With the onset of the Autumnal Equinox today at 21:18 UTC, the severe weather season winds down. I reported earlier on the finding of Ryan Maue, who showed that we’ve reached a 30 year low in Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) which is a measure of global hurricane activity.
Now it appears the 2009 tornado season is significantly lower as well, which is a very, very, good thing. The actual number of tornadoes so far this year is only 850 compared to the previous three years, all above 1000. 2008 saw 1691 tornadoes in the USA, almost double. The three year average is 1297 tornadoes. Tornado related deaths are also way down with only 21 so far this year compared to 126 last year and a 3 year average of 91.
Going from last year’s La Niña to a weak/fading El Niño this year had more of an impact on this than any measure of global warming in the USA because as we’ve seen from the NCDC announcements this year, we had a cool summer despite supposedly record sea surface temperatures. Our quiet sun may also be a factor.
Source: http://www.spc.ncep.noaa.gov/wcm/
It seems that we are well below last year, and close to 2005/2006 values.
Here’s the 2009 tornado map from NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center.
And as bar chart form:
Tabular form data is below. Note that the actual number of tornadoes this year is only 850 compared to the previous three years, all above 1000. The three year average is 1297 tornadoes.
While we may yet see that number increase, historically there has been little increase in numbers after September.
2006 through 2009 Tornado Totals
ZCZC STAMTS ALL
NWUS21 KWNS 211346
TORNADO TOTALS AND RELATED DEATHS...THROUGH SUN SEP 20 2009
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0846 AM CDT MON SEP 21 2009
...NUMBER OF TORNADOES... NUMBER OF KILLER
TORNADO DEATHS TORNADOES
..2009.. 2008 2007 2006 3YR 3YR 3YR
PREL ACT ACT ACT ACT AV 09 08 07 06 AV 09 08 07 06 AV
JAN 10 6 84 21 47 51 0 7 2 1 3 0 4 1 1 2
FEB 44 36 147 52 12 70 9 59 22 0 27 2 12 3 0 5
MAR 123 115 129 170 147 149 0 4 27 11 14 0 3 10 7 7
APR 270 226 189 167 244 200 6 0 9 38 16 3 0 3 9 4
MAY 227 199 461 252 139 284 6 44 14 3 20 4 10 4 1 5
JUN 299 268 294 128 120 181 0 7 0 0 2 0 4 0 0 1
JUL 134 - 93 69 70 77 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
AUG 63 - 101 75 80 85 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1
SEP 7 - 111 52 84 82 0 2 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1
OCT - - 21 86 76 61 - 0 5 0 2 - 0 3 0 1
NOV - - 15 7 42 21 - 2 0 10 4 - 2 0 3 2
DEC - - 46 19 42 36 - 0 1 2 1 - 0 1 2 1
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
SUM 1177 850 1691 1098 1103 1297 21 126 81 67 91 9 37 26 25 29
PREL = 2009 PRELIMINARY COUNT FROM NWS LOCAL STORM REPORTS.
ACT = ACTUAL TORNADO COUNT BASED ON NWS STORM DATA SUBMISSIONS.
TORNADO-RELATED FATALITY NUMBERS ARE ENTERED WHEN CONFIRMED BY NWS
FORECAST OFFICES.
..CARBIN..09/21/2009
2009 Deadly Tornadoes
ZCZC STATIJ ALL
NWUS23 KWNS 211359
2009 PRELIMINARY KILLER TORNADOES
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0859 AM CDT MON SEP 21 2009
TIME
## DATE CST LOCATION DEATHS A B C D WATCH EF CIRCUMSTANCE
-- ------ ---- ----------- ------ - - - - ----- -- ------------
01 FEB 10 1930 CARTER CO. OK 8 8 0 0 0 WT008 EF4 06M 01H 01V
02 FEB 18 2140 HANCOCK CO. GA 1 1 0 0 0 WT025 EF3 01M
03 APR 09 1910 POLK CO. AR 3 3 0 0 0 WT125 EF3 02H 01P
04 APR 10 1145 RUTHERFORD CO. TN 2 2 0 0 0 WT132 EF4 02H
05 APR 19 1835 MARSHALL CO. AL 1 0 1 0 0 WS174 EF1 01M
06 MAY 08 0727 DALLAS CO. MO 1 0 1 0 0 WS266 EF2 01H
07 MAY 08 1504 MADISON CO. KY 2 0 2 0 0 WS268 EF3 02M
08 MAY 13 1630 SULLIVAN CO. MO 1 1 0 0 0 WT293 EF1 01M
09 MAY 13 1710 ADAIR CO. MO 2 2 0 0 0 WT293 EF2 02H
___ ___ _ _ _
TOTALS: 21 17 4 0 0
FATALITIES BY STATE:
AL01 AR03 GA01 KY02 MO04 OK08 TN02
FATALITIES BY CIRCUMSTANCE:
08H 11M 01P 01V
A = IN TORNADO WATCH
B = IN SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH
C = CLOSE TO THE WATCH /15 MINUTES OR 25 MILES/
D = NO WATCH IN EFFECT
H = HOUSE
M = MOBILE HOME
O = OUTDOORS
P = PERMANENT BUILDING/STRUCTURE
V = VEHICLE
? = UNKNOWN
WS = SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH /NUMBER/
WT = TORNADO WATCH /NUMBER/
EF = ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE RATING
..CARBIN..09/21/2009
Data from the Storm Prediction Center.
