Abstract:
Knowledge of the climatological threat of severe weather is important to a wide range of risk-related interests, particularly those in the emergency preparedness and insurance communities. We have applied spatial and temporal smoothers to the tornado dataset from The Tornado Project from 1921-1995 to estimate the daily climatological probability of an F2 or more damaging tornado occurring near any location in the United States. Based upon our data set, the greatest threat for strong and violent tornadoes occurs in early May in central and southern Oklahoma. We estimate that there are almost 40 days per century with strong or violent tornadoes touching down within 25 miles of any point in that region. These results are part of an effort to estabilsh an accessible database with climatological threats of severe weather for every location in the country for every day of the year.
Paper available upon request.