A scientist from Temple University thinks taking an idea from China is the way to stop killer tornadoes across the Midwest.
Physicist Rongjia Tao says that building massive walls in multiple spots across the Great Plains would be an effective deterrent to tornado development.
“If we build three east-west great walls in the American Midwest …. one in North Dakota, one along the border between Kansas and Oklahoma to the east, and the third one in south Texas and Louisiana, we will diminish the tornado threats in the Tornado Alley forever,” Tao told the USA Today.
The structures would be 1000 feet high and at least 150 feet wide.
Tao attributed the major tornadoes to a lack of west-to-east mountains in the region that weakens airflow.
However, many severe weather experts are skeptical.
“It wouldn’t work,” Harold Broos of the National Severe Storms Laboratory told USA Today in an e-mail. Brooks pointed out that China receives deadly tornadoes even with their mountain ranges. He also said that Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas have ranges similar in size to the proposal and they have massive tornadoes.
Forecasters say that a temperature record that was set in the 19th century for Chicago could be in danger over the next week.
The polar vortex bringing cold temperatures back to the Midwest and Upper Plains states could cause Chicago to see a high temperature for Wednesday stay below the record for the date of 10 degrees set in 1888. The standing low record for the date is 1 below zero, but that was not broken overnight. It could still be broken later tonight.
Wind chill is also a major problem in the city with some areas reporting a wind chill more than 20 below zero.
The problem is predicted to be compounded by a second wave of cold air from the arctic that will force temperatures as far as ten below zero with wind chills greater than 30 below zero.
Forecasters say it’s possible the record low maximum temperature for Thursday, also 10 degrees set in 1888, could fall because of the second blast of cold air. The record low on February 28th of zero degrees set in 1884 is also likely to fall.
The blast of cold air is expected to keep driving down temperatures for over a week.
Several state officials are investigating price gouging, trying to increase aid to low-income customers, and taking action against vendors due to propane shortages.
Midwestern and Southern residents are struggling to keep warm with the rising prices or supply cutoffs from propane distributors.
A major propane supplier in Kentucky was forced to stop delivering to commercial customers in several states after Kentucky’s attorney general was given an injunction against the company.
Missouri’s Justice Department and was asked by lawmakers to investigate rising propane prices. Missouri’s attorney general will be helping in the investigation as well.
A letter detailing concerns and actions of dealers was released by the Missouri Propane Association.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported that the country’s cattle herd has reached its lowest level in 63 years and that ongoing drought in Texas and the Midwest is going to further threaten herd levels.
More than 80 percent of the Lone Star state has been facing abnormally dry conditions that have impacted both farmer ability to water herds but also reduced much of the grass in the state to a level where it provides no nutrition for animals.
One farmer said he’s had major hits to his farm this year.
“We need rain bad,” rancher Stayton Weldon told Bloomberg. “We’ve got tremendous drought problems. It cuts your herd size down because people have to sell off to provide for the cattle that are left.”
Weldon has lost 22 cows and two bulls in the last year because of the conditions.
The USDA says the $85 billion a year beef industry will produce at its lowest level in 20 years through the end of 2014.
A third “polar vortex” is aiming at the U.S. this week and it could bring the lowest temperatures of this winter’s trio of storms.
The forecast models show the frigid arctic air reaching into northern Mexico and all the way to south-central Florida. Parts of the Gulf of Mexico could see temperatures well below freezing.
The vortex is also expected to be longer than the previous two, lasting almost three days in some regions. Cities in the upper to central Midwest could be facing lows below zero for consecutive days with wind chills that could reach -50 degrees.
The National Weather Service said it could actually be warmer in the nation’s northernmost city, Barrow, Alaska, than it could be in most of the Midwest. Barrow’s predicted high for Monday is -4 degrees. That is the same predicted high for Chicago.
Forecasters say the temperature without wind chill could reach -17 degrees downtown. Wind chills could surge past -40 degrees.
In the northern Midwest, residents faced an additional problem as high winds blew snow to the point it made travel impossible.