OT, but due to wind, many commenters appear to blame AGW;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/sydney-turns-red-dust-storm-blankets-city-20090923-g0so.html
Sad.
“With the onset of the Autumnal Equinox today at 21:18 UTC, the severe weather season winds down.”
“La Niña and a weak/fading El Niño had more of an impact on this than any measure of global warming in the USA because as we’ve seen from the NCDC announcements this year.”
Uh… this really makes no sense. First of all the the severe weather season in the US occurs during spring and early summer (April – June) not September, so the severe weather season “wound down” quite some time ago.
Also, during the peak severe weather season this year, neither La Nina or El Nino were present… and if you think La Nina was responsible for a lack of severe weather this year, then how do you explain the active 2008 season that coincided with the La Nina that year?
REPLY: You’re right the language on ENSO was unclear. I’ve edited to make the point clearer. As for the “wound down” versus “winds down” I think you are splitting hairs, mainly because you like playing gotcha. The only point being made (and stated later in the article) is that there’s little severe weather after September and the shift from summer to fall (today) heralds in a change in how we view the weather patterns. I’m fully well aware of when the most severe weather occurs having reported on it for many many years. Its also quite clear from the NOAA graph I cited. Would you make the same complaint if I said that once we passed the spring equinox in March we can expect severe weather to “wind up”? Probably not, but the use as a convenient point of calendar reference for a broad audience is the same. That’s all I was referring to. -A
Fantastic weather this year. The lack of heat and “lift’ of rising air sure was easy to notice. We had a different weather pattern but the climate didn’t change. a tad cooler is all. We had some hot days but dozens of days we fell 10 degrees or more short of the forecast high.
Light duty tornado season this year, eh? Well I sure didn’t hear about it from the MSM. Heard enough breathless reporting on Hurricane Bill, “The Bust” though.
Patrick, the amazing dust storm that has hit Sydney is the first event of this type for about 70 years and probably the first in most peoples’ lifetime. Despite the fact that climate has been constantly changing on the planet for 4.5 billion years the global warming fraternity and the media will leap on this phenomena as if it is the start of the CO2 induced apocalypse.
Yes it is sad, just pray for some Danish blizzards come December.
Well, one could argue that the incidence of severe weather is down because the globe is cooling, which according to CAGW predictions should lower storm frequency and intensity. Of course one would also be admitting to a current downtrend in temps (despite an uptrend in carbon dioxide), which means it isn’t “worse than we thought” after all. Dang, it’s getting harder and harder to keep the party line straight! 🙂
I think a certain guy is getting painted in to a corner….
Anybody notice that over half of the deaths were in mobile homes? When I was in DOD weather forecasters school we jokingly called mobile home parks “tornado magnets.” If I lived in the Midwest I would *never* live in a mobile home/manufactured home, and I would insist that the home I bought had either a basement or a storm shelter.
I don’t know why state officials don’t require that owners of mobile home parks provide storm shelters so that no home is more than 150′ from a shelter. A home owner can build a storm shelter and if he doesn’t that’s his problem, but a tenant doesn’t have that right.
[snip – sorry way off topic – swine flu and tornadoes don’t go together]
Adam, here in Alabama we have usually 2 severe weather seasons. Spring early Summer and Fall. Not saying that that is the status nation wide but that is what it is in Alabama. So for us The Secondary severe weather season will not wind down until November. Check with the folks on the ABC33.40 weather blog I’m sure they would be glad to furnish you with the information.
http://www.alabamawx.com/
This year has been for us a light year in the tornado activity but if you look at the map you will see that we have had our share of those storms.
