Diagnosing the Conditional Probability of Tornado Damage Rating Using Environmental and Radar Attributes

Radar-identified convective modes, peak low-level rotational velocities, and near-storm environmental data were assigned to a sampleof tornadoes reported in the contiguousUnitedStates during 2009–13.The tornado segment data were filtered by the maximum enhanced Fujita (EF)-scale tornado event per hour using a 40-km horizontal grid. Convectivemodewas assigned to each tornado event by examining full volumetricWeather SurveillanceRadar-1988 Doppler data at the beginning time of each event, and 0.58 peak rotational velocity (Vrot) data were identified manually during the life span of each tornado event. Environmental information accompanied each grid-hour event, consistingprimarily of supercell-related convectiveparameters from thehourly objectivemesoscale analyses calculated andarchived at theStormPredictionCenter.Results fromexaminingenvironmental and radar attributes, featuring the significant tornado parameter (STP) and 0.58 peak Vrot data, suggest an increasing conditional probability for greater EF-scale damage as both STP and 0.58 peak Vrot increase, especially with supercells. Possible applications of these findings include using the conditional probability of tornado intensity as a real-time situational awareness tool.