"Study: Winter Tornadoes To Get More Powerful As World Warms"

"Nasty winter tornadoes — like the deadly ones last week that hit five states — are likely to be stronger and stay on the ground longer with a wider swath of destruction in a warming world, a new study shows.

The combination of a longer and wider track with slightly stronger winds means some rare winter tornadoes that are killers now will have nine times more the power by the end of the century if carbon dioxide levels continued to rise, according to a study presented at the American Geophysical Union conference Monday.

The study, which pre-dates the devastating Mayfield, Kentucky, tornado outbreak, looks at strength and not frequency of big tornadoes as climate change progresses. Not peer reviewed yet, it was presented in poster form as a peak at new research to be published later."

Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press December 13, 2021.

SEE ALSO:

"Biden To Travel To Kentucky To Survey Storm Damage On Wednesday" (CNN)

"Kentucky Tornadoes: Race To Find Missing In Flattened US Towns" (BBC News)

Source: AP, 12/14/2021