Tornado Watches are commonplace along the Gulf Coast today as a powerful cold front spawns severe weather from East Texas into Alabama. Other than a few early-season tornado outbreaks, we really haven't talked much about Tornado season...until now. Through the end of the month tornadoes will become more common, but mainly south of here. Did you know that Tornado Season actually migrates north during the spring? The peak of tornado season for us isn't until early June...but by that time Tornado Season is winding down for Texas. Click here for a really cool animation of the nation's tornado probability. I will be showing this on the air tonight as part of Severe Weather Awareness Week.While we've already compiled our quiz questions for this week, do you have any severe weather facts or questions? Post a comment and we may share it on future weathercasts. Thanks! -ERIC
6 comments:
(*Raises Hand*) Yes, I have a question!
We all know that any severe storm could potentially cause loss of life.
But what percentage of tornadoes actually cause loss of (human) life? Or to put it the other way, what percentage of tornadoes do not cause loss of (human) life?
I don't know the answer or any stats about this, but I'm guessing that far more tornadoes occur that do not result in loss of life than those that do (just a guess), in part because I bet far more tornadoes are rated EF0 or EF1 than EF4 or EF5 ... amd I'm guessing that the higher EF numbers (stronger tornados) are considerably less frequent than the lower EF rated storms, which probably cause less loss of life than their bigger cousins.
I'd be interested in some stats on this.
Thx!
That's a great question! I will have to make some calls to find the answer as I have NO IDEA where to start looking. You have to think about the fact that even with urban sprawl, there is more rural land than urban.
Having said that, there's a better than 50/50 chance that any given tornado will stay out of a city. Now, how many tornadoes are fatal tornadoes?
I guess the first thing to do is find the average number of tornadoes per year and then find the average number of fatalities per year. It'll be an average number, but give me some time and I'll see what I can come up with! -ERIC
Here's some stuff I dug up really quickly. It's 2007 data from the Storm Prediction Center: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/2007deadlytorn.html
26 tornadoes in 2007 caused 81 fatalities. The Storm Prediction Center also states that there were 1074 tornadoes in 2007.
So far this year there have been 66 tornado deaths (17 killer tornadoes).
As you can tell... one year does not an average make.
weather buff: I will be answering your question on the news at 5 and six, but here's the answer:
According to NOAA, the average number of tornadoes in the United States per year is 1,200. On average there are 55 fatalities each year. Doing the math, I am coming up with 4.5%.
Ohh, thanks Eric. DRAT, I didn't get home until after your slot on the 6:00 news today!
Wondering if that's the right stat, though. It may reflect the overall chances of a tornado fatality, but I think JustinG was onto what I was really looking for, i.e., what are the chances of any given tornado causing a fatality? I don't think you can get that info from dividing the total fatalities by the total number of tornados.
I would think you'd need a pair of stats like: # of tornados, & number of those which caused fatalities (not number of fatalities) ... although both of those stats are interesting.
I bet you could also track this particular stat over time (and in various locations) to get a sense of how well watch/warning systems are working to prevent fatalities ... so I would have thought this would be a stat that NWS would already be tracking.
Fascinating...
Thanks for your work on this!
I caught the 10:00 segment - thanks!
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