Tornadoes Leave Trail of Destruction in Oklahoma

At least one person has died and a dozen people have been injured as a fast moving storm system made its way across the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma earlier this week. Weather services classified the storm as a derecho – a large, fast-moving, violent thunderstorm paired with exceptionally strong winds.

“I got up and then the wind just threw me back. And I’m screaming,” Frances Tabler of Norman, Oklahoma, told KOCO. “It was like a blizzard inside the house.” The storm toppled trees and power lines leaving more than 16,000 without power as more than 100 other storm reports were recorded in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas.

Climate change is making the conditions necessary for derechos to occur more likely, as it leads to additional latent heat available in warmer air, and an increase in the temperature gradient, which increases available potential energy.

For a Deeper Dive:

ABC News, CBS News, New York Times, Yale Climate Connections, Reuters, Photos: Washington Post, Derecho explainer: Climate Signals

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