Global warming to fuel more super cells in the US

America will probably get more killer tornado- and hail-spawning super cells as the world warms, according to a new study. The study also warns the lethal storms will edge eastward to strike more frequently in the more populous Mid-South.

The storm that devastated Rolling Fork, Mississippi is a single event that can’t be connected to climate change. Super cells are nature’s ultimate storms, so-called “Finger of God” whoppers that are “the dominant producers of significant tornadoes and hail,” said lead author Walker Ashley, a professor of meteorology and disaster geography at Northern Illinois University.

Super cells spawned the 2013 Moore, Oklahoma, tornado that killed 51 people, the 2011 Joplin, Missouri, tornado outbreak that killed 161 people and the 2011 super outbreak that killed more than 320 people in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. The study used computer simulations to predict what will happen by the end of the century with different levels of global carbon pollution levels.