Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Is the threat of tornadoes really growing?

1. As per usual, the Daily Green tries again today to panic us about global warming. This time it's about the alleged "dramatic increase" in tornadoes.

2. Here's some real data (click to enlarge):

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This graph shows tornado fatalities, not the incidence or severity of tornados. Those would be more interesting graphs!

Unknown said...

In fact, tornado fatalities (especially as indicated in the dramatic drop in the graph) is much more likely to correlate to building codes and warning times. The tornado fatality graph merely indicates that we shouldn't be worried about a crisis in terms of increased death toll.

At the same time, graphs showing an increase in the incidence of tornadoes (which I would expect) could merely indicate better radar, reporting (far more storm chasers, pocket sized, take-them-everywhere-you-go digital cameras, etc.), and similar factors.

BMAONE23 said...

I would have to agree that the dramatic drop in deaths is not indicative of fewer tornados but rather better protection and greater lead time warnings that in the past. Where is the data on tornado frequency?