Never Ending Season of Heat & Wind

THERE WAS A TIME when tornados were rather rare in November. They started happening in April and May, then, as the summer progressed, dwindled in number. The big batch of twisters which stormed through the midwestern United States yesterday are for some people another indication of climate change, and for other people just another unusual weather event. Take your pick. Tornado season is longer now than it used to be. Tornado season from February through November is a new twist. The theory is that hurricanes will be no more frequent in the future, but they will be bigger and more powerful. Tornados will be more frequent and more powerful. The wealthier we become, the more material things we will manufacture, and the higher the cost of tornados will be. A healthy and responsive insurance industry will be demanded by the market. Much if the world's manufacturing capacity will be devoted to the replacement of storm destruction. Couple of years ago, on a ninety five degree day in late May, I was standing in the middle of a pile of rubble that the previous day was somebody's lovely home. Thousands of other people were doing the same thing, but nobody was in sight. I had my own devastated suburban neighborhood, my own vast field of rubble, all to myself. The town had been destroyed by a two hundred mile an hour rotating wind. It made you wonder, how strong can stright line winds become on a sunny day? Americans from all over the country were in town, helping remove rubble, much of which would later be recycled. For the moment, on that hot steamy depressing day, it seemed as if the mess would never be cleaned up, no matter how many people came to help. But eventually it was, of course, at great cost. In the American midwest May is becoming a summer month, spring starts in February, and summer lasts into October. It almost seems there will soon be a time when the growing season, and the tornado and hurricane season, never end.