Officials for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say 2008 may well set records for tornadoes and tornado-related deaths.
With 111 deaths as of early June, this is already the deadliest tornado season since 1998, and tornado season has only reached the halfway point, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
It’s also only the third time since 1974 that there have been more than 100 tornado-related deaths during a single season, said Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman. There were 132 deaths in 1998 and 122 in 1984.
Recent years have averaged about 1,200 tornadoes and 60 tornado-related deaths reported annually across the United States. Unusually turbulent weather may be to blame for this year’s spike in activity, forecasters say.
In previous years, major storms may happen every week or so, but this year they’ve been developing somewhere every three or four days. Tornado season started early, too: 87 tornadoes struck the South and the Midwest over a 24-hour period starting on Feb. 5, and Carbin said February will likely turn out to set records once all the tornado reports have been verified.
The tornadoes this season are also touching down in highly populated areas, NOAA officials said, increasing both the number of fatalities and the number of eyewitness reports for each tornado.