More on tornadoes in the US this year.
May 30, 2016 8:09:36 GMT -5
Post by rah on May 30, 2016 8:09:36 GMT -5
With the news hyping the storms I thought it might be appropriate to provide some historical perspective that they refuse to provide.
Here is a map of the contiguous states showing all severe weather incidents.
Notice the inset at the bottom right that provides the official count of tornadoes year to date by storm strength as given in the EF (Enhanced Fajita Scale) numbers.
So far this year there have been no EF 5s reported and only three EF 4s (All the EF 4s this year have occurred during the last 10 days). Also notice that well over half (696) of the total tornado count has been EF 0 storms. OR IOW the majority of the count has been storms of minimal strength.
Now here is the meat of it. The fact is that over time with advances in radar and communications technology combined with the fact that people are living in ever more remote locations, the reporting of storms is much more effective and widespread than it ever has been before. Many of the EF 0 and 1 storms reported this year would not have been seen and reported 20 years ago. Thus tornado counts today cannot be directly compared to counts from even 20 years ago. And yet despite all of this the tornado counts since 2011 have ended up running well below the average.
So despite the hype even on a non adjusted scale this year tornado count is well below average:
And on a scale where NOAA tries to adjust the scale to provide a more accurate historic perspective this years count is running well below the 50th percentile.
For an explanation of the math they use to try to adjust for the inflation of reported tornadoes click HERE
Of course any major tornado is worth reporting and nothing I have written above makes a darn bit of difference if your property or the lives of you and/or yours have been threatened or damaged by even a single storm. But I think it is important for people to understand what the news and even the so called weather stations simply will not tell them.
Here is a map of the contiguous states showing all severe weather incidents.
Notice the inset at the bottom right that provides the official count of tornadoes year to date by storm strength as given in the EF (Enhanced Fajita Scale) numbers.
So far this year there have been no EF 5s reported and only three EF 4s (All the EF 4s this year have occurred during the last 10 days). Also notice that well over half (696) of the total tornado count has been EF 0 storms. OR IOW the majority of the count has been storms of minimal strength.
Now here is the meat of it. The fact is that over time with advances in radar and communications technology combined with the fact that people are living in ever more remote locations, the reporting of storms is much more effective and widespread than it ever has been before. Many of the EF 0 and 1 storms reported this year would not have been seen and reported 20 years ago. Thus tornado counts today cannot be directly compared to counts from even 20 years ago. And yet despite all of this the tornado counts since 2011 have ended up running well below the average.
So despite the hype even on a non adjusted scale this year tornado count is well below average:
And on a scale where NOAA tries to adjust the scale to provide a more accurate historic perspective this years count is running well below the 50th percentile.
For an explanation of the math they use to try to adjust for the inflation of reported tornadoes click HERE
Of course any major tornado is worth reporting and nothing I have written above makes a darn bit of difference if your property or the lives of you and/or yours have been threatened or damaged by even a single storm. But I think it is important for people to understand what the news and even the so called weather stations simply will not tell them.