Last April the US set a record of 758 tornadoes for the month.
Weather.com meteorologist Greg Forbes told TODAY that the season is already "running about 50 percent above average for the number of tornadoes."
"We've had record heat," he added, and "that warmth is a big ingredient that provides the instability for the storms."
Record heat indeed. The map shows the mutant heat waves that hit most of the US last month. I wonder what all that could be about?
And it seems much of Texas is in for another year of extreme drought.
Fortunately Texans have Rick Perry as their governor. His solution to drought is to pray for rain. He'll even authorize pray-ins for entire long weekends. One of these days that's bound to pay off, huh?
Governor Rick is some pissed off these days. The Guardian reports he's steamed about foreigners meddling in his state's affairs.
"...the governor of Texas and former Republican presidential candidate, has criticised the UK's Foreign Office for funding an environmental group which aimed to "educate" Texan policymakers about climate science and "move them from a state of denial and inaction to one of acceptance and effective action".
"In 2009, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) gave £13,673 to the US-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to part-fund a project entitled "Influencing climate security policy and legislation in Texas", the Guardian has learned. The money was used to fly two Texan state politicians, including the climate sceptic Republican Troy Fraser, to the UK to receive a briefing with climate scientists and government officials. A conference was also held at the Texas Capitol in Austin in which a video of Prince Charles personally addressing Texan politicians on the subject of climate change was shown."
A spokeswoman for Perry summed up the governor's position:
"In Texas, we base our policy decisions on sound science and what is ultimately best for our citizens. Man-made global warming remains but a theory and one where thousands of scientists remain sceptical. It would be irresponsible to put our entire economy at risk based on unproven science."
The governor declined to speak directly to the newspaper, saying he was scheduled to unveil the new Texas climate change advisory panel.
2 comments:
Um, isn't half of Texas either arid or semi-arid? A drought in an arid place is about as unuausl as snow in the arctic.
What were you expecting?
I'll pretend for a minute that's a serious comment Anon. What do you think a drought is? Why it would be the absence of normal precipitation. Even the arid parts of Texas require rainfall. They're not desert. It's the rain they're supposed to be getting but not getting that is the cause of the droughts or at least that coupled with the sustained heat waves Texas is enduring.
BTW, I wasn't 'expecting' anything when it comes to Texas. But, when the governor orders days of 'prayer for rain' that's usually a pretty good indication Jeebus isn't delivering the goods.
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