Memorial Day weekend marred by severe weather — and it’s not over

Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma told the AP that a persistent pattern of warm, moist air is behind the string of tornadoes over the past two months.

Sjoukje Philip, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said that while attributing tornadoes to climate change is not straightforward, there is a link.

“With hotter sea surface temperatures, the air can hold more moisture. So I can also imagine that whenever there is precipitation, whether that’s from a tornado or something else, there can be more rainfall, on shorter timescales. So that’s a really clear relation,” Philip told the AP.

The series of storms comes as temperatures climb in parts of the US, including Texas, where weather forecasters predicted temperatures of up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend in some parts of the state. And just last week, in Mexico, temperatures got so hot that multiple monkeys suffered heat stroke and were dropping from trees like apples.

Philip noted that 2023 was the hottest year on record and that average temperatures are expected to continue to rise, which could trigger more severe weather.