Couric Mulls: Do Deadly Tornadoes 'Have Anything to Do with Global Warming?'

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After leading with the terrible toll of deadly “super-cell” storms with tornadoes which struck Missouri and Alabama on Thursday, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric's mind turned to global warming as the potential cause. She asked “CBS News weather analyst” Bryan Norcross, working out of the network's Washington bureau: “Bryan, I understand people have been asking you this all day” -- probably CBS News staffers in the DC bureau -- “Does this have anything to do with global warming?”

Norcross, a “hurricane specialist” for the CBS-owned Miami station WFOR-TV channel 4, rejected the premise: “No, I don't think so. This is just part of this extreme situation we've had this winter -- very warm, very cold -- and so the extreme weather continues and it turns out the United States is just about the only spot in the world that has a lot of these kinds of super-cells, just not normally this time of year.”

Editor's Note (Ken Shepherd | 3/2/2007, 00:44 EST): Given how hot the topic has been on NB of late, I thought I'd throw in a helpful link for our readers from my colleagues at the MRC's Business & Media Institute (BMI). "Climate of Bias," is a clearinghouse for the best coverage on the issue from NewsBusters, MRC, BMI, and CNSNews.com, as well as links to outside resources.