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Posted on 09/21/2013 2:05:19 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - The greatest risk of being impacted by a significant tornado in the United States is in a Deep South corridor that includes Huntsville and Birmingham, not the Great Plains region of Oklahoma and Kansas, according to a study co-authored by a University of Alabama in Huntsville researcher.
The research paper was written by Tim Coleman, an adjunct professor and researcher in the Earth Systems Science Center at UAH, and Grady Dixon, an associate professor of meteorology and climatology at Mississippi State University.
The paper is scheduled to be published by the American Meteorology Society's Weather and Forecasting, said Coleman, a researcher at UAH since 2005 who also worked nine years for the National Weather Service.
The research is significant, Coleman said, because it indicates that the true tornado alley in the United States is located in the Deep South rather than the long-held belief of the Great Plains.
"One of the (AMS) reviewers (of the research paper) said these results are very different than most people interpret as tornado alley," Coleman said today. "(The reviewer said) these results are important and should be communicated to the general public."
Coleman said the project also implemented a database seldom used in tornado research. Coleman and Dixon used only significant tornadoes (EF2 or stronger) from 1973-2011 in their research and measured the path lengths of those twisters to gauge the risk to a particular region.
The Deep South tornado alley, like a typical tornado, travels along a northeastern tract and includes cities such as Jackson, Miss., Columbus, Miss., Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Jasper, Cullman, Huntsville and Decatur, Coleman said.
The most significant risk in the research that defined that tornado alley found significant tornadoes traveling 9 to 11 kilometers within 25 miles of a point. Beyond that corridor of highest risk, the northern half of Alabama, most of Mississippi as well as about half of Arkansas is in a range of 7 to 9 kilometer-long tornado paths.
View full sizeUAH adjunct professor and researcher Tim Coleman. (Submitted photo)
The most significant risk in the Great Plains is an area making up most of Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, with a range of tornadoes 5 to 7 kilometers in length, the research found.
The compelling reason to study the path lengths of tornadoes, Coleman said, is because the longer the path, the more impact it has on a region.
Significant tornadoes - rather than all tornadoes - were used because significant tornadoes have more impact and create more risk and that while technology has allowed for better identification of smaller tornadoes over the years, the number of significant tornadoes has remained consistent, Coleman said.
The research found that Deep South tornadoes typically have longer paths than those in the Great Plains because they are traveling at a faster rate, Coleman said.
"That still makes more risk because you're covering more ground," Coleman said.
The reason the project began with data in 1973, Coleman said, is because that was the first year the Fujita scale for measuring tornadoes was used. Before that, Coleman said, tornado ratings were not precise and leaned heavily on media reports. The end date of the research window coincided with the beginning of the research project, he said.
The research also took into consideration the record tornado outbreak in Alabama and Mississippi on April 27, 2011. To make sure the research was not skewed by the unprecedented day in 2011, Coleman and Dixon also studied the research from 1973-2010. That research found that while the Deep South tornado alley was less fearsome, it nevertheless remained in place.
In excluding the 2011 storms, virtually the entire state of Mississippi as well as the northern half of Alabama had significant tornadoes in the 5 to 7 kilometers path range. There were also regions in the northern halves of both states that saw that path range increase to 7 to 9 kilometers.
Meanwhile, the data remained largely the same in the Great Plains in omitting 2011.
Coleman said he and Dixon had "a hunch" that the tornado risk in the Deep South might be greater than traditionally thought when they began their project.
"Just because it's a guy from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a guy from Mississippi State University, we didn't do anything to make the data look the way we wanted," Coleman said. "We had no idea what was going to come out."
The researchers are also anticipating criticism for their findings.
"We anticipate there will be some challenges to this paper," Coleman said. "We've already done some calculations to check our own work. We're confident about the results and feel confident about answering any challenges that may come up."
