal.
Now when we saw the damage come,
that was indicative of,
hey, this may be a tornado,
and it was indeed confirmed near Colon,
Michigan.
Multiple barns were damaged,
there was metal debris that was lofted,
and it's likely that this tornao
touchdown almost directly over top of
a warehouse or a storage facili.
Hence a lot of that structural
damage in Colon,
Michigan and EF1 tornado was
confirmed 90 mile an hour.
Wind speeds on the lower end oft
EF1 spectrum little too close for Gumford,
with this tornado touching downt
about 30 miles to the West of Hillsdale, MI.
And it did prompt a tornado war.
Here's a radar loop of Wednesday
evening showing you those severe
thunderstorms originating in Illinois
and crossing overlake Michigan.
They did lose a little bit of steam as
they entered Hillsdale, Lenaway counties,
but due to the presence of a low
pressure storm system spinning y
in that counterclockwise motion,
we saw a lot of turning in the
atmosphere with all of these st.
You'll notice that over a weakening trend.
Eventually, as the night went o,
those thunderstorms weakened as
they moved into our Southeaster.
Michigan counties.
So what role does climate change
playing in severe weather and
tornado touchdowns as well?
Well, it's no secret that we're
seeing warmer temperatures.
The world is getting warmer,
both the land and the sea,
and that causes more evaporation
and fuel for storms.
The warmer the thermometers get,
the more moisture gets pulled
up into the atmosphere,
and evaporation eventually
leads to precipitation.
Heavy rain is one of the
biggest impacts out of that,
but with all that rising
moist air in the atmosphere,
we're also seeing fuel for thunderstorms that
is leading to more strong to severe storms.
What about the spinning or
the turning in the atmosphere?
One of the parameters or ingredients that
we use to quantify that is called wind shear.
And when you ever hear us use that on air,
that represents that spinning or
rotational movement in the atmosphere.
Now the changes due to climate change are
still somewhat unclear regarding that.
And wind shear is largely dependent on the
type of storm system that moves on through,
as we saw Wednesday,
having a low pressure that moves
directly overlake Michigan.
That could provide the ingredients for a
good amount of wind shear in the atmosphere,
the link to climate change not
quite as clear cut.
As is the length to greater evaporation
due to those warmer temperature.
However,
we do have data that the fuel or
the ingredients for those severe
thunderstorms is growing more intense.
This map shows you the annual
thunderstorm potential,
and there's a lot of different
variables that go into this,
but one of them that is the most
clear cut due to climate change
is simply the warmer temperatur.
The purple color across the easn
half of the United States shows
you an increase in storm potent.
And that applies for the entire
Atlantic seaboard as well as the
Great Lakes into parts of the plains,
that purple color again increass
in thunderstorm potential.
Now the impacts of climate change are
not ubiquitous across the count.
Look to the West out towards the Rockies,
that brown color actually showsu
a decrease in thunderstorm potential.
So again,
the eastern half of the United
States seeing more storm potent,
the western half seeing a little bit less,
that's caused a bit of a shift in the
traditional Tornado Alley and also a.
Shift and where we are seeing
severe weather for us here at
home in Ohio and Michigan,
as well as much of the Eastern ,
there is an increase in
thunderstorm activity and also
severe weather for folks out We,
including portions of
traditional Tornado Alley.
It's starting to decline ever so
slightly nationwide though torno
outbreaks are growing larger ane
number of tornadoes that occur n
these outbreaks is overall increasing.
Now there is some yeartoyear
variability in this as you'll
notice the big spikes and also.
The low lows on this map, howev,
the line that we've drawn there
that shows you the overall trend
in tornado outbreaks and this da
goes all the way back to 1950,
so about 73 years ago.
And we are seeing an uptick in
tornado outbreak size and of
course there is still some year
to year variation on this scale.
However, in the 20 tens and twenty 20s,
seeing more tornadoes on average
versus back in the 1950s when
that number was a little bit le.
Last but not least,
the number of tornado outbreaks
that occur is growing more acros
much of the Midwest region and s
I mentioned that Eastern United
States the epicenter for far moe
number of tornadoes.
This data goes back to 1979.
So looking back for the last
half century or so,
we are seeing more tornadoes and more
tornado outbreaks from Saint Louis down.
Towards Atlanta,
but out West that blue color frm
Dallas and Houston even up to
portions of Iowa shows you where
tornadoes are becoming a little
bit less common and we are kindf
on the fence between seeing more
tornadic activity and a little t
less out towards the Mid-Atlantic region.
And overall, Toledo,
it's been relatively unchanged d
there's so much year to year variation,
it's hard to peg exactly 1 cause
or say climate change is the nur
one variable impacting this.
But one thing's for sure,
Illinois, Missouri,
Indiana have seen an uptick in tornadic
activity and that was representd
this week with those tornadoes t
occurred across Northern Illino.
Now for folks out to the
east of us in Pennsylvania,
the number of tornadoes that have been
reported is actually slightly declining.
And one of the overall shifts
due to climate change,
a shift in traditional Tornado Alley.
And this is something that the L
11 weather team has even noticed
over the last few years to deca.
Illinois seeing more severe wea.
Missouri seeing severe weather,
even though these states are not
traditionally characterized as Tornado Alley,
we're starting to see that severe weather
creep more often into the Midwe.
And also even the Hoosier State starting
to see more tornadoes than theye
about 50 years ago in the 1970s.
And again,
Toledo on the fence between.
And seeing more and less and
there's so much year to year
variation and so much that depes
on individual storms that again,
climate change, not the only fa,
but it certainly does play a ron
the number of tornadoes that oc.
But overall,
the number of tornado outbreaks in the
severity is on the rise across the country.
Now it looks like the
weather pattern is going to
stay awfully active through
the remainder of July.
So we could very well see more downpours.
We talked about that in last
week's Climate Friday newslette.
How heavy rain is becoming more
prevalent due to those soaking downpours
from moisture in the atmosphere.
Also, thunderstorms certainly possible as
we head towards the latter half of July.
Be sure to subscribe for the Climate Friday
newsletterwtol.com/email and yon
follow along John Burchfield on Facebook,
John WTOL on Twitter We got
new Climate Friday content.
We'll see you next Friday for the latest.