This Year's Tornadoes Some of the Worst

This is the second in a series of articles that seek to quantify just how bad this year's tornadoes were in a historical context. It wasn't just media hype!

In a previous article I wrote that the late April tornado outbreak was so severe that it merited the special name "Superoutbreak 2011." That's just the second time that a tornado outbreak has earned that title, the first being on April 3-4, 1974.

This article focuses on three of the individual tornadoes from the spring of 2011 that rank among the worst on record in the United States. Two of them came on April 27 during that Superoutbreak 2011: an EF4 tornado that hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham AL along an 80-mile path, and an EF5 tornado that hit Phil Campbell and Hackleburg AL along a path that was over 106 miles long and continued into Tennessee. The third was an EF5 tornado that hit Joplin Missouri on May 22.

These were the three deadliest tornadoes in the United States since 1957, when radars began to be widely used for storm detection in the United States. At that time the National Weather Service was called the Weather Bureau, and the radars did not have any Doppler wind information. The Joplin tornado caused at least 159 deaths. The Hackleburg tornado killed at least 72, and the Tuscaloosa tornado killed at least 64. The Joplin tornado was the deadliest since a tornado hit Woodward, Oklahoma in 1947.The table below lists the 20 deadliest tornadoes on record in the United States. Joplin stands as the only tornado on the list since 1953, the year that the Weather Bureau began to issue tornado forecasts. The worst was the Tri-State (MO, IL, IN) tornado on March 18, 1925 that killed 695 along a 219-mile path, the longest on record.

In raw dollars (i.e., costs at the time that they occurred), these were also the three costliest tornadoes on record in the United States. Estimated costs from the Joplin tornado are $2.8 B (billion), $2.2 B from the Tuscaloosa tornado and $1.25B from the Hackleburg tornado. The previous record holder in raw dollars (not adjusted for inflation), was the F5 tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma and Oklahoma City on May 3, 1999, with loss of $1 B.

Of course, because of inflation it isn't fair to compare raw costs from a tornado today to one that occurred decades ago. For that reason, I've attempted to "normalize" the costs into 2011 dollars. To do that I've used economic statistical measures called "Fixed Reproducible Tangible Wealth" or "wealth" from 1929 to 1995, and "Gross Domestic Product" for years when "wealth" data weren't available. This is just one way to do it, but follows in the tracks of a
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/users/brooks/public_html/papers/damage.pdf previous study by colleagues Harold Brooks and Chuck Doswell. Results are in the table below.

Even with the adjustment for inflation of older tornadoes, Joplin still ranks as the costliest tornado. With the dramatic effects of the adjustment for inflation, the St. Louis tornado of 1896 zooms from a raw cost of $12 million to $2.558 billion to take second place. The Tuscaloosa and Hackleburg tornadoes from Superoutbreak 2011 take third and thirteenth places, respectively. From the 1974 Superoutbreak, only the F5 Xenia, Ohio tornado cracks the top 25.

Combining deaths and damage to come up with a ranking of worst tornadoes is definitely a very subjective and arbitrary process. What I've done is to give the deadliest tornado (Tri-State tornado of 1925) 50 points and then scale other tornadoes on their percentage of that tornado's death toll. Similarly, I've given 50 points to the Joplin tornado for its 2.8 billion dollars in damage, and then scaled other tornadoes based on their adjusted damage cost values. There would be a maximum score of 100 if a single tornado had highest values in each category, which wasn't the case. Values and rankings are shown in the table below.

Using that ranking scheme, the Joplin tornado of 2011 winds up third-worst tornado on record in the United States. It follows the Tri-State tornado of 1925 and the St. Louis tornado of 1896. The Tuscaloosa tornado comes in fourth and the Hackleburg tornado comes in eighth.

An interesting result is that, despite earning the first classification as a "Superoutbreak", none of its tornadoes on April 3-4, 1974 ranked in the top 25 individual worst ones. By contrast, the 2011 Superoutbreak had two of the top 25 worst tornadoes. The 1974 Superoutbreak had more killer tornadoes, but the most deaths from an individual tornado were 34 from the Xenia, OH tornado. That death toll was so far down on the list (and not on the top table) that it kept it (and other tornadoes from 1974) off the "worst tornado" list.

In summary, 2011 brought one of the two worst tornado outbreaks on record in the United States and three of the worst individual tornadoes. It also brought six tornadoes (thus far) given the top rating of EF5. The only other year which had that many was 1974. 2011 truly was a remarkable year!

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Tornadoes hit NYC; violent storm tears through D.C.

NEW YORK – Damaging storms that spawned tornadoes in New York City, darkened tens of thousands of homes in the Washington, D.C., area and flooded New England streets turned a normal day of rest into a day of cleaning up for many East Coast residents on Sunday.

By Joey Mure, AP

This photo provided by Joey Mure shows a storm cloud over the Breezy Point area of Queens section of New York on Saturday.

By Joey Mure, AP

This photo provided by Joey Mure shows a storm cloud over the Breezy Point area of Queens section of New York on Saturday.

No serious injuries were reported when a twister hit a beachfront neighborhood Saturday on the edge of New York City and a second, stronger tornado followed moments later about 10 miles away. Residents got advance notice but still the storm took people by surprise.

"I was showing videos of tornadoes to my 4-year-old on my phone, and two minutes later, it hit," said Breezy Point neighborhood resident Peter Maloney. "Just like they always say, it sounded like a train."

The unsettled weather, part of a cold front that crossed over the Eastern Seaboard, toppled trees and power lines and damaged buildings as it passed through. Wind gusts reached 70 mph in some places.

Tornado-like funnel clouds were reported in Fairfax County, Va., and in Prince George's County, Md., but had not been confirmed by Saturday evening, meteorologist Andy Woodcock of the National Weather Service said.

One person suffered minor injuries during a partial stage collapse at the Rosslyn Jazz Festival in Arlington County, Va., and six people were evacuated from a Washington apartment building when a tree fell on it. Fairfax County officials reported three home cave-ins because of downed trees, a water rescue in the Potomac River and dozens of electrical wires down.

By Sunday morning, about 15,000 customers were without electricity in northern Virginia, according to Dominion Virginia Power. Pepco reported outages to more than 5,000 customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties. BGE reported about 1,500 outages, most in Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties.

In New York City, videos taken by bystanders showed a funnel sucking up water, then sand, and then small pieces of buildings as the first tornado moved through the Breezy Point section of the Rockaway peninsula in Queens.

At the Breezy Point Surf Club, it ripped the roofs off rows of cabanas, scattered deck chairs and left a heavy metal barbecue and propane tank sitting in the middle of a softball field, at least 100 yards from any home.

"It picked up picnic benches. It picked up Dumpsters," said the club's general manager, Thomas Sullivan.

In the storm's wake, broken flower pots, knocked-down fences and smashed windows littered the community of seaside bungalows. Half an hour later, the weather was beautiful, but Sullivan had to close the club to clean up the damage.

The roof of Bob O'Hara's cabana was torn off, leaving tubes of sunscreen, broken beer bottles and an old TV set exposed to the elements.

"We got a new sunroof," said O'Hara, who has spent summer weekends at the Breezy Point club for his entire 52 years. "The TV was getting thrown out anyway," he added.

The second twister hit to the northwest, in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn but also near the water, about seven minutes later. The National Weather Service said winds were up to 110 miles per hour, and several homes and trees were damaged.

