• The US has confronted a number of devastating weather occasions in latest months.
• The nation leads the world in the variety of excessive weather occasions associated Press knowledgeable of.
• Specialists stated this is because of geography, human habits and the warming local weather.

More excessive and harmful weather occasions happen in the United States than anywhere else in the world. associated Press knowledgeable of.

A storm this weekend that included a number of tornadoes in the South and Midwest killed about 30 people, One other twister swept south final weekend, wiping out almost a complete Mississippi city, and killing 23 individuals throughout three states.

In December, a blizzard that hit Buffalo, New York, was the deadliest the metropolis had seen in a century. Every week later, a hurricane hit northern California, causes flash floods Which closed main highways and left one million individuals with out electrical energy. Final month, households in San Clemente, California, have been pressured to evacuate after a landslide triggered by heavy rains.

For the United States, it’s the usual story. And that is largely as a result of the geography of the nation, experts told the AP,

“It’s really a little … unfortunate,” stated North Carolina state meteorologist Cathy Delo.

Sean Potter, a meteorologist and weather historian based mostly in New York Metropolis, informed USA Today that the US is more liable to excessive weather as a result of it’s positioned in the mid-latitudes, the area between the arctic, which has colder air, and the tropics, which has hotter air, that means that when the two meet, colliding temperatures consequence The weather is extreme. Not solely that, however America is located between two oceans, above the Gulf of Mexico, and is house to a number of mountain ranges.

“The contrast of cold, dry, arctic air from Canada and warm, moist, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and Atlantic helps fuel widespread storms across the country, which can bring everything from blizzards to heavy rain.” Some deliver more thunderstorms, relying on the time of 12 months,” Potter said.

While geography plays a primary role in catastrophic weather systems in the United States, experts say people are making it worse by building infrastructure and housing in dangerous areas and contributing to a warmer climate, scientists say. exacerbates extreme weather,

“We are screwing our hand by not understanding the landscape of vulnerability when looking at the geographic hand,” Kim Cobb, a Brown College professor of atmosphere and society, informed the AP.