The original sources are still being written.

The new data coming out is so much more enlightening than what might be hidden in the archives. What is really pathetic here is not what is hidden, but the desperate effort to hide it.

What I was referring to is actual numerical data on the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, but corrected for possible distortion by the fact that there are now more people, scattered over larger areas, and the news media are better equipped to report on it. Its like crime data, if you watch the news its hard to reconcile the endless litany of violence and bloodshed with an actual reduction of crime that has been occurring lately for purely demographic reasons. (Most crimes are carried out by young people, and the percentage of crime-age youth is decreasing as the population ages.)

Another example, the news is full of stories of crimes by illegal immigrants, even though statistics actually indicate that they commit less crimes per capita than the average citizen (probably because they are trying to keep a low profile to avoid la migra).

I don't think there is a malicious effort to exaggerate (or conversely, under-report) these events, just that news editors are trying to generate readership, and there are fashions in public and journalistic interest that raise the demand for certain types of stories. They sell newspapers, or viewer eyeballs, which is where the real market is. Its a dynamic which probably operates subconsciously.

Are these enhanced floods, tornadoes, droughts, blizzards etc a result of global warming? Its hard to tell since these events have always existed. It seems a reasonable assumption, but I would like to see it quantified. For example, it seems that warming should lead to more frequent and devastating hurricanes, but that does not seem to be the case (we have excellent hurricane data, at least in the Atlantic, going back quite a ways). As it turns out, other factors (such as El Nino) also may play a role. But couldn't El Nino activity also be a result of global climate change? The polar ice extent, area and volume figures I often post here are very dramatic, but one reason I report them is precisely because they are unambiguous and need no interpretation, and come from homogeneous sources. But even they are compelling only because we now have almost four decades of data to compare with. A mere ten year sample taken out of these measures would show no trends through the noise. Tornado statistics from the 19th century aren't quite as uniform. We probably missed most of them.

No doubt there are weather researchers who actually do compile these stats and they make an effort to adjust them for the other factors I mentioned, but I'm not familiar enough with the literature in that field to locate this material, or to evaluate it. And as always, statistical data is always subject to interpretation and bias. You can prove pretty much anything you want, look at the economists and psychologists! All those equations, sigmas and deltas give it an air of authenticity and legitimacy, (as well as the oh-so-earnest assurances that only the most powerful computers have been doing the number crunching), but it is inevitably riddled with assumptions, especially archival information that has not been collected with modern rigor and robust methodologies.