MAY 15, 2017
I finally got a portion of my dissertation (on the impact of ENSO on winter and early spring tornado outbreaks, read here!) accepted for publication in a major journal. The paper essentially diagnoses the relationship between ENSO and the character (intensity, frequency, and location) of tornado outbreaks from January through April.
Generally speaking, La Niña tends to foster increased tornado activity in those months, with stronger and longer-lived tornadoes occurring at farther inland areas. El Niño tornado activity tends to occur at farther south latitudes in each of the months, with a signal for increased activity in February in Florida and in the southern Plains in April. Several metrics for assessing tornado outbreak variability are included in the paper as well as principal components analyses of several atmospheric fields related to those outbreaks. The statistical approaches present some interesting possibilities for furthering statistical approaches to forecasting tornado outbreaks at longer lead times – research that I am continuing to undertake. For more information, have a look at the paper from AMS journals located here or contact me for further questions.
In the meantime, to check out a copy of slides describing this work that I presented as part of Ariel Cohen’s “Applications of Theory to Severe Storms Forecasting” class, follow this link.