In late April, a slow-moving storm over Texas and Oklahoma spawned an outbreak of 39 tornadoes. That event was just a fraction of the more than 400 tornadoes reported that month, the highest monthly count in 10 years. And the storms kept coming.

Through November, there were more than 1,700 tornadoes reported nationwide, preliminary data shows. At least 53 people had been killed across 17 states.

Not only were there more tornadoes reported, but 2024 is also on track to be one of the costliest years ever in terms of damage caused by severe storms, according to the National Center for Environmental Information. Severe weather and four tornado outbreaks from April to May in the central and southern United States alone cost $14 billion.

We will not know the final count of this year’s tornadoes until next year — the data through November does not yet include tornadoes like the rare one that touched down in Santa Cruz., Calif., on Saturday. That’s because confirming and categorizing a tornado takes time. After each reported event, researchers investigate the damage to classify the tornado strength based on 28 indicators such as the characteristics of the affected buildings and trees. Researchers rate the tornadoes using the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF) from 0 to 5.

But 2024 could end with not only the most tornadoes in the last decade, but one of the highest counts since data collection began in 1950. Researchers suggest that the increase may be linked to climate change, although tornadoes are influenced by many factors, so different patterns cannot be attributed to a single cause.

The year’s worst storms

In May, a mobile radar vehicle operated by researchers from the University of Illinois measured winds ranging 309 to 318 miles per hour in a subvortex of a tornado in the outskirts of Greenfield, Iowa. The event, an EF4, was among the strongest ever recorded.

NASA tracked the line of destruction of the tornado over 44 miles.

NOAA estimated the damage caused by the Greenfield tornado to be about $31 million. While most tornadoes this year were not as deadly or destructive, there were at least three more EF4 storms, described by NOAA as devastating events with winds ranging from 166 to 200 miles per hour. These violent tornadoes caused severe damage in Elkhorn-Blair, Neb., and in Love and Osage Counties in Oklahoma.

Here are the footprints of 1,644 buildings in the United States that were destroyed or severely damaged by tornadoes this year, according to data from FEMA and Vexcel, a private company that uses aerial imagery to analyze natural disasters.

While losses from tornadoes occur on a regular basis every year, extreme events such as hurricanes can also produce tornadoes with great destructive capacity. In October, more than 40 tornadoes were reported in Florida during Hurricane Milton, three of them category EF3. According to the The Southeast Regional Climate Center, EF3 tornadoes spawned by hurricanes had not occurred in Florida since 1972.

A vulnerable region

Tornado detection systems have improved, especially since the 1990s, allowing scientists to count tornadoes that might have gone undetected in previous years, said John Allen, a climate scientist focused on historic climatology and analysis of risk at Michigan State University. That plays a role in the historical trend showing more tornadoes in recent decades.

While this year’s worst storms were concentrated in the Midwest, many counties across the South have seen an increase in tornado activity in the past 20 years, compared with the prior two decades. These same counties’ demographic conditions, including low incomes and large mobile home populations, make them especially vulnerable to major disasters.

“It only takes an EF1 to do significant damage to a home, an EF2 would throw it all over the place,” Dr. Allen said.

Prof. Tyler Fricker, who researches tornadoes at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, said we will inevitably see more losses in the region.

“When you combine more intense tornadoes on average with more vulnerable people on average, you get these high levels of impact — casualties or property loss,” Dr. Fricker said.

“If you have enough money, you can protect yourself,” he added. “You can build out safe rooms. You can do things. That’s not the case for the average person in the Mid-South and Southeast.”

The C.D.C. identifies communities in need of support before, during and after natural disasters through a measure called social vulnerability, which is based on indicators such as poverty, overcrowding and unemployment. Most counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi are both at high risk by this measure and have experienced an increase in tornadoes in the last 20 years, relative to the 1980s and 1990s.

In the states with the most tornadoes this year, most counties have better prepared infrastructure for these kinds of events.

Stephen M. Strader of Villanova University, who has published an analysis of the social vulnerabilities in the Mid-South region and their relationship to environmental disasters, said the most vulnerable populations may face a tough year ahead. While two major hurricanes had the biggest impact on the region this year, La Niña will influence weather patterns in 2025 in ways that could cause more tornadoes specifically in the vulnerable areas in the South.