Tornadoes are traditionally rare in the New York City area, but they have occurred with regularity in recent years. A small tornado uprooted trees on Long Island last month.

In 2010, a September storm spawned two tornadoes that knocked down thousands of trees and blew off a few rooftops in Brooklyn and Queens. A small tornado struck the same year in the Bronx. In 2007, a more powerful tornado damaged homes in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

More than 1,100 customers lost power Saturday in New York City.

Across New York state, in Buffalo, strong winds blew roofing off some buildings and sent bricks falling into the street. The city of Albany canceled the evening portion of an outdoor jazz festival because of the threat of storms.

With wind gusts reaching up to 60 mph, the storms moved into New England, flooding roads, toppling trees and snapping power lines.

For about three hours, the storm barraged western Massachusetts, western Connecticut and part of New Hampshire before tapering off near Rhode Island, but not before flooding roads in East Providence, the National Weather Service said.

In Fall River, Mass., floodwaters reached up to car windshields and stalled out dozens of vehicles. A day care center was evacuated and St. Anne's Hospital's emergency room flooded.

In New Hampshire, television station WMUR reported 4,000 power outages. The storm reached every county in Vermont, all within a two-hour window, but mercifully left the state without any extraordinary damage, according to early reports.

Weather Service meteorologist John Cannon said the storms by late Saturday had come and gone in Maine, where the concern then became high swells of 4 to 8 feet on the beaches and rip currents that would make it dangerous to be out on the water Sunday.

———

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David B. Caruso and Colleen Long in New York and Ed Donahue in Washington.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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Scientists a step closer to predicting tornadoes

For decades, meteorologists have been able to forecast the severity of hurricane seasons several months ahead of time. Yet forecasting the likelihood of a bad tornado season has proved a far greater challenge.

By Charlie Riedel, AP

Brenna Burzinski looks through the rubble in her devastated apartment in Joplin, Mo., on May 25.

By Charlie Riedel, AP

Brenna Burzinski looks through the rubble in her devastated apartment in Joplin, Mo., on May 25.

Now, research from scientists at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society could eventually lead to the first seasonal tornado outlooks.

"Understanding how climate shapes tornado activity makes forecasts and projections possible, and allows us to look into the past and understand what happened," said Michael Tippett, lead author of a study in February's journal of Geophysical Research Letters.

The need for such data is reinforced by the still-fresh memory of 550 Americans killed by tornadoes last year — coupled with an unusually violent January for twisters.

In the study, Tippett and his team looked at 30 years of past climate data. They used computer models to determine that the two weather factors most tied to active tornado months and seasons were heavy rain from thunderstorms and extreme wind shear (wind blowing from different directions at different layers of the atmosphere).

"If, in March, we can predict average thunderstorm rainfall and wind shear for April, then we can infer April tornado activity," Tippett says.

The method worked for each month except for September and October, and it worked best in June.

This is the first time a forecast of up to a month in advance has been demonstrated, he says.

"A connection between La Niña and spring tornado activity is often mentioned," Tippett says, "but such a connection really has not been demonstrated in the historical data and hasn't been shown to provide a basis for a skillful tornado activity forecast.

"Our work bridges the gap between what the current technology is capable of forecasting (large-scale monthly averages of rainfall and winds) and tornado activity, which the current technology cannot capture," he says.

The research isn't ready for prime time yet, however, so no official forecast will be made for the upcoming season using these methods.

"This is a useful first step," says Harold Brooks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who was not involved in the study. He says it will be helpful to know, for example, that sometime in the last week of April, conditions will be favorable for lots of tornadoes in the eastern USA.

With greater lead time, a state emergency planner "could be better prepared with generators and supplies," Brooks says.

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Weather pattern could fuel more Ala. tornadoes

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) – This isn't a tornado warning, nor is the siren about to go screaming across the Tennessee Valley.

Dusty Compton, AP

A tornado roars through Tuscaloosa, Ala., in April 2011.

Dusty Compton, AP

A tornado roars through Tuscaloosa, Ala., in April 2011.

But the potential and the indicators are in place to make the upcoming spring tornado season a rocky one to ride out.

This follows a storm season in 2011 that saw several killer tornadoes lash Alabama.

John Christy, the state climatologist and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, cited the presence of the La Niña weather pattern as a cause for tornado apprehension this spring.

"In a La Niña type year, we tend to have more of these types of experiences with the trailing cold front creating the opportunity for those specific ingredients to provide the high contrast between cold and warm," Christy said.

"We are still in La Niña pattern. The long-range forecast for the spring is for warmer than usual. So that sets up an opportunity for a contrast along the way for these ingredients to come together."

If it happens, Kevin Knupp will be ready. A professor of atmospheric sciences at UAH who studies tornadoes, Knupp is working on research about the influence gravity waves have on tornadoes.

Knupp compared the gravity waves to the way water moves across a lake. As the gravity waves encounter a potential tornado, it can enhance the likelihood of a twister developing, according to Knupp's theory.

"When the waves intersect the storm, oftentimes - not always but most of the time - there is a response from the storm," Knupp said. "If there is an existing circulation, it intensifies that existing circulation there and if there is no tornado genesis, the formation of a tornado can occur at that time."

Watching gravity waves -- which is easier in a humid climate like Alabama -- can aid forecasters in identifying tornadoes. Knupp said the National Weather Service in Huntsville was already using gravity waves among its tools for distinguishing tornadoes.

"We can be more specific on when and where it might form," said Knupp, who is also studying the impact topography has on the intensity of tornadoes. "We want to do that because the false alarm rate on tornado warnings has been so high in this area."

So what's on the horizon for the Tennessee Valley as prime tornado season approaches in March and April?

"From a historical standpoint, Alabama gets about 60 tornadoes a year," Christy said. "Most of them come in the spring. So by any standard measure, you should be ready for something to happen this spring.

"With the way the global atmosphere circulation is set up (with the La Niña pattern), there is a bit more chance that number will be higher than average this spring."

The La Niña pattern, Christy and Knupp said, brings cold air from the Pacific Ocean into close proximity with warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. Christy described it as an "opportunity" for the two air masses to "collide" over Alabama and that's when the atmosphere becomes unstable.

But Christy downplayed any seeming increase in tornadoes in recent years.

"We still have just as many tornadoes as we've ever had," he said. "We just put more stuff in their way to hit. So the damage from tornadoes will just continue to rise."

Of course, weather experts are loathe to look farther into the future than absolutely necessary. But history, in a sense, can be a crystal ball with a peek at what's to come.

"If it happened before, it'll happen again and probably worse," Christy said. "That's my general rule of climate."

Said Knupp, "I remember that word for word and that's what I tell my students."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

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January Tornadoes Turn Deadly in Alabama (ContributorNetwork)

A severe line of storms that started in Arkansas and Missouri moved eastward, leaving a trail of destruction from high winds and tornadoes in the Midwest and the South. According to MSNBC, at least three people are dead in Alabama, and homes and businesses were destroyed in several states and thousands without power late Sunday and early Monday.

* The Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Service posted preliminary data from the overnight storms and it included 22 tornado reports.

* In Arkansas, the SPC reported tornadoes were spotted near Fordyce, Coy, Slovak, Lodge Corner, DeWitt and Burks. The counties were Cleveland, Dallas, Lonoke, Prairie, Arkansas and Crittendon.

* In Mississippi, tornadoes were spotted near Trebloc and Lauderdale.

* In Tennessee, there was a possible tornado report in Dickson.

