The United States is the Earth’s punching bag for extreme weather.

Many experts “point out” that the geography of the US has been hit hard by stronger, more costly, more varied, and often more extreme weather events than anywhere else on the planet. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, peninsulas like Florida, the collision of storm fronts, and air currents naturally create a combination that causes these weather patterns.

And this is only part of the problem. Nature has not been kind to the United States, but humans have had a hand in building anything anywhere, several experts told The Associated Press.

Then, if we add climate change… “buckle up, more extreme events are expected,” said Rick Spinrad, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Tornado. Hurricanes. Flash floods. Droughts. Fires. Blizzards. Ice storms. Tropical cyclones. Cold lake effect. Thermal waves. Strong storms. Grad. Lightning. atmospheric rivers. Merciless storms. Sandstorm. Monsoons. Cyclone bombs. And a terrible polar vortex.

“We are geographically unlucky”

First of all, it has to do with “where we are in the world,” said NC State climate scientist Cathy Dello. “We’re really a little… out of luck.”

China may have a larger population and a wider area than the United States, but it “doesn’t have the kind of air mass collision that the US has, where there’s a lot of extreme weather,” said Susan Cather, director of the Center. University of South Carolina Vulnerability and Resilience Institute.

The US is definitely… the king of tornadoes and other powerful storms.

“This is mainly due to two things. First, with the Gulf of Mexico. And secondly, with high ground to the west,” said Victor Gencini, professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University.

“The truth is, wherever you are in the US, you have probably experienced severe weather yourself,” Spinrad said.

Kentucky shows…

The deadly tornadoes that hit Kentucky in December 2021 demonstrated the uniqueness of the United States.

They affect areas with a large number of immigrants. The victims were people who fled from Central and South America, Bosnia and Africa. The huge problem was that tornadoes were not a phenomenon in the former homeland of these people, so they did not know how to recognize them, how to react – they did not even know to worry about tornadoes, ”said Joseph Trujillo Falcon, a sociologist who researched the future of phenomena.

With colder air in the Arctic and warmer air in the tropics, the lands in between have the most interesting weather because of how the air affects conflicting temperatures, and the north-south temperature difference amplifies the jet stream, said the Northern Illinois meteorology professor. Walker Asley.

Then let’s balance out the north-south mountain ranges that interfere with the west-east winds, with all the warm Gulf of Mexico underneath.

The bay forces warm, moist air under the often cooler, drier air that rises from the mountains, “and that doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world,” Jensini said.

The south is fighting

If the weather in the United States is generally bad, the South is even worse, said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, former president of the American Meteorological Society.

Florida, North Carolina and Louisiana are also affected by water, making them more vulnerable to hurricanes, Shepherd and Dello said.

Asley says there are more industrial buildings in the south that are vulnerable to all weather conditions, and storms are more common there at night. Nighttime storms are deadly because people cannot see them in time and are less likely to take cover, and miss warnings in their sleep.

Extreme weather conditions, caused by America’s unique geographic location, create hazards. But it takes people to turn those risks into disasters, Asli and Jensini say.

“Security Bought”

“One of the ways communities can become more resilient is by not evolving in ways that are at risk, or in the most at risk part of the community,” Cutter said.

Building standards don’t appear to be storm-proof, Asley said.

“Our infrastructure is crumbling and it is not at all climate resilient,” Shepherd said.

Poverty makes disaster preparation and recovery difficult, especially in the south, Shepherd said. This vulnerability is an even bigger problem in other parts of the world.

“Security is bought,” Ashley said. “Those who are wealthy and have the resources can buy insurance – they will be the most resilient to disasters … Unfortunately, we are not all like that.”

“It’s sad that we have to bear these huge losses,” said Kim Cobb, a professor of environment and society at Brown University. “We complicate our situation by not understanding the vulnerability, given the geographic… condition we face.”

Source: Associated Press.