TORNADOESAs Tornado Alley Shifts East, Bracing for Impact in Unexpected Places
Experts say the causes are still unclear, but the change is consistent with a warming world. The effects on the ground could be devastating.
As the remnants of Hurricane Ida barreled north in September 2021, Chris Erdner heard a startling warning on TV: Residents in her area needed to seek shelter immediately. Erdner’s quiet suburban neighborhood in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, was directly in the path of a tornado.
Erdner and her husband rushed to the basement. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it,” she said, of the “incredible noise” generated when a tornado passes overhead. “It sounds like a freight train.” Although the tornado only lasted a short time, it felt much longer. Listening to the storm raging outside, Erdner wondered if the heavy steel doors leading from the yard to the basement would be ripped off.
“It shocked us,” said Erdner, who grew up in eastern Pennsylvania and has lived in the same house in Upper Dublin Township for more than 30 years. “One of the things we always liked about living in this area of Pennsylvania is that we didn’t usually have to worry about things like tornadoes and hurricanes.”
Since that frightening day in 2021, Erdner has noticed more tornado watches and warnings issued for her area, and she worries what this might mean for the future. “Because if this is some sort of effect from climate change,” she said, “this is not going to get better, this is going to get worse, right?”
According to National Weather Service data, 37 tornado warnings have been issued in Erdner’s area since 1986, and 27 of them occurred after 2010. Data on tornadoes in Pennsylvania dating back to the 1950s seems to show a slight increase, with the most active years all after 1980.
Erdner’s concerns about climate change, trends and risk were echoed by residents in western Pennsylvania in June, when six tornadoes hit the state within an hour. Two tornadoes rated EF2, the same rating as the 2021 tornado, with estimated wind speeds between 111 and 135 miles per hour, were also recorded in May, and there have been 22 tornadoes in Pennsylvania so far this year. With 1,495 tornadoes occurring across the United States from January through July, this year’s preliminary count is second only to 2011 and well above average for the first seven months of a year. In places not typically associated with tornadoes, like West Virginia, Alabama and New York, longtime residents are asking similar questions to Erdner’s.
