I hear from more and more people who say “it never gets cold in Alabama during the winter anymoreâ€. Maybe this has to do with the political “manmade global warming†agenda, maybe not.
I have been doing this a long time, and I heard similar comments about Alabama not seeing anymore hurricanes during the decade of the 80s and 90s, and how we just seem to have fewer tornadoes in the 80s and the first half of the 90s. I have an weather researcher in our office who loves big thunderstorms, and he is convinced we have just quit having them.
All of this is a dangerous way of thinking. Weather has, and always be, cyclical. We will go through long periods in Alabama without extremely cold weather, strong/violent tornadoes, and major hurricanes. The “big ticket” events can be very widely separated.
When I came to Birmingham TV weather in September 1979, my very first week I covered Hurricane Frederick, a category three hurricane that produced some big time damage along the Alabama Gulf Coast. After that, there were hardly any significant hurricanes making a direct hit on the Alabama Gulf coast until Danny arrived in 1997. Eighteen years is a long time; many who bought property on the Gulf coast probably started to think they just don’t happen here anymore.
I might suggest it is dangerous to think you have the great global atmospheric mystery figured out and declare no more of a certain type of weather for Alabama. I would fall into that trap a few times when I was young, but rest assured you will be brought to your knees sooner or later. It can be a very humbling experience.
The truth is that we are statistically overdue for an ice storm, and single digit cold. No, those events don’t happen often here simply because this is a low latitude state in a more tropical climate. But they will happen again. Maybe this winter, maybe not. If you want to get into the “overdue†game, I am also a bit concerned that the last F5 tornado in the nation was the Moore, OK storm in May 1999. This doesn’t mean we won’t have any more F5 tornadoes in the nation, it simply means we are overdue. I hope it doesn’t happen in 2007, but we all know our luck will run out at some point…..
