Weather with a Twist

Storm-cellar time. Courtesy: free-extras.com

Many years ago, when I was living in South Carolina, a tornado ripped through the capitol city of Columbia one night. I lived about six blocks away from where it had done its damage. Wanting to see what happened, I grabbed my press card and rushed down to the business district where the spout had touched down. The electrical lines were strewn on the ground in a tangled mess and the fire department was cordoning off the area. There were only a few blocks affected, but it looked like a bomb had exploded. The store windows were blown out and debris was everywhere. Fortunately, no one lived in the business district, so there were no injuries or deaths. As we have seen recently, people who live in areas hit by tornadoes are not always that lucky.

Americans generally feel like they’ve cornered the market on tornadoes, but the fact is that they happen almost everywhere.

• Tornadoes have been reported on every continent except Antarctica, which does not have the needed contrast between warm and cold air together with the humid air needed for thunderstorms to form, according to the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO) in the United Kingdom
• Europe has 300 or more tornadoes a year, according to a study by Nikolai Dotzek, a scientist with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Wessling, Germany
• The United Kingdom has the most tornadoes of any European country, about 33 per year, according to TORRO. That number jumps to 50 when unreported tornadoes are added, making the United Kingdom the world’s leader in tornadoes based on number of twisters per area of land
• Germany has about 10 observed tornadoes a year: a category F-5 tornado, with wind speeds of 261 to 308 mph, happens every 150 years; an F-3 tornado, with wind speeds of 158 to 206 mph, happens every 40 to 50 years
• Large tornadoes have ravaged Europe in recent years. One smashed its way through Bognor Regis in southern England on Oct. 28, 2000, causing $7 million in damage and injuring four people. Europe’s most destructive tornado tore through the German town of Pforzheim in July 1968, causing $25 million in damage and killing two people
• There is a practical reason for the limited damage caused by European twisters. European houses are built of brick and stone, which can resist tornadoes better than the wood frame houses or trailer homes found in the U.S.
• In Asia, tornadoes have been reported in India, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Even in Japan, the tatsu maki has been reported
• In Australia, the “cockeyed bob” is reported about 20 times every year. That figure may be much higher because many storms occur in uninhabited areas. Strong tornadoes are very rare but do happen
• In South America, they have been reported in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina
• The United States is the world leader when it comes to number of tornadoes with roughly 1,400 per year. The majority of tornadoes occur in "Tornado Alley,"which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois. They typically happen from April through June, but May is the busiest month. In 2003, a flurry of funnels in May set a record, with about 400 recorded in seven days
• In both Europe and the United States, about 75 percent of the tornadoes are weak, about 22 percent are strong, and 3 percent are violent. But with fewer tornadoes in Europe, it takes longer for a violent tornado to appear and cause the type of damage seen so often in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas
• Variation in tornado frequency between the United States and Europe can be attributed to Europe's higher latitude. Boston is on roughly the same latitude as Madrid, Spain. Oklahoma City is almost directly west of the Strait of Gibraltar. The sharp angle of the sun’s rays striking Europe inhibits their ability to heat air to the degree needed to create prime tornado conditions. Plus, the landscape of Europe changes quickly from mile to mile — from hills to river valleys and back to hills, which weakens storms. This is unlike America’s midsection, where the terrain is flat and featureless for hundreds of miles 

Not a sight you want to see out your kitchen window. Courtesy: free-extras.com

• Flatlands like those in the Netherlands have twice as many tornadoes as the much larger countries of France and Germany. The level Dutch landscape is more similar to that in America’s breadbasket 

Tornadoes are so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that we have made movies about them ranging from fantasies about a girl name Dorothy in Kansas to modern-day storm chasers. Technology can do remarkable things, but it is impotent against a mile-wide spout suctioning through a swathe of land. The power of the Earth and its swirling atmosphere places how small we truly are in its proper perspective.

Seasonal Revenge

"The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring."—Ezra Pound

The seasons do not benevolently follow one another. They resent their small, 25-percent cut of the year and begin their reigns by wreaking revenge on the populace. Take spring, for instance.