Although not completely definitive, NOAA studies suggest that EF2 tornadoes, which are strong enough to blow away roofs, are more likely to occur in the southeastern United States in La Niña years.

“Unfortunately, a La Niña favors bigger outbreaks in the southeast U.S.,” Dr. Strader said. “So this time next year we might be telling a different story.”

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The billionaire Porsche-Piëch family, Volkswagen’s majority owner, has taken a hardline stance in backing the company’s plans to close several German factories, as the threat of diminished dividends looms.

Lack of progress on the restructuring, initially announced in September, has become a growing concern for the Porsche-Piëch family, which has reversed its traditional stance of avoiding confrontation with VW’s powerful works council.

According to one person briefed on discussions at recent supervisory board meetings, the family has “made clear that it is necessary to rightsize the business in order to achieve long-term competitiveness”.

VW has argued for the closure of plants in Germany as its European sales have fallen sharply. However, the company’s works council, which controls half the seats on the company’s supervisory board, has promised workers that not a single German plant will be closed.

Another person with knowledge of the discussions said it was “hardly surprising” that the Porsche-Piëch family had different priorities than some other supervisory board members, especially the works council and its ally, the state of Lower Saxony, which holds 20 per cent of VW’s voting rights.

Worker representatives have argued that while cost cuts might support profit margins in the short term, they will do little to address sliding sales in both Europe and China, the company’s most profitable market.

Executives at Europe’s largest carmaker have spent weeks locked in tense negotiations with representatives of German workers, who have already downed tools twice in the past month amid fierce disagreement over planned cost cuts.

VW’s management and unions are eager to wrap up formal wage negotiations before Christmas. After 36 hours of continuous debate, the fifth round of talks broke off briefly on Wednesday morning with both sides agreeing to resume negotiations later in the day.

At VW’s supervisory board meetings in the run-up to the negotiations, discussions have been tense. The family’s de facto head, Wolfgang Porsche, last month rejected a compromise put on the table by the works council and union, making clear that anything other than “substantial action on cost efficiency [will be a] solution”, added one person briefed on the talks.

Porsche SE has already taken a hit from the crisis at VW. Last week, it warned that the uncertainty at the carmaker and the absence of financial planning data could force it to write down its stake in VW by up to €20bn, or nearly 40 per cent.

The family also faces the risk of falling VW dividends, which last year stood at €1.4bn, at a time when Porsche SE is saddled with €5.1bn in debt. The holding company borrowed heavily in 2022 to buy a 25 per cent voting stake in sports car maker Porsche AG — allowing the family to regain direct control over the company founded by its forebears.

“The plan was to finance the interest payments and to deleverage with the dividends from Porsche and VW,” said Stifel analyst Daniel Schwarz. “That’s clearly at risk now,” he added, explaining that the family’s wealthiest members “have most of their wealth invested in this one company”.

But the family’s battle with the carmaker’s workers carries other risks.

With Berlin gearing up for snap elections early next year, the hardline plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs at VW has met significant political blowback. A growing group of politicians — including Chancellor Olaf Scholz — have spoken out against factory closures.

“Some politicians have argued that VW should not pay a dividend at all and the union said that VW should consider a lower payout ratio,” Schwarz said.

The upcoming elections will also make it less likely that the state of Lower Saxony, which owns 20 per cent of VW voting rights and tends to back employment, would turn against the works council on the plant closures.

Twenty-five years ago, a six-year-old boy named Elian Gonzalez appeared off the coast of Miami. He and his mother had been traveling by boat to the U.S. from Cuba. His mother didn’t survive the journey, but remarkably, Elian did. And almost immediately, his fate became the subject of an international debate: Should he stay in the U.S. and live with relatives in Miami? Or should he return to Cuba, to live with his father, who very much wanted him back?

How people answered that question tended to reflect a lot about their larger beliefs – about the benefits of democracy, the importance of family, the distinctions between the U.S and Cuba, and immigration writ large.

This episode was originally reported and produced by our play cousins at Futuro Studios. It’s hosted by Peniley Ramirez.

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