Tornadoes
Tornadoes are capable of causing widespread destruction within minutes, often with little warning. The unpredictability of tornado paths and the localized nature of their impact make them particularly difficult to model and anticipate, leading to significant challenges in emergency response and disaster preparedness.
Understanding tornado hazard at a national scale enables you to anticipate and mitigate potential threats to the built environment and community. Proactive risk management based on accurate hazard probability estimates safeguards physical assets and ensures sustainable development in the face of evolving environmental challenges. The UrbanFootprint Tornado Wind Risk Model enables you to assess localized tornado wind risk across the United States for all tornado magnitudes on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale on an H3 zoom level 4 grid.
We use historical tornado occurrences from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Events Database to estimate probabilities of exceedance for a given tornado magnitude. The probability of exceedance can be estimated as the ratio of the tornado impact area and the total location area divided by the number of years on the historical record. We apply area corrections to account for the wind speeds decreasing as you move farther away from the center (Standohar-Alfano & van de Lindt (2014)). Finally, we use a Bayesian correction to estimate probabilities of high-intensity, low-probability events.
This model can be used to estimate the probability that a parcel will be impacted by a tornado in a single year. This can also be converted to a rate of tornado hits per year, enabling you to identify the potential risk over a number of years.
Availability: Location Insights | Climate & Hazard Insights