* MSNBC reported that in Alabama, the three deaths occurred near Birmingham. Center Point was hit especially hard. Tuscaloosa, which saw death and destruction from tornadoes in April, suffered damage.

* Accuweather.com reported a fourth fatality had occurred in Alabama.

* Accuweather also reported damage in the Paradise Valley, Millbrook and Clanton areas in Alabama. In Clanton, a tornado is believed to be behind the destruction of a radio station and transmission tower. A report from Millbrook stated winds knocked down trees and power lines and tore apart fences and metal buildings.

* There were reports of severe damage, downed trees, snapped power lines and debris blocking roads in several areas around Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana. The SPC received numerous reports of high winds and wind damage, lightning and power outages across parts of these states.

* In Arkansas and Tennessee, there were reports of tractor-trailers and signs blown over on Interstates, according to the SPC.

* Large hail was reported to the SPC from several states, with multiple reports of quarter-sized hail in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois and Kentucky. Some locations reported hail that was half-dollar in size and larger. There was a report of hail the size of a hen's egg in Calloway County, Ky., and at least one report of hail the size of softballs in Jefferson County, Ark.

* Following overnight high winds, the ferry at Cave-in-Rock, Ill., was closed temporarily, as reported by WPSD-TV. The ferry transports travelers the Ohio River between Illinois and Kentucky but high winds that continue in the region on the heels of Sunday night's storm system are still creating dangerous conditions in the area and the decision was made to close the ferry until weather conditions improve.

Tammy Lee Morris is certified as a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) member and is a trained Skywarn Stormspotter through the National Weather Service. She has received interpretive training regarding the New Madrid Seismic Zone through EarthScope -- a program of the National Science Foundation. She researches and writes about earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, weather and other natural phenomena.

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Tornadoes in Southeast kill 6, flatten houses (AP)

By MITCH WEISS and MICHAEL BIESECKER, Associated Press Mitch Weiss And Michael Biesecker, Associated Press – Thu Nov 17, 5:19 pm ET

LEXINGTON, N.C. – A day after deadly tornadoes struck the Southeast, survivors looked for what they could salvage, huddled in loved ones' hospital rooms and shared stories of how they made it through the furious storms.

Some were also mourning. People in a hard-hit North Carolina neighborhood marked the spot where a 3-year-old girl's body was found with an American flag. The little girl and her grandmother were among six killed in three states Wednesday.

The two were alone in the small house in a rural area south of Lexington when the storm hit, leaving behind only the foundation. The house's splintered remains were scattered hundreds of feet. The family's Dodge minivan ended up propped against a nearby tree, its windows smashed and roof caved in.

Firefighters and volunteers searched for the girl, whose name wasn't immediately released, for more than two hours before finding her buried in a pile of shattered lumber and furniture.

"She was just beautiful — big blue eyes and so sweet," said Maegan Chriscoe, whose daughter played with the young victim.

Elsewhere, the storms killed three people in South Carolina, and a Georgia motorist was died when a tree crushed his SUV north of Atlanta.

Dozens more were injured across the region, scores of buildings were damaged and thousands were without power. Meteorologists confirmed Thursday that tornadoes had struck Louisiana and Alabama a day earlier and twisters were suspected in Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas.

"It looked like the `Wizard of Oz,'" Henry Taylor said, describing a funnel cloud outside his home near Rock Hill, S.C. "It was surreal, and for a moment, a split second, you say to yourself `This ain't real,' then reality sets in, and you know it is."

The 50-year-old Taylor said he and his wife sought refuge in a closet as the storm roared. Part of his roof was torn off, windows were blown out and trees had been snapped in two. But he and his wife escaped injury.

"I held my wife closely in the closet and I prayed. I said, `Oh my God, this is it. I'm going to be buried in the debris. We're going to die,'" Taylor said Thursday, wiping back tears.

Jerry Neely said his wife, Janet, was home alone and fled to the bathroom for safety. The tornado lifted the bathtub, pinning her underneath, Jerry Neely said by phone from his wife's hospital room Thursday.

"It's going to be hard to overcome this. I don't know what we're going to do. It's just so hard," Jerry Neely said, adding that his wife will recover from her injuries.

The sheriff for surrounding York County asked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for state assistance in cleaning up the debris. Authorities blocked roads leading into the area and only allowed emergency workers and power crews in.

Ideal conditions for severe weather were created when a cold front stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northeast collided with unseasonably warm air, forecasters said. Temperatures dropped in some areas from the low 70s to the 50s as the front passed.

Still, it's not unusual for the region to have severe storms in November because temperatures can fluctuate wildly, said National Weather Service meteorologist Neil Dixon.

In Alabama, the National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes hit communities in the western and central parts of the state and continued to assess a suspected twister that demolished mobile homes at a pair of housing parks near Auburn University. The campus was spared major damage.

It was the worst bout of weather for the state since about 250 people were killed during a tornado outbreak in April the state.

Back in Lexington, Marshall Chriscoe described running for cover in his house, which is across the street from where the little girl and her grandmother died. When he got a text message from his girlfriend that a tornado was headed his way, he grabbed her 4-year-old daughter and they huddled under a heavy roll-top desk.

"The house started shaking and things were falling," said Chriscoe, 24, who's Maegan Chriscoe's brother. "It only lasted 15, maybe 30 seconds. I stood up and realized I was standing on an incline."

The small house he rents had been lifted off its foundation. After finding his girlfriend's Chihuahua hiding under a bed, he went outside to find a scene of devastation.

Chriscoe said he and other neighbors quickly found the gravely injured grandmother in the debris of her home.

"She was talking and moving her arms," he said. "She just kept yelling, `Get me up!' But we were afraid to move her before the rescue squad got there."

About a quarter mile away, Richard Hedrick worked to salvage what he could from his ruined childhood home. He said his parents sought shelter in their basement and suffered minor injuries when their brick house was lifted up and dropped back in place.

Still, Hedrick felt lucky that they were OK.

"Mama always said she wanted a sunroom," he said jokingly when asked if they planned to rebuild. "This was the home place, lots of memories here. But next week, we'll have Thanksgiving dinner somewhere else and we'll be truly thankful."

___

Biesecker reported from Lexington, N.C. Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Rock Hill, S.C., and Bob Johnson and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., contributed to this report.

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Weather Service Confirms Seven Fall Tornadoes Hit Virginia (ContributorNetwork)

Rare falltime tornadoes hit north central Virginia on Thursday in the midafternoon as a cold front swept through the state. The Washington Post reports the National Weather Service confirmed seven twisters touched down in Fairfax, Prince William, Louisa, Strafford and Fauquier counties. Four funnel clouds were within 50 miles of the nation's capital. No injuries or deaths were reported.

One twister was seen in the middle of rush hour traffic along Interstate 95 near Fredericksburg. A video on YouTube was uploaded by a motorist stuck in traffic watching the twister go by. The car was stopped on a bridge as the edges of the tornado crossed the highway. Leaves can be seen blowing horizontally and sheets of rain were pelting the car. Fortunately the tornado was weak enough to only blow around small bits of debris and rain.

The only victims of the high winds in Louisa County may have been historic structures. NBC 12 in Richmond, Va., reported a house built in 1746 had the roof blown off and some columns collapse in Sylvania, which is in Louisa County. The plantation house was hit around 3:45 p.m.

Damage reports in New Kent County were more drastic. About 30 homes were damaged in New Kent County and Woodhaven. Hundreds of trees were downed by the tornadoes. The elementary school suffered minor damage.

Louisa County is the same locality that was hit by an earthquake Aug. 23 that caused damage in Washington. After that, Hurricane Irene rolled through. Now a tornado has damaged parts of the county. The recent storm was just the eighth tornado to hit Louisa County since 1950. The area has suffered $18 million in damage yet has not been given any federal disaster aid.

The National Weather Service states deadly tornadoes in Virginia are rare. From 1950 to 1993, there were only two deadly tornadoes in Virginia. Twisters in 1993 accounted for four deaths and 238 injuries.

There still may be more twisters in store for the U.S. The 2011 count is already above average. Taking into account preliminary reports, there have been 1,814 twisters. That's 400 above a three-year average. The record for the most tornado deaths in one year was set in 2011 with 547 deaths, 530 in April and May. There were 160 of those deaths in one storm that destroyed 30 percent of Joplin, Mo.

There may be a spike in tornado activity in later October and early November as warm and cold air clash during the change of seasons. Tornadoes can occur anytime, anywhere, even though the most prominent times are in April and May for the United States.

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Tropical Storm Lee spawns tornadoes on Gulf Coast (Reuters)

MOBILE, Ala (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Lee spawned tornado sightings and alerts from the Louisiana Gulf Coast to the Florida panhandle on Sunday, and at least two deaths related to the storm were reported.

More than a dozen tornado sightings were reported, and tornado warnings were in effect Sunday afternoon for portions of Baldwin and Mobile counties in southwest Alabama and Greene, Jasper, Perry and Wayne counties in southern Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service.

Weather officials had not confirmed any tornadoes touching down in the area on Sunday afternoon, but were tracking at least three twisters and funnel clouds near Mobile, Alabama, and central Mississippi near Hattiesburg.

Tornado watches stretched from southeast Mississippi, through a dozen counties in southwest Alabama and several more in the Florida Panhandle. Tornado watches also reached into southwest Georgia on Sunday afternoon.

Wet conditions associated with Tropical Storm Lee's landfall appeared to be a factor in an early-morning car wreck in Mobile, Alabama, that killed one man and left several others injured, authorities said.

The single-vehicle crash around 4 a.m. local time Sunday killed Dataurius Nurell Parker of Lucedale, Mississippi, and injured four passengers.

Mobile police investigators said none were wearing seat belts and believed wet conditions contributed to Parker losing control of the car and striking a utility pole.

An unidentified juvenile drowned late Sunday afternoon in choppy surf east of Fort Morgan, Alabama.

Baldwin County Sheriff's investigators determined two juveniles were swept out into the surf. The youth's mother attempted a rescue attempt and was caught in the surf herself, according to a press release.

The mother and second juvenile were rescued, but the search for the first youth was suspended on Sunday evening.

On Saturday, authorities said a Texas man drowned when he lost his boogie board in the choppy water off a Galveston beach. His body was recovered about 150 yards from the beach a few hours later.

Weather officials were assessing the damage reported from a tornado that touched down in the Gulfport, Mississippi area just after midnight on Sunday. Several people were sent to area hospitals for treatment of minor injuries. Officials described the damage to homes as minor.

"We don't have a total number of homes damaged yet, but a (national) weather service assessment team is coming to check it out," said Rupert Lacy, emergency management director at the Harrison County Emergency Operations Center.

Emergency management officials in Mobile County, Alabama, also confirmed a tornado touched down in the southern part of that county early on Sunday morning, downing power lines and trees. No injuries have been reported.

In Mobile on Sunday, sunny skies and brisk winds gave the appearance of calm as the heaviest rains remained to the west.

Response crews are especially attuned to the threat of tornadoes after devastating twisters ravaged northern Alabama on April 27, killing more than 230 people and leveling portions of Tuscaloosa, Concord and Pleasant Grove.

"We know the heavy-duty rain is a little to the west of us, so we're going to see showers and continued flooding in low-lying areas where the ground is already super saturated. But tomorrow there's going to be a shift in the winds that should give us a little relief, and we're really looking forward to it," Lacy said.

Emergency management officials in Hancock County, Mississippi, also reported a mobile home flipped just before midnight, but no injuries were reported.

In Pascagoula, Mississippi, where residents were evacuated from two low-lying areas late Saturday night, officials said they were "standing ready" for flood issues as heavy rain was expected to move through the area Sunday afternoon.

"We've been fortunate enough to remain outside the major rain bands the last 18 to 20 hours, and that's given us an opportunity for our flooded areas to recede a little since yesterday," Terry Jackson, deputy director of the Jackson County Emergency Management Agency, said Sunday.

The main brunt of the storm's torrential rain was falling further west in Louisiana, particularly in coastal areas and the New Orleans metropolitan area, although there were no signs of major flooding like the devastating 2005 Hurricane Katrina.

(Edited by Karen Brooks and Greg McCune)

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Tornadoes, floods deliver blow to state budgets (AP)

By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press David A. Lieb, Associated Press – Sat Jun 25, 4:03 pm ET

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The tornadoes and floods that pummeled much of the South and Midwest also have dealt a serious blow to struggling state budgets, potentially forcing new cuts to education and other services to offset hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster aid.

Most state budgets were still reeling from the economy when a huge outbreak of tornadoes marched across the South in late April, followed in May by more twisters and flooding that extended into the Midwest.

"The disaster could not have come at much worse of a time from a budget standpoint," said David Perry, Alabama's finance director. The budget lawmakers adopted included "relatively steep cuts for many state agencies, and the tornado outbreak only adds to our budget pressure going forward."

The first of the cuts have already hit home in Missouri, where students will be saddled with greater college costs, and grants for domestic violence shelters have been trimmed, among other things.

Missouri and Alabama — where about 400 people were killed by twisters this year — could be forced to make a total of about $150 million in cuts because of the violent weather.

Georgia has tapped an emergency fund. Tennessee is relying on its reserves, too. And storm costs in Oklahoma will only add to the state's multimillion-dollar disaster debt accumulated over several years of natural disasters.

After a major catastrophe, the federal government often shells out billions of dollars to clean up debris, rebuild roads and buildings and help families left homeless get back on their feet. For most disaster costs, the federal government pays 75 percent, leaving state and local governments to cover the rest.

Yet when disaster costs climb to nine or 10 digits, the state's comparatively small share can still present a staggering bill.

In Missouri, lawmakers passed a $23 billion annual budget about the same time that the Army Corps of Engineers blew up a levee to ease flooding pressure along the Mississippi River. The resulting deluge affected an estimated 130,000 acres of fertile farmland and rural homes. A couple of weeks later, the nation's deadliest tornado in decades tore through Joplin, killing 156 people and destroying about 8,000 homes and businesses.

Missouri's budget had set aside $1 million for disaster aid, but Gov. Jay Nixon quickly pledged $50 million for the Joplin tornado and southeast Missouri flooding, offsetting that with cuts to other government programs. The biggest chunk came from higher education, which already was slated for a 5.5 percent cut in the coming school year.

Nixon deepened that cut to 7 or 8 percent, depending on the institution, and also reduced the amount of money lawmakers had budgeted for scholarships.

For the University of Missouri's four-campus system, that means its state aid for the 2011-2012 school year will be 11 percent lower than in 2001, despite an enrollment increase of 39 percent during the past decade.

Eric Woods, student president of the Columbia campus, acknowledged the need for disaster assistance, but bemoaned that students now have to shoulder the burden for Missouri's "crummy luck" with disasters.

