Severe winds and tornadoes: Difference between revisions
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There have been observed trends of changes in tornadoes over the past few decades. | There have been observed trends of changes in tornadoes over the past few decades. | ||
The behavior and path of tornadoes has changed over the past few decades. In the United States, the number of tornado days per year has fallen since the 1970s, but the number of tornadoes occurring on those days has increased. This implies that there is an increase in the frequency of days with large numbers of tornadoes—tornado outbreaks, including outbreaks with 30 or more tornadoes in one day. | The behavior and path of tornadoes has changed over the past few decades. In the United States, the number of tornado days per year has fallen since the 1970s, but the number of tornadoes occurring on those days has increased. This implies that there is an increase in the frequency of days with large numbers of tornadoes—tornado outbreaks, including outbreaks with 30 or more tornadoes in one day. The extent of the season over which such tornado activity occurs is increasing as well: although tornadoes in the United States are observed in all months of the year, an earlier calendar-day start to the season of high activity is emerging.<ref name=":1">https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/9/</ref> The density of tornado clusters (i.e., tornadoes are closer geographically), and the strength of tornadoes has also increased. The distribution of tornadoes has also shifted eastward.<ref>[https://www.c2es.org/content/tornadoes-and-climate-change/ htps://www.c2es.org/content/tornadoes-and-climate-change/]</ref> | ||
Climate change is likely to amplify the observed trend in tornado activity. While current climate models are unable to directly simulate tornadoes due to their coarse resolution, researchers use metrics that assess the "environment" conducive to tornado formation based on large-scale variables like temperature, humidity, and wind. Consistent findings suggest that with future warming, the frequency of severe tornadoes is expected to increase, and the storms themselves will likely become stronger.<ref name=":1" /> | |||
. Multiple studies find that the conditions that produce the most severe thunderstorms from which tornadoes may form are more likely as the world warms. Climate change may also cause a shift in the seasonality of severe thunderstorms and the regions that are most likely to be hit. | |||
Revision as of 14:04, 12 September 2024
Overview
A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. They can destroy buildings, flip cars, and create deadly flying debris, causing extensive damages to infrastructure, homes, and businesses within minutes[1]. It is one of the highly destructive severe weather phenomena in the US. Between 1983 and 2024, severe storms, including tornadoes have caused over 500 billion dollars loss in the US, the second largest disaster in terms of loss[2]. Readers can read more about tornadoes from many resources, including the NOAA Storm Prediction Center, NOAA National Severe Storm Laboratory website and the wikipedia page of tornado.
There have been observed trends of changes in tornadoes over the past few decades. The behavior and path of tornadoes has changed over the past few decades. In the United States, the number of tornado days per year has fallen since the 1970s, but the number of tornadoes occurring on those days has increased. This implies that there is an increase in the frequency of days with large numbers of tornadoes—tornado outbreaks, including outbreaks with 30 or more tornadoes in one day. The extent of the season over which such tornado activity occurs is increasing as well: although tornadoes in the United States are observed in all months of the year, an earlier calendar-day start to the season of high activity is emerging.[3] The density of tornado clusters (i.e., tornadoes are closer geographically), and the strength of tornadoes has also increased. The distribution of tornadoes has also shifted eastward.[4]
Climate change is likely to amplify the observed trend in tornado activity. While current climate models are unable to directly simulate tornadoes due to their coarse resolution, researchers use metrics that assess the "environment" conducive to tornado formation based on large-scale variables like temperature, humidity, and wind. Consistent findings suggest that with future warming, the frequency of severe tornadoes is expected to increase, and the storms themselves will likely become stronger.[3]
. Multiple studies find that the conditions that produce the most severe thunderstorms from which tornadoes may form are more likely as the world warms. Climate change may also cause a shift in the seasonality of severe thunderstorms and the regions that are most likely to be hit.
