No explanation for high number of January tornadoes

Copyright 1999 Associated Press
February 1, 1999



January was one for the record books in terms of the tornadoes that Americans normally associate with any season but winter.

Unofficially, 161 tornadoes were spotted last month. The previous record for January was set in 1975 when 52 tornadoes occurred.

More tornadoes occurred in one day, Jan. 21, than any previous day in January and in all of January previously. That day, 87 twisters were spotted in Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Nineteen tornado-related deaths were recorded during the month.

"When conditions are right, you have tornadoes," said Joe Schaefer, meteorologist and director of the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman. "People want an explanation, but it isn't anything more than having the right conditions."

The center tracks weather systems throughout the country. Schaefer said tornadoes occur every day all over the world.

January's tornadoes began on Jan. 1 with 18 tornadoes over two days through the South. More were reported on Jan. 8 and on Jan. 17, when 10 people were killed and 100 were injured.

During the next three days, 104 more tornadoes were spotted, including storms that heavily damaged a neighborhood near downtown Little Rock, Ark.

Schaefer said lives were saved in Arkansas that night because of the beating Tennessee took four days before. Eight people were killed in the Arkansas storms.

Why the high number of January tornadoes?

"Perhaps the most important question we have to answer is whether global warming is creating more violent weather," said Harold Brooks, a meteorologist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory. "We can't answer that. The number of tornadoes this month absolutely is a rare event. But this could happen at any time of the year if the atmosphere is right."

Schaefer said the one good thing about January's rash of killer tornadoes is that warnings and lead times continue to improve.

"We put out a two-day forecast before those tornadoes," he said. "About 52 hours is about as far ahead of a storm as we can get. We alerted local forecasters four days before both of those storm systems hit."


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