"I think when you're making a state chose between rebuilding after several natural disasters or funding their schools, there's something not quite right about it," said Woods, a senior majoring in political science, history and religious studies.

Among other things, Nixon also trimmed the budget for domestic violence grants by 15 percent, essentially continuing a cut from the previous year. That comes as the number of abused women and children seeking shelter the Lafayette House in Joplin has more than doubled since the May 22 tornado, said Louise Secker, the organizations' director of community services.

Missouri and Alabama hope the federal government will agree to cover a greater-than-usual share of the cost for rebuilding public facilities and removing debris. But that may not be enough to avoid painful budget decisions in Alabama, which has about $20 million available for disaster aid in the next fiscal year but expects this year's tornadoes to cost the state $80 million to $120 million over the next several years, Perry said.

"Obviously, we'll have to either cut other areas to come up with enough money to pay for the state's share, or we'll have to come up with some new revenue sources," Perry said.

The situation is other states is less dire, but still troublesome.

When lawmakers return to the Georgia Capitol next year, they will need to find an additional $5.9 million to cover the state's remaining share of disaster costs from tornadoes. Georgia's governor already has tapped $2.6 million from an emergency fund.

Tennessee, which has been trying to rebuild its reserves, plans to dip into them to cover part of the $71 million budgeted for tornado and flooding aid, said Lola Potter, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.

Some Southern states, including Louisiana and Mississippi, created special disaster-reserve funds after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Those accounts have helped ease the strain of paying for this year's storm damage.

Even for a state with a budget surplus — North Dakota — disaster relief spending has been high. After several floods this year including the Souris River in Minot, which forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes, state flood-fighting expenses are expected to exhaust a $23.5 million disaster relief fund that was supposed to last until June 2013.

Because rebuilding can take years, disaster bills often go unpaid for long periods in some states. For the second straight year, budget problems led Kansas to delay a couple of million dollars' worth of payments to electric cooperatives for storm damage.

In Oklahoma, where the federal government has declared more than two dozen emergencies or disasters since 2007, the state has a $30 million backlog of unpaid reimbursements to cities, counties and rural electric utilities. At the same time, its emergency fund has just $1.6 million, and no new money was appropriated this year.

Because of a spate of blizzards, floods, twisters and other storms, Oklahoma will likely incur an additional $5 million in disaster debt, said Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.

"We're probably further behind, but keep in mind where we compare to other states in terms of disasters," Ashwood said. "When you start getting four, five or six disasters every year, it's easier to use it up."

___

Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss.; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La.; Dale Wetzel in Bismarck, N.D., and Lucas Johnson in Nashville, Tenn., contributed to this report.

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Four Tornadoes Hit Kentucky Hit During Storm System (ContributorNetwork)

The National Weather Service has now confirmed that at least four different tornadoes touched down in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday evening, with a fifth striking in Indiana. No injuries were reported.

One of the tornadoes struck iconic Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is held each year. Concern for the stabled horses led many to brave the weather and make sure the animals were safe. Several barns on the property sustained damage, which led to some of the horses being set free to wander the Downs, but they were eventually rounded up and no injuries to the animals were reported.

The number of tornadoes and the ensuing damage has been compared to activity normally seen in the Gulf area. Media outlets and residents were also quick to compare Wednesday's storms with the much larger tornado that hit the area in 1974.

Here are some numbers related to the Louisville tornadoes.

EF2: The strongest of Wednesday night's tornadoes is believed to only have been a medium-strength funnel according to guidelines. The wind speed of this twister is believed to have been approximately 115 miles per hour. The path of this tornado was measured at about 1 mile in length.

EF0: The tornado that hit Churchill Downs was reportedly fairly weak according to guidelines, although the National Weather Service believes it may have picked up a little strength to become an EF1 as it left the area and moved towards Papa John's Cardinal Stadium.

EF1: The strength of the other two tornadoes that touched down in Kentucky on Wednesday night. The wind speed of this tornado is thought to have reached between 95-100 miles an hour.

100: The number of stable workers that are in residence at Churchill Downs at any one time.

1,300: The number of horses that were stabled at Churchill Downs when the tornado struck.

136: The number of years Churchill Downs has been in business. Wednesday's tornado was the first to ever strike the property.

1974: The year of Louisville's largest tornado to date. An EF4 that caused massive property damage, including the destruction of 900 homes. It also downed power lines all over the city, as well as causing the deaths of 2 people and the injuries of 207 more.

25: The number of crew members that Louisville Gas and Electric has assigned to deal with all the downed power lines.

7,600: The number of people without power in Jefferson County, which includes Louisville, after Wednesday's storms.

Vanessa Evans is a musician and former freelance writer based in Michigan with a lifelong interest in politics and community issues.

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FEMA Deputy Administrator Spoke Too Soon Regarding Tornadoes (ContributorNetwork)

FEMA Deputy Administrator Rich Serino was helping with disaster recovery efforts in Joplin, Mo., when he spoke to FEMA employees in Kansas City on May 26. While he was at the regional offices with more than 100 employees of the agency, the tornado sirens sounded. Serino is from Boston and offered these thoughts on his blog when the sirens first howled during his meeting.

"Tornadoes?? What???? I'm from Boston. I know hurricanes. I know blizzards. But we don't have tornadoes there too often. This is going to be interesting," Serino expounds.

There was minimal wind damage several miles from his location. In light of the massive tornadoes that killed four people in western Massachusetts, Serino's words are almost prophetic. Just over a week since the devastating EF5 tornado killed nearly 140 people in Joplin, Mo., another set of unique storms caused residents of New England to panic.

The Los Angeles Times also sounded apologetic to the northeast in lieu of tornadoes in the Midwest. Their headline reads, "In tornado-struck Massachusetts, it feels like Missouri." The places may have changed, but the problems are the same.

Much like Missouri, the tornadoes of Massachusetts flipped cars over. People were stuck in their cars on roads when the tornadoes hit. Dramatic footage of both storms were posted on websites.

Perhaps Serino will take his lessons learned from the disaster in Joplin back to his home state. In this worst tornado season on record, everyone in the United States who sees spring thunderstorms need to be prepared for tornadic storms. Later in the summer, the eastern half of the United States gets ready for hurricane season after the tornadoes end. Then as fall time starts, tornadoes form again as warm air masses brush up against Arctic air from the north.

FEMA needs to adopt 2011 as the year of the tornadoes. Americans may need to realize that no single location is safe, even though some states see far fewer tornadoes than others. At least with massive hurricanes, residents get some days advance notice to evacuate. Tornadoes have hours to minutes worth of warning before they bear down on unsuspecting humans.

From Springfield, Mass., to Springfield, Mo., there is almost a culture of "this just couldn't happen here." Unfortunately, monster storms have ravaged almost anywhere in the eastern third of our nation from Alabama to Missouri to Massachusetts.

And just to be safe, try to have those in charge of recovery efforts not jinx our weather patterns. Perhaps Serino shouldn't say much about the upcoming hurricane season and how Boston doesn't see major hurricanes in the summer time.

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Mass. towns look to rebuild after deadly tornadoes (AP)

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, DAVID COLLINS and STEPHEN SINGER, Associated Press Russell Contreras, David Collins And Stephen Singer, Associated Press – Fri Jun 3, 3:31 am ET

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – A number of Massachusetts communities are confronting the long and painful task of rebuilding shattered lives and livelihoods Friday, just days after three deadly tornadoes flattened more than 200 homes, killed at least three people and scattered debris across the state.

