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.
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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.