Deadly Tornadoes Strike Indiana and Kentucky

The death toll in Indiana is rising as the search for survivors and the assesment of damage continues.

I've covered hurricanes here all season. But a hurricane is incredibly predictable compared to most natural disasters. You have days of advanced warning. And even if the point of landfall is off my 50 miles, a hurricane is large enough that an area that large would have been on alert anyway. As deadly as this season has been, it could have been far worse if not for the prediction and warning systems in place.

Tornadoes are another matter. They are smaller, form and disappate quickly, and do greater damage to a surgically precise area. Sometimes they appear on radar, sometimes they don't. If you are lucky, you get several minutes warning. We've gotten better at predicting tornadoes and sending out warnings, particularly in areas prone to tornadoes where alarms are set up to warn those who don't happen to be watching tv or listening to the radio. You may get as much 30 minutes warning as opposed to 2 or 3 minutes warning. But this tornado hit at 2 in the morning when most people were asleep. Unfortunately, the death toll of this one may be particularly high due to little more than poor timing, since a warning was issued at 1:30 am. Preliminary reports put this tornado at an F3.

This season has actually had amazingly few tornados, especially considering the number of hurricanes that have hit land (since hurricanes tend to spawn tornadoes). Tornadoes don't often form this time of year, so hopefully this was a fluke.