Bill Derryberry
NE Alabama
FISH FOOD! Yep folks. Be prepared for a return of Australia ocean fish. That red dust has Iron in it. A vital component for a return of good fishing. The onset of dust into the oceans heralds the return of salmon and other fish that feed on plankton and crustaceans. You are lucky to have it.
Whenever Africa blows its soil into the Atlantic, fish return. Same for Alaska and California. So the dust storms in Australia could also signal the beginning of the return.
“REPLY: You’re right the language on ENSO was unclear. I’ve edited to make the point clearer. As for the “wound down” versus “winds down” I think you are splitting hairs, mainly because you like playing gotcha. The only point being made (and stated later in the article) is that there’s little severe weather after September and the shift from summer to fall (today) heralds in a change in how we view the weather patterns. I’m fully well aware of when the most severe weather occurs having reported on it for many many years. Its also quite clear from the NOAA graph I cited. Would you make the same complaint if I said that once we passed the spring equinox in March we can expect severe weather to “wind up”? Probably not, but the use as a convenient point of calendar reference for a broad audience is the same. That’s all I was referring to. -A”
Anthony,
Fair enough if you intended the equinox to be a “point of reference”… However, since you asked… I would not have complained if you had stated after spring equinox severe weather should be expected to “wind up”. Look at the graph you cite! It does wind up! However, from the same graph, there is no noticeable change in September. And so what about “splitting hairs”? You don’t consider a post devoted to every single kink in ice extend time series “splitting hairs”?
REPLY: Uh no, I call it reporting. There’s many people interested in it. In fact the one I did on the crossing the 2005 line got over 10,000 page views. – A
I’ve driven through a dust storm a few months back while driving from Sydney to Melbourne. It was the first event of it’s kind for me, and my wife and I drove for about 70kms before we were past it. It reminded me of driving in thick fog in the UK.
But it is a strange sight, fine red dust everywhere, even on my car this morning, which is garaged overnight. Last night we had a terrific storm, quite awsome (And I tried to get some pictures of the lightening LOL).
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-collapse-or-survive-the-stark-choice-facing-our-species-1791641.html
The hysteria is coming to a crescendo. This is getting both pathetic and ridiculous. And frankly… scary – that somebody with such reach can possibly think it is SANE to write such about the subject with such fear.
The Sun seems to be stirring. It’s kinda like watching a young teenager get its first two zits at the same time. I had to bite my lip till it bled when my three kids got their first poppers and acted like the world was ending. I would sooth their troubled souls and then tell them, between controlled lips, that I was going to take a quick trip to the store to get acne medicine, just so that I could get out of the house and let go of my peals of laughter! I know that sounds cruel but I didn’t have zits as a teenager. But God got me back for my cruelty. I had to wait till I was in my 40’s for this pleasurable experience! Now my boyfriend calls me cyclops when I get one between my eyes, and Glenda the Witch when I get one on my nose. And Warty when I get two at at time. So the Sun is a bit Warty.
It is nice to be well beyond the peak hurricane season, and realize that a major contributor to volatility in energy markets, and prices of my oil stocks is declining.
Perhaps this is a bit off topic, but John Isaacs, who was a great oceanographer, was nonetheless trying to pedal in the 1970s an idea that increasing numbers of tornadoes from the 1960s onward, was the result of “vorticity pollution”. This referred to the vorticity expelled into the atmosphere from ventillators and automobiles in North America passing one another port-to-port. I suppose this just goes to show that even very smart folks just don’t think everything through carefully.
That is a new concept for me. I had to google it and learn a bit more about the equation and its various applications in fluid dynamics. That John Isaacs applied it to the curling air coming off the frame of autos and out of ventilators developing into tornadic activity is, in more simple terms, referred to as the butterfly affect. Quite a jump to tornadoes, but it has been proposed by others, albeit mostly tongue in cheek. I think it is more likely that Al Gore could cause a tornado from the vorticity pollution coming from his mouth.
Pamela Gray (20:30:48) : You wrote: “. . . in more simple terms, referred to as the butterfly affect.”
For entertainment try this Ray Bradbury story:
http://www.scaryforkids.com/a-sound-of-thunder/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling, “No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!”
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.
“Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels.
Ray Bradbury in Collier’s magazine, 1952
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A little background here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
and on the author here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury
Hmmm… We have less tornadoes and mild hurricanes and Canada gets frozen:
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/press-releases/2009/08/30/cold-for-canada-warns-canadian-farmers-almanac
The Canadian Farmers Almanac is predicting a Cold One (and not the good kind of ‘cold one’ either…)
Any pattern shaping up in the Alaska / Northwest Territories for a Canada Express in our future? Just having a bad memory of about 40 years ago when we had some cold that took out the less cold tolerant trees in the area. (I’ve planted a couple of avocados even though we are just a little “on to too cold side” based on a neighbor having a productive tree that’s about 20 years old. I fear we may find out what the PDO means for Avocado survival in the south San Francisco bay area…)
It didn’t take long, but the scare campaign has started;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/dust-storm-unclear-if-climate-change-to-blame-20090923-g28g.html
Pathetic.
Pamela Gray (19:43:30) :
Pamela,
Wasn’t there an idea floating around about seeding the ocean with iron pellets or dust? If I remember correctly, ships loaded with iron dust of some form moving across areas of the ocean, spreading their contents to induce the growth of plankton. Targeted were regions that, other than the lack of iron, were ideal for plankton growth?
Why, come to think of it, this would encourage the sequestration of CO2 in the exoskeletons of the diatoms resulting from the seeding operations. Imagine, hundreds, if not thousands, of square miles of ocean surface turned into huge organic solar energy panels.
At least The Australian newspaper (known for being somewhat rational when it comes to climate reporting … most of the time) has a fun little poll in response to all the sensationalist reporting about the Sydney dust storm in the other papers/tabloids:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22073824-5013404,00.html
I was certainly thinking the dust storm was a sign from the gods… the seals are broken… apocalypse is now! Pay your carbon taxes or perish! See? Even the sun is getting spotty again… it’s all happening now!
I hope it doesn’t rain frogs somewhere before Copenhagen or we’re all screwed…
Repy: Funny ~ctm
Obama called co2 pollution in his speech to the world.
King of Cool: “the amazing dust storm that has hit Sydney is the first event of this type for about 70 years and probably the first in most peoples’ lifetime.”
Some of us remember the Melbourne dust storm of 1983 late in the severe El Nino drought. And there was another back in the 60s, not quite so severe. There’s some great pix if you Google images “Melbourne dust storm 1983”.
It’s worth noting that the Sydney dust storm of 70 years ago (1939) was before AGW.
Current afairs program TodayTonight on channel 7 tonight here in Australia is attributing this dust storm to AGW. No ifs, butts or ands. AGW caused this storm, drought and heatwaves. Absolutely unbelieveable.
I chase and photograph storms as a hobby and it has been a very unproductive year on the Great Plains. This is somewhat reflected in the tornado count, but the overall storm structure has been weaker and more outflow-dominant this year as well, likely due to the lower surface temperatures.
By the way, the peak Kansas/Oklahoma tornado potential is in May-June with a second peak in September, based on my experience, so Anthony’s statements aren’t far off base depending on what region you are looking at.
This is just so not true. I saw one just like this as a five year old in the fifties, and I have seen them at intervals ever since. That’s in Qld, but these dust storms are half a continent wide. My wife from India was taught about Australian ‘tomato soupers’ in school there, so this is one heck of a case of collective amnesia.
Here in Brazil, tornadoes occurred in September. One site, MetSul predicted accurately in severe weather in August that we would face without citing any time in the ridiculous AGW. However, the mainstream media, which did not warn anyone, so say that AGW is bringing tornadoes to Brazil. But just uninformed and ill-intentioned, do not report that northern Argentina and southern Brazil are the second largest area of tornadoes in the world.
Excuse my English
To Bill in Vigo – I’m in East Texas, and agree completely about the secondary severe weather peak in the late fall. The most devastating tornado that I’ve personally seen the effects of happend the second week of November.
Hre’s a fascinating frequency map I found – that secondary severe weather peak seems to be focused on the Gulf Coast states (east texas is much more like Louisiana than it is like the rest of Texas) I’d make a qualified guess that it’s caused by warm, wet air circulating up from the gulf and hitting arctic air masses coming down from the plains.
http://z.about.com/d/weather/1/0/i/-/-/-/tornadostatepeaks.jpg
Adam, maybe you can explain this effect to those thousands of people who lost power and a few more who lost their homes (presented on TV news last night) a couple of evenings ago due to high Thunderstorm winds in and south of Ft. Worth Texas as I am sure they would like to see the effects ‘ undone’ if at all possible.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6631112.html
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3498007
.
