Tornado Season 2011 Already Above Average - An outbreak of over 100 tornadoes in the United States has left at least 45 people feared dead across the lower Midwest and South. Deaths occurred from southeast Oklahoma into North Carolina. The Tar Heel state was the hardest hit with at least 22 deaths, over half of the reported total.
Two nuclear reactors in southwest Virginia shut down automatically when a tornado cut off the main electrical supply to the Surry Power Station. Backup generators kicked in and the reactors continued to deliver power. More than 200,000 electrical customers in North Carolina were without power.
Tornado season is in full force, even though the peak time for tornadoes occurs in May and June. The average number of tornadoes across the country is around 140. The recent outbreak of 116 tornadoes happened in the span of three days, according to ABC News. This year will probably be above average.
Deaths occurred when trees landed on homes, mobile homes were destroyed and even houses with foundations were tossed aside like pieces of paper. One photo showed nothing but cinder blocks and front steps left of a house with a solid foundation, but there was no basement.
States of emergency were declared in Alabama and North Carolina as they begin the work of cleaning up. Churches and public spaces were destroyed as people took shelter. It could have been much, much worse. A Lowe's store was damaged as customers and employees took cover in the back of the store. No one was hurt.
There are also other survivor stories. One man was saved after a tornado ripped through his mobile home while his wife and children were not spared.
Perhaps the most miraculous came out of Dunn, N.C. The Washington Post reports A three-month-old baby was ripped out of his cousin's arms and was feared dead. After a frantic search, they found him unconscious under some wood. The baby was rushed to the hospital with only minor injuries.
The Midwest and Southeast have already been pummeled by storms and tornado season is just three weeks old. States from Oklahoma all the way to the eastern seaboard have already been hit by major storms with violent tornadoes. As warm air gets even hotter in the coming months, storms will be more frequent and possibly bigger.
The month of May has the most tornadoes, on average, with nearly 400 reported between 2003 and 2005. June has just fewer than 300 in the same span across the United States. The best place to seek shelter from a tornado is in the basement of a home with a foundation. ( yahoo.com )
40 Mediterranean fish species could vanish - A new study suggests that more than 40 fish species in the Mediterranean could vanish in the next few years.
The study released Tuesday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature says almost half of the species of sharks and rays in the Mediterranean and at least 12 species of bony fish are threatened with extinction due to overfishing, pollution and the loss of habitat.
Commercial catches of bluefin tuna, sea bass, hake and dusky grouper are particularly threatened, said the study by the Swiss-based IUCN, an environmental network of 1,000 groups in 160 nations.
"The Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic population of the Atlantic bluefin tuna is of particular concern," said Kent Carpenter, IUCN's global marine species assessment coordinator.
He cited a steep drop in the giant fish's reproductive capacity due to four decades of intensive overfishing. Japanese diners consume 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught and the two tuna species are especially prized by sushi lovers.
Swiss-based International Union - FILE - In this July 24, 2009 file photo the head of a tuna fish is seen covered with ice in the Basque Port of Hondarribia northern Spain.The old saying there's plenty more fish in the sea might soon no longer apply to the Mediterranean, says Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature. A study it is releasing Tuesday, April 19, 2011 says more than 40 species of marine fish there could soon disappear – almost half the species of sharks and rays and at least 12 species of bony fish are threatened with extinction due to overfishing, pollution and loss of habitat
In January, a 754-pound (342-kilogram) bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo at the world's largest wholesale fish market — about $526 per pound ($1,157 per kilogram).
Fishing in the Mediterranean is regulated by U.N. treaties, the European Union and separate laws among the 21 nations that border the sea.
Last November, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas voted to cut the bluefin fishing quota in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean from 13,500 to 12,900 metric tons annually — about a 4 percent reduction. It also agreed to improve enforcement of quotas on bluefin.
Environmental groups, however, wanted bluefin fishing slashed or suspended and were upset with the limited action.
The IUCN study, which began in 2007 and included 25 marine scientists, is the first time the group has tried to assess native marine fish species in an entire sea.