Gov. Deval Patrick said at least 19 communities reported damage from the violent storms, which came with fair warning, in an area of the country that rarely sees such severe twisters that destroyed homes, peeled-off roofs and the toppled steeple of a 140-year-old church.

"Some of the damage was particularly profound," Patrick said Thursday.

"In West Springfield, for example, they are reporting 88 that are total losses; in Springfield itself, about 35; in Monson 77 total losses and counting," Patrick said. "Monson was one of the communities most significantly hit."

If the National Weather Service agrees Wednesday's three deaths are tornado-related, it would bring the year's U.S. toll to 522 and make this year the deadliest for tornadoes since 1950. The highest recorded toll was 519 in 1953; four deaths from Joplin, Mo., that were added Thursday tied the record. There were deadlier years before 1950, but those counts were based on estimates.

Tornadoes are not unheard of in New England — the downtown of Connecticut's largest city was devastated by one last June — so many people heeded warnings. That didn't guarantee their survival; among the dead was a mother who shielded her teenage daughter as they huddled in a bathtub.

But in many cases, doing the right thing — quickly — helped save lives.

Karen Irla, 50, was leaving Adams Hometown Market in the picturesque village of Monson when she heard children on their bicycles yelling, "Look at that tornado!"

"I screamed and I screamed and I screamed, and that's why I have no voice today," said Irla, who drove to a nearby senior center and waited until the storm passed.

Inside the market, produce manager Frank Calabrese made a quick decision that helped keep customers and employees from coming to harm.

In a move recalling a famous video from the recent deadly tornado in Missouri that documented shoppers' terrifying moments inside a convenience store cooler, Calabrese herded them into a walk-in freezer, where six to eight endless minutes passed while the building shook and windows shattered.

"What else are we going to do?" he said. "We sat inside and waited it out."

No one in the store suffered a scratch.

The storms hit as many people headed home from work Wednesday, paralyzing motorists who could see the twister coming at them.

A fixed television camera caught dramatic images of a debris-filled tunnel cloud crossing the Connecticut River and slamming into Springfield, a working-class city of about 140,000 residents, where it cut a swath of destruction 10 blocks wide in some spots. The city is home to the Basketball Hall of Fame, which was spared damage.

Michael Valentin, 29, said he was eating at a soup kitchen near downtown when he started hearing thunder and went outside.

"All this was chaos," he said. "It was like a mad wind twisting. It was destroying everything. Cars were being smashed against walls. Pieces of wood and trees were flying in the air."

Debbie Perkins, 30, was filling up a small backyard swimming pool for some children when they spotted the funnel. They ran into the home and huddled in the basement.

"The kids, they were all screaming and crying," Perkins said. Unlike many of her neighbors, she escaped without damage to her home.

Among the injured in Springfield was a prosecutor struck in the head by debris while walking to her car; she is expected to survive, but her name was not released.

The Hampden County district attorney, Mark Mastroianni, said he barely escaped injury himself when plate glass windows shattered and blew into his office and a conference room.

"People started to scream, `Get away from the windows,' and as I was just turning to run, the glass window just came flying in," he said.

Fabiola Guerrero wept Thursday as she returned to the wreckage of her family's home, which collapsed and crushed to death her 39-year-old mother, Angelica, as she sheltered a younger daughter in a bathtub. Guerrero said her sister was trapped for two hours before being rescued.

Guerrero said her mother always said she would die for her daughter.

"She was an amazing woman," she said.

The devastation was repeated in town after town around Springfield. Some of the most severe damage was in Monson, about 15 miles away, where homes were leveled and a historic church was badly damaged.

"This isn't supposed to happen here," Sen. John Kerry said after touring the damage in Monson, usually a quiet mountain hamlet about 90 miles west of Boston.

The toppled steeple of the First Church of Monson — founded in 1762 and rebuilt in 1873 — was a symbol of the heartbreak many residents were feeling. But townspeople were relieved that no one in the town of fewer than 10,000 was killed — and were determined to rebuild.

Gov. Patrick said he was moved by gestures of goodwill.

A woman in Monson received a phone call from someone in the Boston suburb of Milton — the governor's hometown — who had recovered her checkbook register after the ferocious winds apparently carried it 90 miles.

He also addressed the death of the West Springfield woman who died while saving her daughter's life by covering her in the bathtub.

"I'm a dad, and I understand a mom or dad would do anything to save their child," Patrick said.

Authorities initially believed at least four people died but later determined that a heart attack death in Springfield was likely unrelated to the storms. A man died when a tree struck a van in West Springfield, and another person died in Brimfield, though authorities have not released details.

The governor, who declared a state of emergency allowing officials to sidestep usual regulations to provide quick relief, pledged that the state would throw all its resources behind recovery and that federal disaster assistance would be sought.

"For those who are feeling, quite understandably, that they can't imagine what a better tomorrow would look like, I want to assure that we are working to get to that better tomorrow," he said.

Massachusetts public health officials said about 200 people sought treatment for storm related-injuries.

Dr. Reginald Alouidor, a surgeon heading the trauma teams at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, said the injured at his hospital ranged in age from 2 to their mid-60s, with many suffering broken bones or other injuries from wind-driven debris.

Seven remained at the hospital Thursday, including a woman whose liver was lacerated when a building collapsed on her.

Police and National Guard troops went door to door in Springfield to check for any residents who were injured or otherwise needed help. The police chief confirmed reports of looting and other crimes, but no arrests were made.

Tens of thousands remained without power in the region.

Given the extent of damage, Patrick, who joined Kerry and Sen. Scott Brown for an aerial tour of the devastation, said it was remarkable there weren't more deaths.

While two or three tornadoes hit Massachusetts on average every year, they're usually weak and rarely strike heavily populated areas.

That may explain why the twisters caught people by surprise, said Stephen Frasier, a University of Massachusetts professor who has chased tornadoes across the Great Plains.

"Two things happened: This was bigger than the average tornado that hits Massachusetts that usually just knocks over a tree or something, and of course, it hit a populated area," Frasier said.

Tornado watches and warnings had been posted Wednesday by the National Weather Service and were broadcast by radio and TV stations, "but people just don't react to it here the way they do in other regions of the country," he said.

Most Massachusetts communities also don't have warning sirens like in the South and Plains, where people know exactly what they mean and are trained in grade school on how to react. Where sirens do exist, he said, New Englanders often treat them with curiosity rather than as a nudge to seek shelter.

In 1995, three people were killed by a tornado in the small town of Great Barrington, Mass., along the New York border. Last year's tornado in Bridgeport, Conn., heavily damaged buildings but killed no one.

On June 9, 1953, a monster tornado sliced through Worcester and other central Massachusetts communities, killing 94 people and making it one of the deadliest single tornadoes in U.S. history.

___

Collins reported from West Springfield and Singer from Brimfield. Contributing were Associated Press writers Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn.; and Denise Lavoie, Mark Pratt, Bob Salsberg, Sylvia Wingfield and Rodrique Ngowi in Boston.

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Massachusetts residents face aftermath of tornadoes (Reuters)

BOSTON (Reuters) – Residents of tornado-ravaged towns in western and central Massachusetts faced the arduous tasks of cleaning up and assessing the damage on Friday from the twisters that ripped through the region this week.

Officials have confirmed three deaths from Wednesday's storms and said a fourth death, an elderly man who died of apparent cardiac arrest, may not have been tornado-related.

The late-afternoon tornadoes, moving west to east, tore through some 19 communities, including Springfield, about 90 miles west of Boston, bringing high winds, rain, large hail stones, thunder and lightning.

