The US was in the grips of a tremendously powerful storm today as violent winds swept through several states causing unprecedented damage in some areas. And though the incredible storms raged on, people have already started comparing it to previous years and coming to the conclusion that this is in many ways a first. But it’s difficult to look into such levels of unforeseen damage without asking yourself, what’s changing in our world?
And the storms are not just contained to one state or one single day of activity. For the past several days tornadoes have been raging out of control putting even the April Showers claim to shame. And the worst is not yet known to be behind us as emergency stations prepare for the possibility of even worse storms in the future. So what’s causing it? Global Warming? Could recent activity in the sun be supercharging these storms? Some have even suggested the storms could have manmade contributors coming from the specialized observation system known as HAARP. Then again there have been very few natural disasters in the past few years where the term HAARP didn’t come up in one context or another. Still, reports have been followed by unfounded rumors in many different places so at this point it’s still becoming difficult to distinguish the unfounded rumors from the hard facts.
One of those cases was seen by users on Wikipedia when an un-cited entry on one town, Smithville, Mississippi with a population of over 800 was said to have been destroyed on April the 27th. Wikipedia, as it is known sometimes runs into difficulties regarding current events due to the lack of cited material. Some have suggested the idea that the entire town was destroyed cannot be true while others have said it only goes to show how much more of a freak wave of storms we’re dealing with as 2011 heats up. As for the town of Smithville, the only verified information found came from local newspapers such as The Dispatch, complete with harrowing photographs of the scene there. And WWAY Channel 3 has reported that the storms may be continuing their devastation as they travel East today, even if it is not as serious as that seen two weeks ago, and will hopefully not be as serious as what was seen further west on a gulf coast still reeling from previous storms and other disasters.
Whether the cause of the storms is outside of the norm is not yet determined, but there is a great deal of speculation that recent massive solar flares (the largest of which was recorded February 15th of this year) may be contributing to increased meteorological activity. And as scientists analyze that possibility, there may be some hope coming from this long string of disasters that a more complete model of weather tracking could emerge as we begin to take into consideration just how the sun’s flares could affect our weather.