Uncertainty exists concerning the links between synoptic-scale processes and tornado outbreaks. With continuously improving computer technology, a large number of high-resolution model simulations can be conducted to study these outbreaks to the storm scale, to determine the degree to which synoptic-scale processes appear to influence the occurrence of tornado outbreaks, and to determine how fa...

In 2011, thunderstorms in the United States resulted in 550 deaths from tornadoes and more than $28 billion in property damage, according to data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with the vast majority of economic losses resulting from tornadoes. This article normalizes U.S. tornado damage from 1950 to 2011, using several methods. A normalization provides an estimate...

A gridded, hourly, three-dimensional environmental mesoanalysis database at the Storm Prediction Center (SPC), based on objectively analyzed surface observations blended with the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model-analysis fields and described in Parts I and II of this series, is applied to a 2003–11 subset of the SPC tropical cyclone (TC) tornado records. Distributions of environmental convective ...

Several attempts to improve the F-scale and its use were made. For example, Fujita began to move toward a rating matrix based on types of construction (Fujita 1992). Following on this work by Fujita, Sills et al. (2004) developed an F-scale rating matrix with 20 DIs that was used both operationally and to generate an updated 19802009 tornado climatology for Canada (Sills et al. 2012). However, ...

Stand-replacing natural disturbances in mature forests are traditionally seen as events that cause forests to revert to early stages of succession and maintain species diversity. In some cases, however, such transitions could be an artifact of salvage logging and may increase biotic homogenization. We present initial (two-year) results of a study of the effects of tornado damage and the combine...

Extreme weather August 2005 Tulane University, United States Closed for 4 months as a result of Hurricane Katrina April 2011 University of Alabama, United States School called off for the rest of the school year due to tornado March 11, 2011 Northeastern Japan 7,735 school buildings damaged or destroyed February 2011 Queensland, Australia More than 60 schools across north and far north Queensla...

The control and stability derivatives of Yardstik to be used for simulation are generated using the Tornado software. Tornado is a 3-D vortex lattice program written in Matlab environment which makes use of the vortex lattice method for obtaining the forces and moment acting on the aerodynamic surfaces [2]. From these forces and moment generated, we are able to obtain the stability and control ...