When four tornadoes hit San Antonio during one storm this week, it was one for the record books.
State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says a cluster of twisters like this has only happened twice before in the city’s recorded weather history.
“One was in February, 1984 and one was in March of 2002, so it’s not completely unheard of,” he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI. “It is unusual and when it it’s happened it’s been in late winter or early spring.”
At a press conference this week, City Manager Sheryl Scully said the city has collected about 2,600 cubic yards of debris. Felecia Etheredge with CPS Energy says they've replaced 59 poles, 140 transformers, and fixed 150 instances of wires down.
Some wonder whether global warming played a role in such an unusual event. Nielsen-Gammon says it’s nearly impossible to tell.
“Climate models cannot simulate something on such a small scale,” he explains. “We only have indirect estimates of possible changes and those are conflicting.”
But, he admits that everything in the climate is connected, so only time will tell if climate change will spur more of these tornado incidents in San Antonio.
He says one thing researchers are looking into is whether severe weather in the US, from the San Antonio tornadoes to heavy rains in California, may be connected to a developing trough of warm water in the Arctic Ocean.