Overview of Is it getting windier?
This NPR Shortwave episode investigates a listener’s hunch that Louisville, Kentucky has become windier over time. Host Emily Kwong and producer Hannah Chin talk with University of Louisville meteorologist Scott Gunter about how wind works, what drives changes in wind patterns, and why it’s hard to separate long-term climate trends from short-term weather variability. The episode also explores how climate change may affect the jet stream, storm tracks, and the environments that produce tornadoes.
Key Takeaways
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The listener’s observation is plausible, but not definitive.
- Barry Zalph analyzed roughly 20 years of NOAA wind data from Louisville and found that later years showed higher wind speeds than earlier ones.
- Scott Gunter said the graph was a thoughtful use of data, but warned that wind trends can fluctuate over decades.
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Wind is driven by pressure differences.
- Wind forms because air moves from high-pressure to low-pressure areas.
- Low-pressure systems are often associated with rising air, storms, rain, and wind.
- High-pressure systems are usually clearer and less windy.
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The jet stream plays a major role in regional wind and storm patterns.
- The jet stream is a fast-moving band of winds high in the atmosphere that helps steer storm systems.
- Kentucky sits in a storm track where systems often move from Texas and Oklahoma through the Ohio Valley toward the Northeast.
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Climate change may shift storm tracks northward.
- Gunter noted that if the jet stream shifts north over time, places like Kentucky could eventually see changes in wind and storm behavior.
- That could mean some southern areas become windier, while others may see less frequent storm activity.
What the Data Suggests
Louisville’s wind patterns
- Barry’s graph appeared to show:
- More lower-intensity wind events in recent years
- Not necessarily a clear rise in extreme winds
- Gunter said research in the eastern U.S. has not shown major long-term changes in extreme wind events overall.
- He emphasized that what Barry noticed may reflect subtle, low-speed winds that matter in everyday life, especially for cyclists, even if they are not severe weather events.
Weather vs. climate
- Gunter repeatedly stressed the importance of distinguishing:
- Weather: individual events or short-term variability
- Climate: long-term patterns over decades
- Short-term spikes can be influenced by factors like El Niño/La Niña, seasonal cycles, or natural variability.
Tornado Alley and Kentucky
- Kentucky is not traditionally considered Tornado Alley, but the episode addresses whether that could change.
- Gunter explained tornadoes using a “cupcake” analogy:
- You need the right ingredients in the right place at the right time for a tornado to form.
- Tornadoes themselves are too small-scale and localized to predict precisely far into the future.
- What scientists can study is the environment that supports tornado formation:
- If climate change causes those ingredients to come together more often in new places, regions could experience shifts in tornado risk.
- The main research focus is therefore on severe storm environments, not exact tornado paths or individual events.
Notable Insight
“A tornado can happen anywhere, anywhere those ingredients come together.”
This captures the episode’s core scientific message: tornadoes aren’t tied to a fixed geographic boundary so much as to the atmospheric setup that makes them possible.
Listener Action Item
- NPR encourages listeners to send local environment questions to Shortwave at shortwave@npr.org.
- The episode specifically highlights Barry as an example of a listener who turned a personal concern into a data-driven question.
Credits
- Hosts: Emily Kwong, Hannah Chin
- Guest: Scott Gunter, Assistant Professor, University of Louisville
- Produced by: Hannah Chin and Norgil
- Edited by: Rebecca Ramirez
- Fact-checking: Tyler Jones
- Audio engineering: Jimmy Keely