Twisters in the US

Over the past few weeks, there have been many major weather events: tornadoes and floods in the US, dry weather in the UK, and Monsoon rains arriving in southern Asia. The biggest event out of these few has got to be the tornadoes in America.

 From the 1st of January up to the 29th of May this year in the US, there have been 1,383 recorded tornadoes as of over 960 were confirmed. Tornadoes are recorded on the Enhanced Fujita Scale which ranges from 0-5 right. 4 of the 995 were EF5, and 3 of the 4 occurred between the 25 and 28 of April. The most famous of these tornadoes was the one that struck Tuscaloosa, Alabama on the 27th April, killing at least 41 people. Left. A record 188 tornadoes in 24 hours were recorded on the 28th of May.

More recently, at 5:15 pm on the 22nd of May, a large and intense, multi-vortex tornado struck the City of Joplin in Missouri. A multi-vortex tornado is an especially damaging tornado with two or more funnels present at the same time. They often rotate about a common centre or each other. So basically, it's a tornado made up of a few funnels rather than the normal: one. The main hospital was severely damaged and many businesses and houses were too, some were even blown away. The Weather Channel video showed entire communities flattened. The death toll is 139 and 1,000+ injured. This was the worst tornado to hit the area for more than 130 years.

The figures are astonishing: this April is by far the most active recorded doubling the previous record with 650 tornadoes touching down. However, the first three weeks of may were unusually calm, especially since May is typically the most active month. This was not the case for long as another outbreak occurred on the 21st-26th of May which included the Joplin tornado.

My next post will be a summary of the weather of May 2011. Hope you are enjoying them so far and I hope that there will be plenty more to come.