Officials across the Midwest are encouraging residents to stay inside for the next two days and avoid travel unless absolutely necessary.
“Not dead yet.”
That was phrase used by U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough in a study published in the journal Science saying the major fault in the middle of the United States is still open to a major earthquake.
The New Madrid Fault Zone covers parts of seven states: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.
The study was in response to studies claiming the fault was dying down and that any seismic actions were aftershocks or results of the major 1811-1812 earthquakes that devastated the central Mississippi River valley. The fault is considered to be less understood than other major faults because unlike those faults, it is located in the middle of a continent away from plate edges.
Hough and a USGS geophysicist analyzed past quakes in the New Madrid region and through computer modeling determined they are not related to the big quakes 200 years ago.
The USGS estimates a 7 to 10 percent chance of a 7.0 or greater earthquake in the region within the next 50 years.
A Kansas middle school student was shocked to see a poster hanging in her classroom that depicted explicit sexual behavior.
The 13-year-old photographed the poster on her cell phone and showed it to her parents who were shocked by the graphic content. The parents believed at first the poster titled “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” was a student prank.
They were shocked even more to call the school and find out that the poster is part of the school’s approved health education curriculum.
Mark Ellis said he’s concerned what his daughter is being taught at Hocker Grove Middle School now that the poster has been declared “teaching material” by the school’s principal.
“It upsets me,” he told Fox News. “And again, it goes back to who approved this? You know this had to pass through enough hands that someone should have said, ‘Wait a minute, these are 13-year-old kids, we do not need to be this in-depth with this sexual education type of program.’”
A district spokeswoman told Fox News the poster must be viewed as part of the bigger curriculum that she claimed was abstinence-based.
Officials in some parts of the upper Midwest were telling residents to just stay home instead of venturing out into potentially deadly weather conditions.
Wind chills across North Dakota and Minnesota have reached as much as 70 degrees below zero causing exposed skin to freeze in minutes. The state of Minnesota called off school for extreme cold for the first time in 17 years because of the anticipated wind chills.
Temperatures dove across the entire country from International Falls, Minnesota at -28 degrees overnight to 27 degrees along the Gulf of Mexico in Biloxi, Mississippi.
The temperatures were so cold in Chicago that thousands of flights had to be delayed or cancelled. Nationwide, around 3,530 flights were delayed and over 2,500 had to be cancelled.
In addition to the frigid temperatures, icy road conditions led to hundreds of accidents nationwide. Power outages are spotty through the northeast because of wet power lines icing in the frigid conditions.
A fireball raced across the sky over the Midwest with reports of sightings coming in from at least four states.
The National Weather Service is investigating the more than 700 reports of the meteor and multiple videos of a bright object roaring across the sky. The city of North Liberty, Iowa caught the object on a traffic camera clearly showing its path across the horizon.
Witnesses described the light as a green ball that was as bright as the sun along with sonic booms and other sounds attributed to meteors.
The American Meteor Society said this event was the 3rd most reported cosmic event in the history of the AMS online reporting system.
Some scientists, however, are launching their own investigation, claiming that because of the size, brightness and color of the object, that it was not a meteor but a piece of space debris that entered the atmosphere.
The National Weather Service said because it’s not a weather related item, they may not issue a formal report.
A major winter storm caused horrible weather conditions from Texas through the East Coast over the weekend.
Parts of Texas remain without power and hundreds of thousands from Texas to Ohio were without power as a result of a massive winter storm that brought up to 2 inches of ice in some locations.
Northern parts of the U.S. were receiving heavy blankets of snow resulting in airport closures and fight delays. However, airports in the south were not immune from the problems, as many flights from Dallas, Oklahoma City and Little Rock had to be cancelled because of ice and cold temperatures.
The ice coating in Texas reached levels that were not expected by government officials. Some parts of Interstate 35 had to be scraped by a grader with blades to break up the thick ice.
The storm rolled into the East Coast Sunday evening with one Virginia Emergency Management official saying the storm could bring a “historic ice event” to the state.
Forecasters say that warmer temperatures are coming in the next few days but that ice will likely coat the entire Midwest for the next few days.