.
Very exciting! Last year was a horrible year for NE and IA for tornadoes. My house was hit twice by a measly F1 – still scared the crap out of me and had me huddled in my downstairs shower. No problems this year. If this is global warming, I say bring it!
John Mackie – I wouldn’t worry about the Independent newspaper – its going to close by Christmas according to Denis O’Brien (the 2nd largest shareholder in the media group that owns the titles). Quotes include:
“There’s no point in us as a company subsidising a newspaper that really nobody wants to read in the United Kingdom,”
“It’s not a relevant newspaper anymore and this newspaper’s going to be closed by Christmas,”
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSLI32052720090918?sp=true
For those not familiar with the UK newspaper industry, the Independent is the most hysterical on issues of climate change in the last few years. It has also lost more customers (as a percentage) than other papers. It fell by 18% in actual sales in August 2009 from August 2008 and is now selling less than 150,000 a day, less than half its nearest competitor. You could speculate as to a correlation between the hysteria and sales total…
OT, but what’s up with the current large ‘spike’ at COI (http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php ) ? Still well below freezing, so no apparent big deal, and certainly not unprecedented…just curious if attributable at all to local measurement biases/instrument problems.
All that australian dust is from La Nina´s make up.
timetochooseagain
MartinGAtkins (12:56:57) : Short term ACE in the Atlantic depends on ENSO conditions (evidently in the opposite way as the Pacific does, but then, the two basins are tightly link as far as activity goes. HOWEVER if you look at the long term ACE data, which is admittedly uncertain, in DOES look a bit like the AMO, with a lot of noise.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_4CE_Hurricanes_files/image017.gif
The problem with plotting data is we are viewing things on a two dimensional plane and adding the fourth dimension.
With graphs it’s often we hope to make superficial correlations using our intuition. As you point out we are observing an object that encompasses all four dimension. I hope you understand that my original post was just a mischievous preempting of any such notions.
However you post led me to some data diving. You could see that although there appeared to be a good correlation it was noisy until later in the graph and then seemed to settle into a pattern.
So approaching this from a technical point of view rather than a fundamental view I ran up some charts.
This first one is the same plot you posted but I did it for myself to ensure no shifting by the original author.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/No-Atl-ACE-1.jpg
It looks good but perhaps that’s what we want to see.
If we split them up it becomes less than convincing.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/split.jpg
I think with the tools used here we can see that a small correlation doesn’t lead us to the overarching conclusion that the AMO is a proxy for Atlantic cyclones.
Kevin Kilty (20:16:30) :
I have some very vague memories of that effect. IIRC, it was taken quite seriously at the time.
DaveE.
Bulldust (00:30:31) :
I borrowed a friends postcode & voted fire & brimstone which turns out to be the leading contender 😉
DaveE.
John F. Hultquist said:
“Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling, “No, it can’t be. Not a little thing like that. No!”
Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.
“Not a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!” cried Eckels.
Ray Bradbury in Collier’s magazine, 1952”
——————————————-
It’s been decades since I read that story but just that paragraph you quoted brought it all back. Thanks.
XKCD may have found the reduction in tornadoes is the work of man. One man.
http://xkcd.com/640/ (CC-A/NC)
I live in north Texas. It and Oklahoma are the heart of tornado alley. Tornados happen more often here than anywhere else in the world. We had one go through our county and another suspected one (a rotating storm) come through. But the season was so slacking that many a storm chaser team went home empty-handed. And they were disappointed. Well, that’s because they don’t live here, they live in Colorado. If you want to know the magnficence and beauty of a tornado and talk about how wonderful it is, go to Lone Grove, Oklahoma. They were wiped off the map in February of this year. And you will get that beatific smile slapped off your face. Tornados destroy property and kill people. Around here, we’re not impressed with the majesty of it. We’re scrambling for cover and kissing our butts godbye. So I, for one, am glad that we had a low count tornado season. Secondary benefit is that it proves another AGW prediction wrong. Besides, warming is not the only factor in tornados. If anyone know half as much as I know about tornados, even though I am a layman in that regard, they would not be blaming it on CO2 emissions. My god, an 8th grader could poke holes in that theory.