Guest Author - Debora Dyess Spring of 2011 saw strange weather
patterns continue. The winter of 2010-2011 was the coldest in
decades world-wide, and spring began with a sweep of flash
flooding and over 200 tornados across six states in the US.
Meanwhile, the drought in Texas is fueling dozens of wildfires,
with only two of their 254 counties unaffected by fire in the
past four weeks. An average April produces 163 tornadoes. While
the numbers are high, the death toll is generally low, averaging
less than 80 per year. Many years see as few as 35-40 tornado
deaths. The storms of April 2011 saw over 200 tornados in a
three day stretch, and a death toll as high as 44. Storms began
in Oklahoma on Thursday, April 14. They slammed their way over
Okalhoma, Arkansas and Alabama, leaving a wake of wreckage,
injury and death behind them. Friday saw more of the same as the
super cells moved into Mississippi and Tennessee, producing
multi-vortex storms, a fairly rare occurance, which were
captured by dozens of ameature pho