Abstract
Storm reports show an upward trend in the power of tornadoes. Quantifying the magnitude of the increase is difficult given diurnal and seasonal influences on tornadoes embedded within natural variations and made worse by changes in practices for rating damage. Here the authors solve this problem by fitting a statistical model to a metric of tornado power during the period 1994–2016. They find an increase of 5.5% [(4.6, 6.5%), 95% CI] per year in power controlling for the diurnal cycle, seasonality, natural climate variability, and the switch to a new damage scale. A portion of the trend is attributed to long‐term changes in convective storm environments involving dynamic and thermodynamic variables and their interactions. Increasing power is occurring in environments where the effect of convective available potential energy is enhanced by increasing vertical wind shear. However, a majority of the trend is not attributable to changes in storm environments.
Tyler Fricker
Assistant Professor of Geography
I am an environmental geographer and climatologist who focuses on applied climatology and human-environment interaction through the study of natural hazards using computational and statistical methods.