140 likes | 246 Views
TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL VARIATION ANALYSIS OF TORNADO TOUCHDOWNS. Environmental Applications of GIS GEOG:5650 . Nitin Katiyar. Introduction.
E N D
TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL VARIATION ANALYSIS OF TORNADO TOUCHDOWNS Environmental Applications of GIS GEOG:5650 Nitin Katiyar
Introduction • What is a Tornado: According to the Glossary of Meteorology (AMS 2000), a tornado is "a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud." • How do tornado form: Classic answer – “Worm moist Gulf air meets cold Canadian air and dry air from the Rockies”
Tornadoes Common Areas (TCA) • 20 States Selected
Tornadoes in TCA for 1961-1990 • Area: 40.8 % Tornadoes: 75.6 %
Tornadoes in Tennessee for 1961-1990 • Area: 1.3 % Tornadoes: 1.5 %
Temporal variation of Tornadoes in TCA (21 Jun – 22 Sep) (21 Mar – 20 Jun) (23 Sep – 20 Dec) (21 Dec – 20 Mar)
Temporal variation of Tornadoes in Tennessee (21 Mar – 20 Jun) (21 Jun – 22 Sep) (21 Dec – 20 Mar) (23 Sep – 20 Dec)
Conclusion • Tornadoes more concentrated on the Southeastern and Central part of US. 20 States covering only 40% of the total area gets 75% of the tornadoes. • In Tennessee Western and Central part gets more tornadoes than Eastern parts. • Overall trend shows that number of tornadoes increasing over the years. • In contrary to the trend in whole US. TCA gets more tornadoes in Spring than rest of the year. • Tennessee gets about 2/3 of the total tornadoes in Spring.
References • Tornado data http://gis.unc.edu/data/ • Tornado Alley http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/images/tornado_alley.jpg • Tornado Tracks Information • http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/gis/datafinder/index.html?individual_datalayer_details=1&data_layer_id=103 • http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/cdrom/climatls2/datadoc.html#TORN47