Historic Severe Outbreak to Affect 80 Million in Metros
Date: 05/24/2011
If you tried to draw a severe weather threat map over most of the population of the Eastern U.S., you couldn't do much better than this. One worry everyone seems to have this year (and for good reason in a Spring with record tornado deaths) is: Will my city be hit by a tornado? It seems to be happening a lot lately.
"[The 45% chance of tornado] level is reached in a forecast only once every five to ten years." The widespread distribution of this potential outbreak, combined with the large number of people affected, makes a historic outbreak likely today. And tomorrow will have 23.7 million in the Slight and 5.7 million in at least a Moderate. That's a total of over 17 million people in a tornado threat during the two days! If there were ever a time that people in the city need to prepare, it's now.
where your evacuation area is where you'll be during the day and night, and know where your family should meet if a tornado strikes your city and cuts off roads.
While the true cause of the unusually deadly Spring is undetermined, my opinion is that it is likely a combination of unusually strong tornadoes due to La Nina, and increasing population in these areas. These types of outbreaks have probably happened before (although it may have been more than 50 years), so it's likely not Climate Change.