In Brimfield, Massachusetts, where officials confirmed one death, the path of the twisters destroyed 25 years of hard work and memories in less than a minute, one business owner said.

"It's all gone. Everything's gone. There's nothing left," said Dave Bell, owner of a towing and car repair and restoration business decimated in the storm.

Bell said paperwork from his shop was found more than 50 miles away in Norwood, Massachusetts.

Two of his employees survived the storm underneath a stairwell in one of the buildings, and cars, including his own restored classic automobile, were flipped and scattered around the property, he said.

Bell said he was unsure if he will try to rebuild his business.

About 200 people were injured during the severe weather system, and roughly 14,000 customers in the area remained without power on Friday, emergency management officials said.

The National Weather Service said preliminary indications show that two or three tornadoes touched down in the region on Wednesday.

One tornado identified by survey teams that moved eastward from Westfield, Massachusetts will carry a preliminary classification in the hardest-hit areas as EF-3 or higher on the damage scale, the Weather Service said.

The EF-3 rating means average wind gusts of 136 to 165 miles per hour. The scale extends through EF-5, with wind gusts of more than 200 mph.

Survey teams were still investigating the scope and force of the storms, it said.

The U.S. has been battered by tornadoes this year. A series of deadly twisters hit the Southeast U.S. in April, and a powerful tornado devastated Joplin, Missouri in May. At least four of the tornadoes have been classified as EF-5. More than 500 people have died nationwide so far this year.

(Reporting Lauren Keiper, additional reporting by Zach Howard in Conway, Massachusetts; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Greg McCune)

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Tornadoes, Hail Eye Michigan for Memorial Day (ContributorNetwork)

Well Michigan, it seems that we're not to be spared the wrath of tornado season. The National Weather Service lists a tornado watch in effect for 34 counties in Michigan. There is also a flood, severe weather and hail watch for the evening of May 29 into Memorial Day.

May 30-31 is also the anniversary of the 1998 Derecho that turned much of Spring Lake, Mich. into a disaster zone. The Derecho wind, a straight line with near tornado speed winds, destroyed countless homes and vehicles. Not one person was killed by the wind. One power worker lost his life in the repair.

Flint, Mich., was originally the site of the worst tornado in recent history. In 1953, 116 people were killed in the Flint Beecher tornado. The May 22 Joplin, Mo., tornado caused 142 deaths, according to Voice of America, topping Flint Beecher. The Christian Science Monitor reports April saw a super outbreak in Dixie Alley, one of the prime targets for tornadoes.

The following counties have tornado watches issued until 8 p.m.: Allegan, Branch, Clinton, Calhoun, Gratiot, Ionia, Kent, Livingston, Montcalm, Ottawa, Shiawassee, Tuscola, Barry, Eaton, Hillsdale, Jackson, Lapeer, Macomb, Muskegon, Saginaw, St. Clair, Van Buren, Berrien, Cass, Genesee, Ingham, Kalamazoo, Lenawee, Monroe, Oakland, Sanilac, St. Joseph and Washtenaw.

These counties are primarily in the lower peninsula in southern Michigan. Remember, a tornado watch means conditions are right for tornadoes. A tornado warning means a funnel cloud has been spotted.

There is also a warm front lifting in southern Michigan, bringing with it heavy rain and thunderstorm. This will cause flooding in some areas. These areas could see as much as an inch of rain. Counties include Ottawa, Kent, Ionia, Clinton, Allegan, Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun and Jackson.

Cities primarily affected by the heavy thunderstorms and rain include: Jenison, Grand Rapids, Ionia, Hastings, St. Johns, Holland, Charlotte, Lansing, South Haven, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek.

A flood watch remains in effect until 2 a.m. tomorrow for counties in mid-Michigan and southwest Michigan. In the southwest, the counties of Ottawa, Allegan, Barry, Kalamazoo, Kent and Van Buren should be alert. Calhoun, Clinton, Eaton, Ingham, Ionia and Jackson are affected in the central part of the state.

Now for the really fun part. With all the thunderstorms, particularly along I-96, be on the lookout for hail an inch or larger. Hail is always a threat in a Michigan spring.

Ping-ponging weather temperatures increase the likelihood of hail falling from the upper regions of the atmosphere where it is formed. Following the pre-Memorial Day storms, a cold front is expected. Temperature fluctuations also account for tornado weather. This variable weather is prime growing season for hail and tornadoes.

Hail can do some serious damage to crops, livestock, landscape and structures. It can also cause injury. Don't go out in a hailstorm. Wait until the storm is over to collect any specimens. Hailstorms are generally brief. Here is a video of some Michigan hailstorms.

Marilisa Kinney Sachteleben is an avid weather watcher and storm chaser. Living along Lake Michigan gives her plenty of opportunity to do both.

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Oklahoma seeks federal disaster aid after tornadoes (Reuters)

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – Governor Mary Fallin has asked the White House to approve a major disaster declaration for seven Oklahoma counties hit hard by tornadoes last week.

Tornadoes killed 10 people, injured 239 and destroyed 439 homes and businesses, according to the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Almost 1,100 homes and businesses were damaged, state officials said.

Fallin said in a statement issued late on Sunday that she is seeking aid for Caddo, Canadian, Delaware, Grady, Kingfisher, Logan and McClain counties.

If her request is approved, people who suffered uninsured losses in the seven counties would be eligible for assistance for housing repairs or temporary housing, low-interest loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, disaster unemployment assistance and grants for disaster expenses,

On Friday, the White House approved assistance requests for ten Oklahoma counties affected by storms and flooding in April: Adair, Cherokee, Delaware, Haskell, LeFlore, McIntosh, Muskogee, Okmulgee, Pittsburg and Sequoyah.

In those counties, storms that began on April 21 resulted in an estimated $8.6 million in infrastructure damage and response costs, Fallin said.

(Reporting by Steve Olafson. Editing by Peter Bohan)

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Damage reported from rare California tornadoes (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Farm buildings and orchards were damaged when at least two tornadoes touched down in Northern California over the last 24 hours, a National Weather Service spokesman said on Thursday.

There were no reports of injury from the storms, which struck between 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday in a largely rural area south of Chico, California, about 140 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Both were rated EF-1 or smaller on the Enhanced Fujita scale, National Weather Service spokesman George Cline told Reuters.

"Neither of these actually hit any towns but they did cause some damage to some farm buildings, barns. Some orchards were damaged," Cline said.

He said survey teams were headed out to the area on Friday and would investigate reports that as many as four tornadoes touched down.

Cline said the storms were generated by a strong low pressure system over the area that mixed with warm temperatures on the ground and were uncommon but not unprecedented for Northern California.

"Its somewhat unusual, although almost every year we'll get one or two," Cline said.

"They never approach the magnitude of the ones that occur in the Midwest or south, but if we get the right conditions we can get a couple EF-0 or EF-1 storms," he said.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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No link between tornadoes and climate change: US (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is experiencing the deadliest year for tornadoes in nearly six decades, but top US weather experts said Monday there is no link between the violent twisters and climate change.

Instead, the reasons for the spiking death tolls are more likely due to the rise in the population density, the number of mobile homes and the chance paths taken by a series of tornadoes that have happened to target populated areas.

"This year is an extraordinary outlier," said Harold Brooks, research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma.

"This is the deadliest year for tornadoes in the US since 1953," he said.

A massive tornado tore though the Missouri town of Joplin over the weekend, killing at least 116 people, less than a month a spate of the storms struck across seven states and killed 361 people in April.

According to Russell Schneider, director of NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, that puts 2012 on par with 1953, a "horrible tornado year," when 116 people were killed in a June 8 tornado in Flint, Michigan.

The same year, 114 people were killed in a Waco, Texas twister and 90 were killed by a tornado that tore through Worcester, Massachusetts. Modern tornado records began in 1950.

"I think we have to ask ourselves the tough questions now," said Schneider.

"Why is this happening? The complexity of our society, the density of our populations in traditional tornado-prone regions of the world, community and family preparedness? Our science and technology -- are we fully exploiting that to protect Americans?"

While plenty of questions are being posed, none seem to point at climate change as a driver, and the La Nina phenomenon's effect is minimal, said Brooks.

When scientists examine the most complete records available and adjust for changes in how tornadoes were reported over time, "we see no correlation between global or US national temperature and tornado occurrence," Brooks said.

Nor are the storms themselves getting larger than they used to be, even though it may seem so after learning of massive twisters like the one in Missouri that tore apart a four-mile (10 kilometer) long, three-quarter-mile deep stretch of land.

"Tornado deaths require two things. You have to have the tornado and you have to have people in the right or the wrong place," Brooks said.

"The biggest single demographic change that probably affects things is that the fraction of mobile homes in the United States has increased over the years," he said.

More than seven percent of all 311 million Americans (about 20 million) live in mobile homes, US Census data show. And more than half of all mobile homes are in the US South which is among the regions most prone to tornado strikes.

Anything that can be tossed into the air, like cars and mobile homes, can prove deadly in a tornado and people are urged to take shelter underground if possible. Many mobile home parks, however, have no such shelters.

Twisters are formed when atmospheric conditions come together in a certain way. At low levels, the atmosphere is warm and moist, coupled with cold dry air above.

Winds must be increasing in speed from the Earth's surface up to elevations of about 20,000 feet, with directional changes, known as wind shear, so that the southerly wind blows near the surface and gains speed at higher altitude.

"In April, essentially we were stuck in a pattern where that was the way things were for a couple of weeks, and that pattern didn't move so we had repeated episodes that were favorable for producing significant tornadoes," Brooks explained.

The weather phenomenon known as La Nina, which produces cooler than normal temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, may have had a "relatively small impact" on producing that pattern, but that is not the full picture, he said.

"It's an area of research to try to identify why the pattern was so favorable and why it was favorable for so long."

The overall tornado record does not show a steadily increasing trend toward bigger, deadlier storms, he said.

For instance, "2009 was a really low year for tornadoes. Some recent years have been big, some recent years have been small," he said.

Since modern records on tornadoes began in 1950, the deadliest outbreak was on April 3, 1974. The "Super Outbreak" claimed 310 lives when 148 tornadoes over a 24-hour period swept across 13 states.

Prior to that, the single deadliest tornado in US history was in 1925, described in early accounts as killing 695 people when it tore through Missouri, southern Illinois and southwestern Indiana.

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La Nina weather pattern may be factor in more tornadoes (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – La Nina, a weather pattern characterized by colder ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, may be playing a part in the high number of U.S. tornadoes this spring, according to an AccuWeather meteorologist.

"La Nina typically has a more active southern jet stream. This spring that has played a role in the severe weather," said Mark Paquette, meteorologist for AccuWeather.com.

Another factor may be warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which helped contribute to a warm and muggy air mass in the south, Paquette said.

But meteorologists said it was impossible to determine if climate change is responsible for the surge in natural disasters.

Weather experts agree that the deadly nature of this year's tornadoes is mostly due to bad luck and population sprawl -- as some tornadoes have hit densely populated areas in Missouri and Minnesota over the weekend and Alabama in April.

"We have people where there used to be farmland," said Paquette.

This year has seen an unusually high number of tornadoes, with 1,168 as of May 22, compared to an average of about 671 by this time, according to Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo.

This year's tornado season has been exceptionally deadly -- the most recent example being the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri Sunday, killing at least 116 people.

The U.S. is on pace to break the record for deaths from tornadoes this season, the National Weather Service said on Monday.

CLIMATE CHANGE A FACTOR?

Tornadoes typically form in the spring months as a result of cool air clashing with warm, humid weather. The conditions this spring have been "very favorable" for tornado formation, noted Wurman. He said that these conditions occur in some years with La Nina, but these conditions also can occur without La Nina.

Wurman said scientists are leery of drawing connections between tornadoes and long-term climate change, for a few reasons. One reason is that if something is attributable to a long-term change in climate, it would have to happen repeatedly. Last year was not a high year for tornadoes.

Scientists also do not have a good feel theoretically for what climate change would likely do to the frequency and intensity of tornadoes, Wurman said. While nearly all scientists agree climate change is occurring and globally average temperatures will probably go up, they do not know what that means for tornadoes.

"It could be climate change might cause more tornadoes, or less tornadoes, or there might be no change," Wurman said.

The tornadoes that hit the south in April were exceptional in their number, according to weather experts. What was unusual about Sunday's Missouri tornado was that it made a direct hit on a small city.

"It's bad luck," said Paquette. "Sometimes you have tornadoes that hit in the cornfields of Kansas or Nebraska or Iowa and the only person affected is that farmer and it doesn't even hit his house. But here we have a tornado that hit a hospital."

The expanding population of the United States, with accompanying suburban sprawl, has created more areas for tornadoes to cause serious damage.

Wurman noted that the tornado could have been worse if it hit an even more populated urban area, like the Chicago suburbs. "A tornado doesn't really care what's underneath it," said Wurman.

Wurman said that while it is easier for tornadoes to cause expensive and deadly damage because of sprawl, warnings also are better than they used to be. Thirty years ago, people only got an average of 3 minutes of warning before a tornado hit, now the average is 13 minutes.

"We'd like to get that up to 30 or 40 minutes," Wurman said.

He said he also would like to get the false alarm rate down because 70-75 percent of tornado warnings are false alarms, so people do not always seek shelter in time.

(Writing and reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune)

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Factbox: Deadliest single tornadoes in U.S. history (Reuters)

(Reuters) – A powerful tornado scored a direct hit Joplin killing at least 116 people and leaving about 400 more injured, authorities said on Monday.

The Joplin tornado is the deadliest single twister since Woodward, Oklahoma in 1947.

Here is a list of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history:

1. Mar 18, 1925 Missouri/Illinois/Indiana; 695 dead

2. May 6, 1840 Natchez, Mississippi; 317 dead

3. May 27, 1896 St. Louis, Missouri; 255 dead

4. April 5, 1936 Tupelo, Mississippi; 216 dead

5. April 6, 1936 Gainesville, Georgia; 203 dead

6. April 9, 1947 Woodward, Oklahoma; 181 dead

7. April 24,1908 Amite, La./Purvis, Miss.; 143 dead

8. June 12, 1899 New Richmond, Wisconsin; 117 dead

9. May 22, 2011 Joplin, Missouri; 116 dead

10. June 3, 1953 Flint, Michigan; 115 dead

NOTE: The death toll may rise more in Joplin as the search for missing people continues. Also, the figures do not include the series of tornadoes in the Southeast including Alabama in April 2011 which killed at least 346 people in seven states. Of those, 238 deaths were in Alabama, 41 of which were in Tuscaloosa County.

SOURCE: Storm Prediction Center of National Weather Service's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "25 deadliest tornadoes."

(Compiled by Greg McCune; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

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