The Great Tornado Outbreak of 2021
I’ve always had a profound interest in weather. Many times when a thunderstorm comes rolling through here in Benton, Arkansas, you will find me out on my porch watching the storm. That was the case this past Dec 10th. A single thunderstorm had popped up over the central part of the state. I thought how lucky it was to have it pass over the town.
My smartphone had a warning message that said we were at the southern end of a tornado watch. I didn’t think we were in any danger, but I was impressed by the inflow energy of the storm. It seemed like one of those thunderstorms that a tropical storm or hurricane would generate as it comes on land.
A few days later, I was watching a YouTube video from a weather station out of Louisville, Kentucky. A woman showed the radar of the storm that devastated Mayfield and other communities. I immediately realized that the thunderstorm was the same one that passed over Benton. Terry and I weren’t in any real danger because the storm was not rotating when it came through. It turned tornadic when it got 80 miles down the road.
It will take several weeks to document the storm damage. What we have already learned is shocking. The tornado, being called the “Quad-State Tornado,” ripped across four states in four hours (Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky). There is a path of catastrophic damage that is 230 miles long and as wide as three-quarters of a mile. Meteorologists are trying to verify if all this damage is from one single tornado. If this is the case, it would rival the 1925 Tri-State tornado that killed 695 people as it traveled 219 miles across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. So far, they had proved that the same tornado traveled at least 125 miles.
The Mayfield tornado sent debris 30,000 feet into the air, the cruising altitude of many passenger jets, and scattered prom photos, handmade quilts, and wrapped Christmas gifts scores of miles away from the tornado’s path. One photo was found on a car window 130 miles away from its owner.
The death toll in Kentucky has now exceeded 70, including 12 children, and is expected to keep growing. Gov. Andy Beshear has called it “the deadliest” in the state’s history. The total death toll from the Dec 10th outbreak will likely be over 100 lives lost.
The average number of tornadoes in most of the states hit was less than one per year for December. It is amazing to have Kentucky hit by over a dozen twisters. There was a total of 44 tornadoes on that day.
The last EF4 tornado to strike the U.S. during the month of December was during the Christmas Outbreak of December 2015. Since the strength of a tornado is constantly changing, it may take several weeks to find out if any tornado had the rare EF5 wind speed. The last EF5 tornado in the U.S. hit Moore, Oklahoma, in 2013.
Five days later, we had another tornado outbreak. Half of the Lower 48 endured historic and dangerous weather as an extremely powerful storm system swept through the middle of the country, unleashing damaging winds and, in some areas, tornadoes, dust storms and out-of-control fires.
Winds of 70 to 100-plus mph sheared off roofs, overturned vehicles, toppled trees, and caused hundreds of thousands of power outages while contributing to hazardous ground and air travel. From New Mexico to Michigan, more than 36 million people were under high-wind warnings. In Colorado, several locations clocked gusts over 100 mph.
Due to a fast-moving complex of violent storms, known as a derecho, the National Weather Service logged at least 55 reports of hurricane-force wind gusts (75-plus mph), the most in a single day on record.
A tornado touched down in Plainview, Minnesota, just outside Rochester on Dec 15th, according to the National Weather Service. This was the first time Minnesota has recorded a tornado in December.
There were at least three tornadoes that touched down in Iowa. I grew up in Iowa and don’t recall ever having even a tornado watch in December. The two derechos that I experienced in the 47 years that I lived in the area were both in the summer.
All these tornadoes are part of the end-birth pangs that warn that the tribulation hour is drawing near. Many people wonder why disaster strikes the good people of the heartland. A 9.0 quake striking San Francisco would seem to be more appropriate. I don’t think there is any area of the country that is righteous enough to deserve God’s special protection from calamity. If a twister had touched down from that thunderstorm as it passed over my house, I would have looked over at my cat Bud sitting in the next chair and said, “I guess we’re going home early.”
“The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple . . . The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether” (Psalms 19:7, 9).
–Todd
Sanctioning Sodom
Significant proof of advanced end-times prophetic progression recently leaped to the forefront of communications coming from some within the Roman Catholic Church.
