The Country with the Most Weather-Related Catastrophes on Earth – The United States

 

“[B]uckle up. More extreme events are expected.” 

 Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We drew the short straw (in the South) that we literally can experience every single type of extreme weather event.. Including blizzards. Including wildfires, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. Every single type. ... There's no other place in the United States that can say that.” 

 University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, a former president of the American Meteorological Society

There’s so much devastation all over the world. Volcanic action, earthquakes and violent weather patterns. All of these disruptors have been with us since well before recorded history. Throw in an ice age, a few large asteroids colliding with the planet, and lots and lots of human conflicts. It really wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution, combined with Biblical quotes that implied mankind had a God-given right to exploit nature’s resources without limits, that we began changing our planet’s basic ecosystem.

At first, the horrible was releasing toxins into our waterways, air and even in great deposits on our lands. We over hunted, over fished, and over extracted natural resources. Species disappeared. Land masses shifted. We moved sex from procreation to a major source of pleasure. Medical science saved lives… and the earth became severely overpopulated. Then, greenhouse gasses moved to the lead horrible from toxic emissions to climate-changing devastation.

Sure, the United States is rich enough to buy its way out of a food shortage resulting from drought-to-desertification depletion of once major agricultural land. Somalia and much of Africa, not so much. Bangladesh faced flooding that has claimed 85% of her entire landmass all at once. Australia and South Africa have major urban areas that almost ran 100% out of water. Mexico City, sitting on an old lake bed, has made regional earthquakes so much worse as underground water subsided… leaving only enough to exacerbate liquefaction to maximize the damage.

But the United States has so much intense weather-related devastation. We have so many mega-hurricanes, mega-wildfires, mega-flooding, mega-drought, mega-coastal storm surges. Perhaps, it’s just because we have an amazing and ubiquitous cadre of professional and amateur journalists recording it all on video. But isn’t that technology everywhere? Do other nations have atmospheric rivers, phenomena we have never experienced before, or hurricanes laden with water that hover so much longer dropping their devasting rain with increasing frequency and intensity? Or those damned super-tornados? Sure. But we have more. Much, much more.

We used to think tornados were standalone storms, just part of a pattern living on certain massive and continuous plains. But the conditions that lead up to these most recent tornados have changed. As Ginger Adams Otis, writing for the April 2nd Wall Street Journal notes: “A powerful storm system barreled across the central U.S. Friday [3/31], killing at least 26 people and unleashing reports of at least 69 tornadoes across at least eight states.

“Fueled by a series of so-called supercells, the rotating thunderstorms that can spawn tornadoes, the system battered homes, downed trees and power lines and flipped cars and RV campers, with some landing in the Mississippi River… The exact size, speed and number of tornadoes that hit the central U.S. won’t be clear until field reports are gathered from across the region. The National Weather Service said it expected to have multiple tornado confirmations as surveys are completed.” Turns out we don’t just see more weather devastation because of ubiquitous camaras; we are actually experiencing events of weather-related devastation than anywhere else because… well, it really does start with climate change. And exactly where we are on the planet…

“The United States is Earth's punching bag for nasty weather…. Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather.

“That’s only part of it. Nature dealt the United States a bad hand, but people have made it much worse by what, where and how we build, several experts told The Associated Press…Tornadoes. Hurricanes. Flash floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Blizzards. Ice storms. Nor’easters. Lake-effect snow. Heat waves. Severe thunderstorms. Hail. Lightning. Atmospheric rivers. Derechos. Dust storms. Monsoons. Bomb cyclones. And the dreaded polar vortex.

“It starts with ‘where we are on the globe,’ North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello said. ‘It’s truly a little bit ... unlucky.’… China may have more people, and a large land area like the United States, but ‘they don't have the same kind of clash of air masses as much as you do in the U.S. that is producing a lot of the severe weather,’ said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina.

“The U.S. is by far the king of tornadoes and other severe storms… ‘It really starts with kind of two things. Number one is the Gulf of Mexico. And number two is elevated terrain to the west,’ said Victor Gensini, a Northern Illinois University meteorology professor.” Seth Borenstein, writing for the April 2nd Associated Press. But these weather “events” are most frequent in the United States and seem to devastate the most those sections of our nation that rail against the reality of climate change, fight hardest against measures to contain greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage non-fossil fuel alternatives. Areas where conspiracy theories trump science.

I’m Peter Dekom, and since she actually started with noting, Mother Nature is oblivious to climate change deniers attempting to overrule the laws of physics.