The study blames the use of highly effective trawlers and driftnets for the incidental capture and killing of hundreds of marine animals with no commercial value. But it also concluded there's not enough information to properly assess almost one-third of the Mediterranean's fish.
"Even though marine resources in the Mediterranean Sea have been exploited for thousands of years and are relatively well studied, the data deficient group may in fact include a large proportion of threatened fishes," the study said, calling for more research.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says fish stocks continue to dwindle globally despite increasing efforts to regulate catches and stop overfishing ( Associated Press )
15-state tornado outbreak deadliest since 2008 – The devastation is stunning — homes and lives shattered as the deadliest swarm of twisters in three years battered up to 15 states. Ultimately, this could turn out to be among the top 10 three-day outbreaks for number of tornadoes, though experts can't be sure until all the reports are sorted, said Greg Carbin of the federal Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
While tornadoes occur regularly, their power always shocks.
This time it was storms battering their way from Oklahoma to North Carolina, claiming at least 44 lives, almost half of those in North Carolina. It was the deadliest since Feb. 5, 2008, when 57 died in the "Super Tuesday" election day tornadoes in the Southeast. And that was the highest tornado death toll since 76 died in 1985.
"A major storm system like this is going to happen every few years, usually in April or May," said Carbin.
Remnants of Gary Carey's home - The remnants of Gary Carey's home is scattered into the trees in Roseboro, N.C., Monday, April 18, 2011 after a tornado ripped through the area Saturday
While May is the nation's busiest month for twisters, they surge sharply in April, and most early spring tornadoes strike the Southeast and South Central states.
Indeed, the biggest tornado outbreak on record occurred April 3-4, 1974 when 147 confirmed twisters touched down in 13 states, claiming 310 lives in the United States and 8 in Canada.
For about the past 30 years, the United States has averaged 135 tornadoes in April, the highest number being 266 in 1974, according to Jake Crouch of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
In these latest storms, the National Weather Service is investigating 267 preliminary tornado reports — including 97 in North Carolina on Saturday. But many of those will turn out to be duplicates, Carbin said in a telephone interview
Such a large number of reports has become typical in recent years as more people watch for the storms and call them in. Normally more than half turn out to be duplicates and Carbin estimated that the final count for this series of storms will be around 140.
Teams are out assessing the damage now, but he said it can take several days to more than a week to make a final determination.
In this case, the storm system first developed over the Pacific and intensified when it got to the central Plains on Thursday where the dry western air collided with the warm humid air from the Gulf of Mexico.
From there, the storms developed "pretty much as expected" over Oklahoma, Carbin said. Overnight, the storms merged into a fast-moving front crossing Arkansas and into the Mississippi River Valley, drawing fuel from daytime heating, striking on into Mississippi and Alabama and then into the Appalachians by Saturday morning. Then the storms again strengthened with daytime heat for the third day of tornadoes, hitting North Carolina hardest.
It's that intersection of dry and wet air masses that sets up Tornado Alley, the region in the center of the country regularly pummeled by tornadoes.
Overall, from Thursday through Saturday, there were reports of funnel clouds in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
April's reputation as a deadly month was cemented in 1936 when a twister killed 216 people in Mississippi on April 5, and a day later another 203 died in Georgia. And 143 people died in Louisiana and Mississippi April 25, 1908.
Recent years tend to be marked by more tornadoes and fewer deaths, as forecasts have improved, along with communications, allowing people to prepare and also encouraging people to report funnel clouds to authorities.
Unlike tornado outbreaks of the past, the National Weather Service reports that nearly 90 percent of the past weekend's reported storms occurred in areas where tornado warnings were in effect. In central North Carolina, 97 percent of the tornadoes were in areas where warnings had been issued, with an average lead time of almost 26 minutes.
By contrast, before 1950 the use of the term tornado in forecasts was discouraged because of a fear that predicting them would cause panic. The first successful tornado forecast was made by Air Force meteorologists at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma in 1948. *( Associated Press )
