UNITED STATES – The weather is bitter, so too is climate change. Severe storms hit the Midwestern region of the United States on the evening of Wednesday, December 15, hours after President Joe Biden visited the state of Kentucky. Last Friday it was a deadly tornado that struck.
The US meteorological service NWS has warned of an “extremely violent” thunderstorm system likely to “break records” and cause “a plethora of dangerous weather phenomena” in several states in the center and north of the country, including “dangerous” winds, snow, thunderstorms, tornadoes and fire hazards.
More than 400,000 people without electricity
“These storms will have the potential to produce extreme wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour (160 km / h, editor’s note), as well as one or two powerful tornadoes ”in Iowa and Minnesota, according to the National Weather Service, whose local agencies have urged people to take shelter through their Twitter accounts.
More than 400,000 people were without power in several states as of Wednesday evening, including Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, according to the Poweroutage website. This, because of the strong winds of low pressure, brought about by unusually high temperatures for the season.
This frightening windstorm comes less than a week after a swarm of powerful tornadoes devastated Kentucky and four other states. At least 74 people have been killed in Kentucky and 14 in the rest.
The “dust bowl”, a devastating memory
The weather phenomenon brought “Dust Bowl” conditions to parts of the Great Plains and the Upper Midwest, meteorologists said Wednesday. There was no visibility in parts of New Mexico and Colorado, ”said Marc Chenard, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Center in College Park, Maryland.
The NWS Storm Forecasting Center issued a “moderate risk” warning to the area and said the dust could create driving hazards in Minnesota and the Dakotas.
“It’s very unusual,” added Marc Chenard. “The storm is moving east, which is unusual for such a large area. It will cross the Great Lakes region, Michigan and Canada by Thursday morning, ”he added.
The Dust Bowl refers to a time in the 1930s when severe drought and destructive farming practices disrupted the ecology of parts of the American and Canadian prairies. At this time, huge clouds of loosened topsoil regularly covered the area, causing an economic crisis for farmers and a massive migration to California.
See also on The HuffPost: Views of the sky in Kentucky, the images of desolation left by the tornado
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