I have mentioned before that I receive on a regular basis a newsletter from These Last Days Ministries, a Catholic group. It is especially interesting to me because those presenting the news and commentary do so from a viewpoint remarkably like that of us who hold to the pre-Trib view of Bible prophecy.
To put it mildly, they are no fan of the current pope. As a matter of fact, they have even communicated several times that they see him as a candidate for the false prophet, the second beast of Revelation chapter 13. With Pope Francis’ latest action, he brings to the forefront, for those willing to see, that he is deserving of such accusation. His action is Antichrist—anti-biblical—at its very core.
The pontiff is a supporter of abortion. He recently publicly gave President Biden and, in effect, the entirety of the Democrat Party, a blanket pass on the killing of babies in the womb—a matter long seen as great sin by the Roman Catholic Church.
We have written before this pope’s predisposition to support things that portend Antichrist’s arrival.
He has said on more than several occasions that there ways to God, Heaven, and salvation of the soul other than through belief in Jesus Christ alone. He has backed up those political minions in high places within the Catholic Church, giving them a pass on the murder of millions of babies through abortion. He has embraced at every opportunity the climate-change madness and the worship of Mother Earth and the Gaia mantra that we must all come together to save the planet.
He joins the totally reprobate purveyors of insanity who demand that all must either submit to an experimental, highly questionable injection or be excluded from the formerly normal activities of the compliant human community.
Now Pope Francis has moved into the area of anti-God activity that Jesus, Himself, indicated will mark the moments leading up to His intervention into human history. The pope has sanctioned homosexuality in no uncertain terms and those in the Catholic Church who know this is anti-God at its black heart are pushing back.
The word “sanction,” like so many English words, has more than one meaning. It can mean a prohibition against or a punishment for defying or violating a regulated matter (for example, when the US sanctions Iran for not abiding by agreements on atomic weapons development). But the use of the word in the sense that it means to approve or accept an action or conduct is how this pope has “sanctioned” homosexuality, despite God calling it “abomination.”
And this is the gist of the newsletter I recently received from the Catholic group that I mentioned earlier.
Following is an excerpt that explains their displeasure with this pope’s action.
Francis has written to pro-LGBT New Ways Ministry, praising and thanking the group and its founders, despite its long-standing opposition to Church teaching on matters of sexual morality and consequent censorship by Church authorities.
On December 8, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) revealed that Pope Francis wrote two letters to the group’s executive director, Francis Deeryard, on May 3 and June 17. The NCR stated that the letters were on official “Vatican stationary,” and written in Spanish.
The first letter, dated May 3, was in response to an April 21 letter DeBernardo had written to the Pope, explaining the nature of the pro-homosexual New Ways Ministry (NWM). The organization claims it “educates and advocates for justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Catholics, and reconciliation within the larger church and civil communities.”
According to NCR, Francis wrote of a discernible “attitude of shepherd closeness” in NWM, saying that DeBernardo’s letter had “helped me a lot to know the full story you tell me…”…
The second letter from the Pope to DeBernardo – a long-time advocate of homosexuality, and a 29-year veteran with New Ways Ministry – again praised the NWM head while also honoring NWM’s co-founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick.
“Thank you for your neighborly work…[your] heart, open to your neighbor,” wrote the Pope, before praising Gramick, who has a long history of dissenting from Catholic teaching on homosexuality and abortion…
“The Holy Father’s warm letter to New Ways Ministry is not only another step in his outreach to LGBTQ people, but the beginning of a kind of rehabilitation for New Ways, and for Sister Jeannine [NWM’s co-founder Sr. Jeannine Gramick] as well, in recognition of their important ministry in our church.” (“Francis Praises Dissident Pro-LGBT ‘Catholic’ Group Previously Condemned by the Church,” by Michael Haynes, LifeSiteNews, December 9, 2021)
We are now well into times “as it was in the days of Lot” in the wicked city of Sodom, as the Lord Jesus forewarned (Luke 17:26–30). Homosexuality and all forms of sexual perversions marked that time. The “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is manifest starkly for all who can discern the lateness of the prophetic hour.
It’s time to “watch” (Mark 13: 37), but it is even more imperative that believers witness as never before to bring lost souls to Christ before the shout is heard from above, “Come up here!”
“And when you see all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21: 28)
—Terry