Spring kicked off with a snowstorm, just to make sure we were not complacent about the frail promise of warmer weather to come. That was followed by the traditional monsoons in April with the usual sections of New Jersey flooding, leaving behind a panorama of gooey mud. Then, as the waters receded, there came the final insult—the yellow dusts of May.

"I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face."—Langston Hughes

Beautiful blooms or biological warfare?

After a winter of gray skies and brown, unconscious landscapes, life reasserted itself passive aggressively across the region. The trees bloomed in deceptively beautiful greens, whites and pinks, spewing an insidious coating of yellow pollen over cars, walkways and my face. My eyes swelled up, making me look like Yoda, and an uncomfortable tickle took residence in my throat. While others were dancing in circles, admiring the miracle of green splashing everywhere, I was busy putting ice packs on my face, filling my pockets with cough drops and taking homeopathic antihistamines.

"April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers."—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Nothing says spring like poison ivy.

Of course, there is a bright side to all of this. For the first time since I planted them, my hyacinths were not eaten by the local fauna and I was able to admire them and my daffodils through narrow eye slits. My clematis vines suddenly returned from the dead with tiny leaves and buds. My exorbitant heating oil bills should go down when I turn the heat off in coming weeks. And eventually, the radioactive rains (courtesy of Japan) will wash away the pollen and my eyes will become functional again.

“In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours."—Mark Twain

Having buried us alive in snow, drenched us in relentless rain, surrounded us with oozing mud and poisoned us with yellow dust, spring has achieved its wicked best. Satisfied at having had its way with us, it can sit back and throw us a few gratuitous weeks to recover before her sister, summer, sweeps into town and takes her vindictive turn.

Nature's Snow Job

It’s snowing again. We had a blizzard the day after Christmas and now we’re getting another four to six inches of snow today. More is expected next week.

Snow was fun when I was a child and it meant a day off from school. Unfortunately, employers do not seem to share that same sense of wonder about snow. They expect employees to slog to their cars, make a suicidal drive to the office and commence working. And don’t be late.

Maybe if I skied, snowboarded, skated or enjoyed ice fishing, snow and cold weather would be a source of joy for me. Alas, I do none of those things, so I just consider it a cold, slippery inconvenience.

Jack Frost has his way with our backyard.

Some people think snow is worthy of study. Did you know that there is a National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)? It’s part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado where they get COPIOUS amounts of snow. They study snow, ice, glaciers, frozen ground and climate. They also compile some great snow trivia, and here it is:

• Where are the snowiest cities in the U.S.? New York. Syracuse averages 115 inches of snow per year, and Rochester averages 93 inches per year. Several less populated areas around the country receive much more snow. For instance, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, has an average annual snowfall of 260 inches, and Valdez, Alaska, averages 326 inches annually. That may be why almost nobody lives there.
• Where has the most snow fallen for one storm in the U.S.? Almost 187 inches of snow fell in seven days on Thompson Pass, Alaska, in February 1953. That is serious hot cocoa country.
• How long do snowstorms typically last? Each year an average of 105 snow-producing storms affect the continental U.S. A typical storm will have a snow-producing lifetime of two to five days and will bring snow to portions of several states. Sadly, one of those states is mine.
• Is there any part of the U.S. that has never had a snowfall? Practically every location in the U.S. has seen snowfall. Even most portions of southern Florida have seen a few snow flurries. That is karmic payback for my gloating brother, who lives in Florida and likes to recite the temperatures there when it is freezing up here in New Jersey.
• Does snow serve any purpose aside from being great for winter sports and snow angels? In the western U.S., mountain snow pack contributes up to 75 percent of all year-round surface water supplies. Keep that in mind if you are thinking of writing your name in snow.

The Winter Wonderland takes our two cars captive.

As I write this, I gaze out my window at the wintry white blanketing our walkway and driveway in flaky splendor. A happily sparkling scene of snow that will have to be laboriously shoveled aside before I can hop into my car and drive anywhere.

To my many more optimistic neighbors, snowflakes represent nature’s magnificent artwork, winter recreation or a refreshing change from the other three seasons. With apologies to Al Gore, to me, the white stuff is nothing more than An Inconvenient Trudge.