As I said last week and as was discussed on Science News Friday on NPR last Friday, when is it gonna be ok to say global warming or climate change is causing the weather? Because in my estimate that has been happening for the last 10 years. Really. Russian catches on fire (twice), Australia catches fire (twice), China gets slammed by a massive snow storm, Iran gets slammed by a typhoon, and Eastern Europe is flooded so badly that hundreds die all seem to me to be indicators that there is a connection. But as the research scientist said under prodding from a very dogged interviewer, Ira Flatow, well maybe in a decade we will have enough data for something like that. Which is actually the result of the hammering of the science community received in public by the coal, oil and natural gas industry (the hydrocarbon industries in general).
Tornadoes tear across Midwest, killing at least 5 in Illinois
At least five people were killed Sunday in a tornado outbreak that left dozens more injured across the Midwest, and officials feared the toll could rise as emergency responders sifted through the wreckage.
Illinois has suffered the brunt of the storms’ wrath, which swept through communities in Missouri, Indiana and Kentucky, smashing homes, toppling cell towers and tossing cars in a rare November tornado outbreak. One twister was estimated to be half a mile wide.
An elderly man and his sister were found dead after a tornado struck their farmhouse in New Minden in southern Illinois, Washington County coroner Mark Styninger told the Associated Press.
About 100 miles to the south, a twister pounced on a trailer park in the tiny riverside community of Brookport, Ill. A representative of Massac County’s emergency response office said officials had received unconfirmed reports of fatalities and of residents trapped in the wreckage.
“It’s a mess,” Larry Douglas, a former manager of the Massac County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency and a current agency volunteer, told the Los Angeles Times.
[Updated, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17: By Sunday evening, officials had confirmed five deaths, the Chicago Tribune reported — one in Washington and four in the southern part of the state.]
A preliminary report from the National Weather Service said at least 50 mobile homes in two trailer parks could have taken a “direct hit.”
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Go there and read. More next week…especially if the weather gets bad.
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