The United States has the largest number of tornadoes of any country in the world. More than 1000 tornadoes are reported each year on average across the country. The public has the notion that tornadoes cause more fatalities than most other weather events. However, during the last 30 years, more people have drowned in floods (an average of 140 per year) and killed by lightning (an annual average of 81) than by tornadoes (a yearly average of 69 fatalities).
Tornado statistics have been compiled for more than a century. However, statistics from the entire country are only reliable since 1950, when the predecessor the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) at Norman, OK began research into tornadoes. This center routinely posts an updated SPC Monthly Statistics list of the total number of tornadoes and tornado fatalities for the last several years. Identifying the number of tornadoes is not an easy task. Preliminary statistics (PRELIM) are based upon numbers that have been obtained from the Local Storm Reports submitted by the National Weather Service Offices within hours after a tornado has been reported. A list of final statistics (FINAL) concerning the number of reported tornadoes is prepared following the checking and verification of more detailed information. The final numbers may vary considerably from the preliminary list. A killer tornado is, by definition, a tornado that has caused at least one fatality.
Inspection of the most recent list (valid through last Friday, 16 April 1999) reveals that during the first three and one half months of 1999, roughly 328 tornadoes have been reported across the United States. A record number (169) of tornadoes occurred during the month of January, which was roughly three times the previous record. However, the atmospheric circulation regime produced less than 20 tornadoes during each of the next two months of February and March. During the first two weeks of April, roughly 122 tornadoes were reported in several severe weather outbreaks that occurred across the country. As of last Friday, 36 people have lost their lives in 16 killer tornadoes.
A record number of tornadoes (1389) were reported last year. After years of relatively few tornado-related deaths, 1998 also saw the largest number of fatalities (129) since 1974 when 366 people lost their lives during a year that had a memorable tornado outbreak on 3-4 April.
Other tornado and severe weather information can be obtained from http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~spc/products/svrstats.html
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Prepared by Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 1999, The American Meteorological
Society.