Economic impact is also a possible side effect of the research. Coleman said he's heard concerns that the findings could discourage businesses from coming to the regions where the tornado risk is considered higher than anywhere else in the country. That shouldn't be a factor, he said, because even in the highest risk areas, the chances of a home or business being impacted by a tornado is less than 1 percent.
"That would imply that even in the areas that have just about the highest risk in the United States, the chance of a significant tornado hitting any specific spot inside that area is 0.5 percent each year," Coleman said. "It would tend to happen once every 200 years."
Coleman also pointed to research he did following the April 27, 2011 tornadoes that only about 1 percent of Alabama was hit by a tornado touchdown.
The benefits could be an influx of research dollars to the Deep South that typically are funneled to the Great Plains. The University of Alabama in Huntsville is also constructing the Severe Weather Institute Radar and Lightning Laboratory (SWIRLL) to enhance research.
"Very little research money is coming to the southeast at this point to study tornadoes," Coleman said. "This could be something that the powers that be - whether it's the National Science Foundation or people in state government, it could be something they look at -- if we're in tornado alley, maybe we need to do a little more in terms of research here.
"There are issues that I and two or three of my colleagues at UAH have been looking at and we don't have the funding to do what we need to do right now."
I find that given ~ 8 hr of direct sun, the batteries work well without additional "management".
I live about 2 miles south of Airport Rd. My husband had just driven under the light at Airport and the Parkway when the power went out. I bought the book about it. Amazing. My daughter and her kids came down from Seattle a few weeks after that. Some high school friends lived in Jones Valley so we rode through part of that area. One of those amazing pictures I saw was of a wall of bookcases with the books still on the shelves. There is an area in NW HSV which has been hit in at least 2 tornadoes. The people get their houses rebuilt and the next storm hits that area again. The one in 1974 is the one which told the local tv stations to get their own radar and generators. We had been watching the storms develop in western AL when all 3 stations lost their power. At that tme they were all on Monte Sano. Some people complain about all the coverage but most appreciate the warnings. I find it fascinating to watch radar when the hooks form.
One factor not mentioned in the press account that often differentiates tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama from storms in Oklahoma: many twisters in the Mid-South occur at night, after sunset, and they are often rain-wrapped, making them much more difficult to spot.
I grew up north of Memphis and lived for more than a decade in northern Mississippi. The local TV stations do yeoman work in tracking tornadoes and keeping the public informed, but one of the best investments any resident can make is a NOAA Weather Radio, along with a shelter or safe room. You can get a good weather radio for under $50 bucks, and program for the alerts you need. Those devices have saved more than a few people from tornadoes that developed late at night, after they went to bed.
Of course, I added another wrinkle to my personal preparations: if severe weather was threatening late at night, my wife or I just stayed up so one of us could monitor the weather radio and the local TV stations with their wall-to-wall coverage. If necessary, that person could wake the rest of the family and move them to shelter. I now live on the east coast, where the tornado threat is minimal. But the guy who bought my house in Mississippi retro-fitted it with a safe room. Smart move.
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Yes it seems they stay on the air from the time they are in Mississippi until they cross over into GA. Now that we have cable and more channels I don’t mind so much. Didn’t really mind before. My husband would get irritated but hey those people need to hear it too. Nothing worse, than when kids were especially little, before I had a cell phone, go in closet, turn up the tv really loud, take cordless phone . . .and they’d be asking “why are we in the closet Momma” about 2 and 5 at the time . . . worst feeling in the world . .. then the power would go out and quiet. Hate feeling so helpless against Mother Nature. :(
When the power comes from above the obstruction, it regenerates the ground-level winds once beyond the obstruction - walking in front of a fan doesn't disrupt the fan, it disrupts the air flow beyond it. Needs to be high enough to disrupt the cell to squash the effects.
Weather events are a good reason to prep.
Yep....as the epic 2009 flood proved.
Let’s talk about tornado warning sirens. My town has to be number one in the whole country for sounding warnings. If a cloud appears on the horizon, a volunteer fire man feels compelled to blow the damn’d thing, as a result, people completely ignore them.
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