A first tornado recorded in February in Wisconsin

(Evansville) The first tornado on record in Wisconsin during the usually frigid month of February, which ravaged mostly rural areas, came on a day that broke heat records, setting the a perfect scenario for the type of severe weather typically seen in late spring and summer.

At least one tornado was confirmed south of Madison and the National Weather Service was investigating reports of several more tornadoes sparked by storms that swept through the southeastern part of the state around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, a said meteorologist Taylor Patterson.

No significant injuries were reported. Local emergency management officials reported dozens of damaged buildings, power lines and other structures in the path of the storm that formed in eastern Iowa and fizzled out near Milwaukee. The temperature reached a record level for this date: 15 Celsius.

Winter tornadoes are virtually unheard of, especially in northern states.

A US federal agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reported that between 1998 and 2022, 31 states in a vast region of the country, stretching from Washington state in the northwest to New Mexico in the south, From Wisconsin in the Upper Midwest to Maine in the Northeast, no tornadoes were reported.

But winter tornadoes ― like the one in Wisconsin ― are likely to be stronger and stay on the ground longer, with a wider range of destruction, in a warming world, according to a 2021 study. This study follows a 2018 study that found tornadoes were moving farther east, toward states like Wisconsin.

This year’s strengthening El Niño is making it warmer than normal, but it’s hard to tell from this event alone how big a role climate change played, meteorologist Taylor said. Patterson.

“But with a lot of things that have happened with climate change, you have more severe events and you have severe events that are more impactful,” she said.

Tornadoes are most common in Wisconsin during the summer months, between May and August. Since 1948, between November and February, fewer than a dozen tornadoes had been reported before Thursday, according to the weather service.

Meteorologists in Wisconsin began to worry that the conditions for severe weather were coming together earlier this week. On Thursday, “we knew things were starting to align a lot more than we thought two days ago,” Ms.^me Patterson.

“Having all the ingredients come together at this time of year is unusual,” she added.

The weather service sent teams into the storm’s path Friday to determine the number of tornadoes and their severity. Photos and videos taken near Evansville, Wisconsin, and posted on social media clearly show a tornado surrounded by lightning.

“February is normally a month where it is very cold and there is snow, which is not very conducive to tornadoes,” explained M.^me Patterson. Normally, for thunderstorms to be severe enough to create tornadoes, you need a lot of humidity and warm temperatures, and during the winter months, the environment just isn’t conducive to that. »

Conditions were ripe in Wisconsin late Thursday afternoon, creating the perfect conditions for tornadoes to form, according to M^me Patterson. These included rapidly warming temperatures, which reached a record high of 13 Celsius in Madison, and increased humidity with rapidly rising air, which created thunderstorms, explained M.^me Patterson.

“The other advantage is that there was a lot of wind yesterday, which created wind shear, which is important for the formation of tornadoes,” she added.

Supercells that generate tornadoes and hail will likely be more numerous in America as the world warms, according to a study published last year. The study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society projects a 6.6% increase in supercells nationwide and a 25.8% jump in the area and duration over which the strongest supercells occur. will be found above the land.