Breaking: Tornadoes Hitting Oklahoma City (and now Dallas)

Update -Joplin, part 2: Oh shit...I spoke too soon. The storm strengthened and Joplin is now under a tornado warning. Sirens going off now.

Update -Joplin: The t-storm about to hit Joplin appears to have weakened somewhat and hopefully will continue to do so. But it doesn't appear to be tornadic (as if those poor people haven't suffered enough). Still, it's bringing strong wind and a lot of rain with it so it's only gonna' add to the misery there.

Tulsa Nexrad radar (which covers Joplin as well) from Weather Underground

Update: Tornadoes now in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro.

KTVT livestream here

WFAA livestream here

UPDATE [Gabe]: Outbreak is over for Oklahoma west of I-35. Unfortunately, there have been several reported fatalities and some more tornadoes popping up in south and central Oklahoma, east of I-35.

BFF checked in; he and his family are okay. I'm still waiting to hear from my folks, but Stillwater wasn't hit that hard, so I'm hoping its just telephone disruption.

Lefties, ignorant or immune to the human suffering going on right now, are already blah-blah-blahing about global warming causing these tornado outbreaks. This is, of course, utter nonsense, even according to scientists that believe in global warming. Like, for example the NOAA, which reports:

One question on many minds concerns the role of anthropogenic climate change. Two recent national and international assessment reports have summarized the existing state of knowledge on climate change and tornadoes. According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) :

"There is insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist in.....small-scale phenomena such as tornadoes, hail, lightning and dust-storms."

The US Climate Change Synthesis Report SAP 3.3 concludes that:

"The data used to examine changes in the frequency and severity of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms are inadequate to make definitive statements about actual changes."

The report also concludes that:

"There were no significant changes in the high-intensity end of these distributions from the 1950s through the 1990s, although the distribution from 2000 and later may differ."

One of the issues with Leftist claims about more numerous tornadoes recently is that tornado-detection equipment is substantially more accurate now than before about 1990. So merely counting the number of reported tornadoes and comparing doesn't actually give you a meaningful comparison. That's why the report above notes that there is no change in "high-intensity" tornadic events.

Original Post with links to live coverage is below the fold:

A huge, wedge-shaped tornado is just entering the northwest side of Oklahoma City. A second tornado is nearing the southwest side.

Livestream from KFOR here.

Added: Livestream from KWTV.

posted by Genghis at 08:00 PM

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