Tornadoes

If hurricanes can be described as the ‘hand of God’, sweeping over a landscape and leaving perilous judgment in its wake as it dumps the divine retribution of trillions of raindrops and blows the fierce wrath of wind, then, indeed, tornadoes could aptly be characterized as the ‘finger of God’ where much more precision is proscribed in its narrow path of destruction. Now, I do not intend to communicate that if an individual family’s house was destroyed in a tornado, that therefore necessarily implies God had specific intentionality in judgment or retribution for that family (though, I do believe God had specific intentionality of some kind for that family, as there is no rogue molecule or atom in the universe, including those tossed in the vortex of a tornado). However, as I’ve heard one theologian put it, if Congress had just passed a law that was egregiously unjust and publicly and explicitly defied the Lord of Heaven in doing so, and the next day three tornadoes hit the Capitol building, that you would have to be a moron to not think there was direct divine retribution afoot. Regardless, it is not so much the judgment that these types of storms bring that is the focus here, but rather, their natural distribution over surface of earth, geographically speaking. Around 95% of tornadoes in the entire world occur in the Midwest and Southeastern regions of the United States. I don’t think this is due to some divine conspiracy to punish Oklahoma and Kansas for some unknown grievous sin, but rather is a result, physically speaking of the “the perfect storm” - pun intended - of ingredients for tornadoes in this region: the continental convergence of hot and cold air masses over a broad, flat swath of land, creating atmospheric instability and rapid wind fluctuations. In much the same way, I don’t think Florida and North Carolina are being punished directly with their high return interval for large hurricanes - they definitely do both project out into the Atlantic on the East Coast, where hurricanes like to come ashore. I don’t think Hawaii’s volcanoes are its divine judgment (though California’s earthquake potentiality may be, I declare in partial jest). Nonetheless, all the right conditions for the formation of tornadoes are met consistently in the Midwest of the continental U.S., unlike anywhere else on Earth. This is not Midwest privilege - or lack thereof, for that matter - it is the way things are. Inequitable distribution of things, whatever the index in question, is inevitable; tornadoes are merely one potent and obvious example. This is not necessarily a negative thing, unless you suddenly want to call down more tornadoes to sweep through your street in Seattle or Syracuse - but you already have more than your fair share of rain and snow respectively!