Some Things to Watch, Think About...

I'm tired of talking about our daily heat & rain (it's only June!) so I try to amuse myself when I'm not in the garden, on a golf course or in a boat.  This morning NHC is following only one system of interest and even that they lave lowered (10%) chances for development. However, after further review (cudos Sean Frazende FOX 8), there are many swirls on satellite views with 2 in the Gulf.  Let's take a look...

The swirl out east of the Islands has no weather with it and NHC's lowering chances seems approciate.  The two swirls in the Gulf are interesting with the Texas rotation right along the coast between Brownsville and Corpus.

Since half of the circulation is already on land, I don't expect anything to happen.  However, look at the small low west of Tampa/St. Pete.

That certainly is all over water and appears to have a closed low level circulation (arrow).  Surprised NHC hasn't mentioned it, but they are the experts and until they start talking about it, we should not be  concerned.  Finally, we are almost daily bombarded with alarmist's reports regarding climate change.  This has been going on for over 30 years now.

The authors want you to believe the issues are black and white with no shades of gray.  Since we never see any articles with an opposing viewpoint, one assumes the alarms must be true.  However, this article caught my eye a few days ago.

I'm always suspicious when the article has graphs that are supposed to support the headlines, but are so confusing & convoluted that I (45 years as a trained scientist BS meteorology & oceanography University of Michigan) can't follow/figure out what the heck they mean.  I always remember the line..."Figures don't lie, but liars do figure."  I think what the authors were trying to show is that climate change/global warming has shifted the LOCATION where more tornadoes are occurring and that is true. But they also hinted that climate change was leading to more intense storms, and that is false.  Look at the graphs below.

These come from NOAA and are not "fake news".  Clearly the number of violent tornadoes has DECREASED dramatically over the past 30-50 years.  But there's more (cudos Lee Zurik)

Whether you look at the daily counts, the trends is DOWN.

Even the annual counts follows the trend of LESS activity.  In fact, the bottom graph has 2021 as the 3rd quietest year so far since 2005 (Katrina) .  So should the headline been TORNADO WARNING?   Better journalism would have it read... "Tornado Alley Shifting to the South".  Never let facts get in the way of a good story.  And, by the way...

Our daily Flash Flood Warning has been issued for parts of Jefferson & Orleans Parishes.  A band of heavy rain has set up east to west across south Louisiana with some "training" of echoes resulting in 1-2+ amounts in less than an hour.   Use you common sense when traveling about this afternoon.  I might post later if I find anything interesting to talk about.  Stay tuned!