talkative videotex: Even with a busy tornado year, still no upward trend in tornadoes

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Even with a busy tornado year, still no upward trend in tornadoes

US Tornado Trends?Updated to?2011

Guest post by Paul Homewood

2011 has obviously been a disastrous year for tornadoes in the USA, but does this reflect an increasing trend in either the number or severity of tornadoes?

The NOAA graph below is often used to show trends of severe F3+ tornadoes and certainly indicates that there has been no upward trend up to 2010.

The provisional March-August figure for 2011 is 79 EF3-EF5 tornadoes, which would be much less than 1974 and on a par with 1965. However, this only gives part of the picture as it only runs from March ? August, and excludes weaker tornadoes. Nevertheless comparing total tornado numbers can be misleading.

(Added by Anthony ? For the entire 2011 year, the count is slightly higher:)

An NOAA study by McCarthy and Schaefer in 2002 identified a sharp rise in total tornado numbers between 1970 and 2002, but made it absolutely clear that this was changes in methods of detection, e.g.

There was a significant increase in tornado occurrence during two periods in the last 33 years ? in the early 1980s when National Weather Service (NWS) warning verification began, and in 1990 when the WSR-88D became operational.

The increase in reported tornado frequency during the early 1990s corresponds to the operational implementation of Doppler weather radars. Other non meteorological factors that must be considered when looking at the increase in reported tornado frequency over the past 33 years are the advent of cellular telephones; the development of spotter networks by NWS offices, local emergency management officials, and local media; and population shifts. The growing ?hobby? of tornado chasing has also contributed to the increasing number of reported tornadoes.

(The WSR-88D Doppler system was phased in between 1992 and 1997).

As a result of these changes, the proportion of F0 tornadoes (which Doppler detects) increased from an average of 39% between 1970 and 2002, to 64% for 1998-2002. As the authors stated,

? Finally, it will be seen that the number of strong and violent tornadoes has not varied much since 1970.?

So bearing this in mind, and using data supplied by NOAA?s Storm Prediction Center, I have analyzed all reported tornadoes by category since 1970.

?AVERAGE NUMBER OF US TORNADOES PER YEAR

(2000?s are 2000-2011)

	1970?S	1980?S	1990?S	2000?S
F0	274	331	739	812
F1	343	334	331	369
F2	188	124	109	108
F3	50	33	38	33
F4	14	9	9	7
F5	3	1	1	1
TOTAL	872	832	1227	1330
TOTAL F1+	598	501	488	518

F0-F5 are based on the Fujita tornado intensity scale

The following graph shows the trends well.

(P.A. ? per annum)

Conclusions

There has been no significant trend in F1+ tornadoes since 1980, and each decade since then has been less than the 1970?s. The 2000?s show more F0 tornadoes, but this is the first decade Doppler systems have been fully operational, so we should now have a good basis for the future.

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Addendum by Anthony -

The graph for 2011 Total Tornadoes (all F0-F5 reported) shows that even though 2011 had some notable and terrible disasters, such as May 22nd Joplin EF5 tornado and the April 27th Mississippi-Alabama outbreak, it did not exceed the year 2008: