Only a fortnight ago you reported more than three-hundred tornadoes that had ravaged several southern states in America as storms of a once-in-a-century severity (“Out of the Whirlwind,” May 7, 2011). Now you report Mississippi floods that are ravaging many of the same states in the very same words (“Raging Southward,” May 21, 2011). “And some of the states bailing out from once-in-a-century floods are still reeling from once-in-a-century tornadoes,” you conclude your happy-go-lucky article. Looking backwards and ignoring climate change, you may well be right. After all, meteorologists do possess much reliable information about things past. But looking forward is an entirely different matter. Systematically ignoring climate change will not do for much longer. To wit, once-in-a-century natural disasters are best relegated to the past.