Climate change may bring more tornadoes

PALMA
IT is still too early to determine whether there is a greater occurrence of violent storms, with associated tornados, than there was in the past.
However, it is possible that this phenomenon will increase with climate change.
This was confirmed by Agusti Jansa, director of the Balearic Meteorological Centre.
But he said that the violent storms which the island suffered on October 4 and 17 cannot be associated with global warming.
Jansa said that the statistics are still “not strong enough” to determine if there are now more tornadoes than there were in the past, as they are an infrequent phenomenon.

In addition to this, it is difficult to establish a frequency as, “not all the tornadoes which are formed come on to the islands, some pass almost unnoticed, but many of them stay out at sea”.

With regard to the future, he confirmed that “in principle” it is expected that there will be an increase in this type of phenomena because of climate change, “but this is not certain”.

On the other hand, he said that what had occured on October 4 was a storm with abrupt changes of wind, which was 20 or 30 kilometres wide “and 40 at times”, inside of which there were one or more tornadoes.

Asked whether these phonomena can be predicted, he said that it is very difficult before the storm has formed.
Jansa said he understood the criticisms which had been made about the lack of warning of these storms.
However, he added that the fact is that it is practically impossible to make a prediction of these types of phenomena until the storm is actually formed and therefore about to break.