Think about all the weather news you have consumed over the last month or so. It seems there have been headlines far and wide describing every type of weather except hurricanes…and tornadoes. We don’t usually think about tornadoes here in Wisconsin during February, but for other parts of the country, including the deep south, this is one of the times of year when the tornado season gets going. Not this year. Believe it or not, first the first time since accurate records have been kept (1950), the U.S. did not have one confirmed tornado touchdwon in the month of February. Looking at the online table of tornado statistics, I see that the average number of tornadoes in the month of February during the last 3 years is 78. So even though February is generally a slower month for tornadoes, this year’s lack of tornadoes is very unique. Does this mean we will not have many tornadoes all year? No. I am not aware of any correlation between the number of tornadoes in February in contrast with the rest of the year. A more likely indicator would be El Nino. There are probably studies that have looked at El Nino episodes and the effect on tornado activity and those would give us a better clue.
One odd thing in the online table is a listing of one tornado in February of this year. Of course, that is just the “preliminary” number. The SPC probably has some inside info that the “actual” count is zero. Perhaps they wrote down the preliminary report and then later assessed the damage and did not find good evidence of a tornado touchdown.
In order to help keep track of developing weather systems, the type that might produce tornadoes later this year, meteorologist use a suite of hi-tech instruments. One such instrument is the geostationary weather satellite (GOES). We see the satellite images (clouds pics) everyday and probably take them for granted. Behind the scenes the satellites are being upgraded every few years. This year we will have a new geostationary satellite named GOES-P heading into orbit to keep our weather information flowing.
NASA and the NIST are also developing new climate satellites to be launched in the next few years in order to get better data with the hopes of generating more accurate climate predictions. In know what some cynics would say “why are we spending hundreds of millions on new climate satellites when the ‘debate is over’ and the ‘science is settled’?”
A different type of satellite – the James Webb Space Telescope (the biggest ever) – is getting closer to launch. The first of 18 mirrors has just been polished. If the JWST delivers the same degree of advances that the Hubble did, we are in for some great new astronomy (and pretty pictures).
Have a fine Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew