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kay14jay t1_iu8o2yr wrote

Here in Indiana, I remember taking refuge in the basement much more as a kid in the 90’s than I do now. It seems like the tornadoes moved south for the most part.

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TeamPupNSudz t1_iu9toqo wrote

I think part of this may just be better alerting. When I was a kid, they'd just give an entire county a Tornado Warning and you'd have to listen to the radio to have vague "yeah it was spotted 10 miles west of the interstate". Now, the warning is specific to a particular storm path, and doppler radars are to the point where you can track rotation in real-time. I'm not taking shelter unless the thing is within walking distance anymore.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iua5rmk wrote

Sure, you might be right about the warnings, but they don’t affect the strength of the storm. That’s what this interesting fact is talking about. Not the death and destruction, but the actual strength of tornadoes being irregularly low in recent years.

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AsterCharge t1_iua9we3 wrote

no, the comment they replied to was talking about frequency of tornado warnings in Indiana.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iud72dw wrote

Oops, I may have replied to the wrong comment. I saw a comment discussing the lower levels of death due to an increase in accuracy and timing of warnings/evacuations.

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IndigoFenix t1_iucn6ja wrote

Although the Fujita scale is theoretically based on wind speed, the actual tornadoes themselves are rated based on the damage they cause, since people rarely manage to get proper measuring equipment inside a tornado.

The scale was actually changed in 2007 to account for more complex variables, and it is believed that the earlier scale may have frequently overestimated the wind speed of tornados.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iud75tp wrote

Woah! I’ll take what you’re saying as fact, stranger. Thanks for the knowledge :) didn’t know that

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Ozzurip t1_iu8uvlt wrote

In the last 5 years, I can only remember a single tornado touching down in my county

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a_crusty_old_man t1_iu93mtu wrote

Did you scare them all away with a shotgun while waving an American flag and shouting “‘MURICA!”?

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Plus-Moose8077 t1_iuacl9q wrote

If this worked we wouldn’t have had tornadoes since the 1700s.

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a_crusty_old_man t1_iuae886 wrote

We just need more people to do it at once

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Plus-Moose8077 t1_iuaqmt7 wrote

We all do it at my local trailer park

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a_crusty_old_man t1_iuarf9p wrote

I never thought I’d say this, but I guess we need more trailer parks full of men shooting guns into the air. It’s science.

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oxero t1_iu9alnf wrote

Same here back then in IL. It was once or twice a year. From like 2014-2019 we almost had none.

I moved down south and suddenly have had one about once a year, really nasty high wind storms.

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Nwcray t1_iubfy68 wrote

90’s IL represent! I grew up in Central IL back then, too. We had a tornado or two every year, it seemed. I also lived in Springfield when the tornadoes hit in 2006. Anyway, I moved away, but I never really hear about them anymore. And pretty much none here in Ohio.

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scyber t1_iuarns8 wrote

I feel like we have had more tornado warnings here in NJ in the last ~8 years than we had in the previous 36 years of my life.

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guggingmychugging t1_iu9wjs1 wrote

As a dallas residence born in 99 the occasional touchdown happens but every year it seems like our bad thunderstorms spiral into touch downs in Alabama. Just to add to what you said.

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skywrites8 t1_iubmfdd wrote

El Nino was real in the 90s! It was very very stormy late 90s. Also as others have said, much better alerting.

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f1newhatever t1_iubuj96 wrote

This is a good point I haven’t thought about. Will it come back someday? I was a kid so I guess I don’t know much about El Niño.

Edit: nevermind I forgot I can Google. They happen a lot. Apparently there was a big one in 2014-2015. Interesting.

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maybe_little_pinch t1_iuah3do wrote

And east. We aren't getting big ones, but CT is seeing more tornadoes. We had a biggish one back in the 90s I think and I don't really remember any others. There was a sheer that hit a couple towns over in like 2008ish and that was big news. 2015 we got stomped by three, one went right by my house.

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TrueProtection t1_iub4mdt wrote

Correct."Tornado Valley" is a thing, and it's been steadily shifting to the east for many years.

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f1newhatever t1_iubuexu wrote

I’m in the south and feel the same way, oddly. I can’t remember the last time I heard a tornado siren. I think it was 2020. It used to be a multiple-times-each-spring occurrence.

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Toad32 t1_iu8v7fc wrote

Indiana is not in tornado alley - only southern Indiana is "sometimes" referred to as in Tornado alley.

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