Future of tornadoes:
Studying tornadoes from a financial risk perspective is crucial because the unpredictable nature of these events poses a serious threat to industries, insurance companies, and local economies. Understanding the frequency, impact, and potential damages of tornadoes allows businesses, investors, and insurers to better assess and mitigate the financial risks associated with these extreme weather events, ensuring more resilient financial planning and disaster preparedness.
- How severe is a tornado? Tornados are measured using the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF Scale), which rates tornados based on estimated wind speeds based on the damage caused.
Tornadoes occur in many parts of the world, including Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. Even New Zealand reports about 20 tornadoes each year. Two of the highest concentrations of tornadoes outside the U.S. are Argentina and Bangladesh.
- impacts of tornado: Tornadoes can destroy buildings, flip cars, and create deadly flying debris. It is one of the highly destructive severe weather phenomena in the US. Between 1983 and 2024, severe storms, including tornadoes have caused over 500 billion dollars loss in the US, the second largest disaster in terms of loss[2].
Most of the damage from a tornado happens one of two direct ways: exposure to extreme wind or impact by flying debris. In a developed area, a tornado essentially acts as a giant blender full of millions of small and large projectiles--boards, broken glass, nails, shingles, gravel, wire, cables, sheet metal, hardware, tree parts, whole trees, rocks, bricks, appliances, furniture, household items, even vehicles and large parts of houses. A dump truck thrown into a building by a nearby subvortex, for example, can do enormous damage even if the wind at the building site isn't that strong on its own. Sometimes a tornado will weaken a structure enough that parts or all of it collapses later due to structural weakness and imbalances. This is why people should not enter a heavily damaged home or other building until fire officials and/or an engineer can survey it. Another reason is that hazardous materials may have been released by the tornado--such as natural gas, medical waste, gasoline, other dangerous chemicals, or sewage. Such "HAZMAT" releases, along with live electrical wires, also can be a cause of indirect tornado damage--either chemically or through fires. Broken water pipes can cause considerable water and flood damage also[5].
You can read more about the EF Scale on the NOAA National Severe Storm Laboratory website. National Weather Service website. https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/
- observed trends of tornado:
- future of tornado.
Data:
Historical Tornado data
| Dataset | Description | Data Access |
|---|---|---|
| Severe weather events archive by NOAA | Organized severe thunderstorms archived by Storm Prediction Center of NOAA. The weather events covered include tornadoes, hail, and strong winds. The archive provides information on observation time, location (with detailed latitude and longitude), and estimated wind speed. | Access |
| Severe weather database by NOAA | Data for tornadoes, hail, and damaging wind, as compiled from NWS Storm Data. Tornado reports exist back to 1950 while hail and damaging wind events date from 1955. Information is provided on observation time, location, storm magnitude, as well as mortality, injuries, and estimated losses for property and crops. Please read the format specification for more information. | Access (Note: The CSV data files are located further down the webpage.) |
| Severe weather data inventory (SWDI) by NCEI of NOAA[6] | An integrated database of U.S. severe weather records that provides access to data from a variety of sources in the NCEI archive. SWDI includes multiple search and access methods for records that cover particular time periods and geographic regions. Data are currently available in Shapefile (for GIS), KMZ (for Google Earth), CSV (comma-separated), and XML formats. Note that no additional quality control measures are taken beyond the processing that takes place during data archival. | Access |
The Storm Prediction Center of NOAA contains a lot of useful resources, including climatology and statistics of tornadoes: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/#data
European Severe Weather Database https://eswd.eu/
Global Disaster Database (EM-DAT)
wind speed averages: https://disgeoportal.egs.anl.gov/portal/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a69fcf899d91410799233f104b025552; https://climrr.anl.gov/mapexplorer;
- ↑ https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#Damage
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/summary-stats#:~:text=Time%20Period%2C%20Last%20Year%20(2023)%2C%20All%20Years,15%2C%2042%2C%20Events/Year%2C%2028.0%2C%208.8%2C%201.5%2C%204.2%2C
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/9/
- ↑ htps://www.c2es.org/content/tornadoes-and-climate-change/
- ↑ https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#Damage
- ↑ https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/severe-weather-data-inventory