INDIANA – Tornadoes are getting more frequent, more violent, and more likely to come later in the year.

Atmospheric scientists at Purdue studied 60 years worth of tornado data. They find that the U-S’s traditional tornado hot spot in the Plains states has gradually shifted southeast over the last 30 years, from the Oklahoma-Texas border to Alabama. The South is getting significantly more twisters while the Plains are getting fewer.

Spring remains prime tornado season, but the geographic shift has been a seasonal shift. Territory stretching from northern Indiana to Georgia has become more prone to autumn and winter tornadoes — that increase accounts for most of the increase in the South overall. West of the Mississippi, those cold-weather twisters have declined, but the study finds the most significant drop in the Plains states during the summer.

Purdue Professor Ernest Agee says researchers believe the shift is related to climate change, but are still studying whether that’s true and how.

 

Photo by Lucy Chian on Unsplash