Alexis Guilleux, edited by Mélanie Faure
, modified at
7:46 a.m., December 14, 2021
In Kentucky, the passage of the tornado devastated the town of Mayfield. This disaster turned the lives of thousands of people upside down. How to explain such a phenomenon ? The tornado shoemaker Hunter Fox returns to the microphone of Europe 1 on the causes of the tornado and explains that, no, they are not necessarily linked to global warming.
In Kentucky, spirits are still marked by the power of the tornado. Joey Reed is a pastor in Mayfield, a town destroyed by the tornado. Friday evening, the church where they had taken refuge did not resist. “I believe that the weather we are experiencing is more and more violent, more and more unpredictable”, he estimated on Europe 1. “And even if we received warnings, it was not possible to understand the dangerousness of this tornado. “
Yet there is no scientific link established between the intensity of a tornado and global warming. “It’s not easy to attribute this tornado to climate change,” says Hunter Fox. He is a tornado hunter. His job is to follow them in the field and from home.
Phenomena that intensify in populated areas
In ten years, he has observed above all a geographical evolution. “With the climate warming, there is a trend emerging,” said Hunter Fox. “Tornadoes are appearing more and more towards the United States, in more densely populated areas. So if tornadoes hit those urban areas, more people will be affected.”
“All tornadoes are threats,” says Hunter Fox. Climate change could make them more devastating if they strike urban areas. The more preventive solution: knowing the right reflexes, such as sheltering in a room without a window and above all, taking alerts very seriously.