AOTW: More on January Tornadoes

Posted by on 21 Jan 2011 | 5 comments

The answers to this week’s “Question of the Week” might surprise some of you. But first, here are the graphs that answer these questions

Here is a chloropleth map of January tornadoes by state:
January Tornado Numbers (By State)

Here is a bar graph showing January tornado counts by state, ordered from most to least:
January Tornado Numbers (By State)

Keeping the states in descending order of most January tornadoes to fewest tornadoes, here is a bar graph depicting the number of injures by state:
January Tornado Injuries (By State)

And, once again, keeping the states in descending order of most January tornadoes to fewest tornadoes, here is a bar graph depicting the number of fatalities by state:
January Tornado Fatalities (By State)

And even though this plot is a bit crowded, here is a bar chart that combines the three previous charts into one:
January Tornado Stats (By State)

Could you figure out the answers? Well, if not, here they are:

  1. Which state(s) had the most January tornadoes?
    • Florida (151)

  2. Which state(s) had the most January tornado injuries?
    • Mississippi (580)

  3. Which state(s) had the most January tornado fatalities?
    • Mississippi (42)

  4. Which state(s) had the most injuries per tornado?
    • Deleware (7 per tornado)

  5. Which state(s) had the most fatalities per tornado?
    • Oklahoma (0.62 per tornado)

And here are the raw numbers,


State, Tornadoes, Injuries, Fatalities, IPT*, FPT**
AL, 89, 294, 19, 3.30, 0.21
AR, 117, 218, 13, 1.86, 0.11
AZ, 6, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
CA, 39, 3, 0, 0.07, 0.00
DE, 1, 7, 0, 7.00, 0.00
FL, 151, 259, 5, 1.71, 0.03
GA, 91, 130, 5, 1.42, 0.05
HI, 6, 4, 0, 0.66, 0.00
IA, 13, 11, 1, 0.84, 0.07
IL, 28, 140, 1, 5.00, 0.03
IN, 17, 7, 3, 0.41, 0.17
KS, 3, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
KY, 24, 39, 4, 1.62, 0.16
LA, 123, 142, 10, 1.15, 0.08
MD, 3, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
MI, 1, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
MO, 77, 276, 8, 3.58, 0.10
MS, 127, 580, 42, 4.56, 0.33
NC, 24, 50, 1, 2.08, 0.04
NE, 6, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
NV, 1, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
OH, 6, 3, 0, 0.50, 0.00
OK, 16, 32, 10, 2.00, 0.62
OR, 1, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
PA, 6, 18, 0, 3.00, 0.00
SC, 26, 44, 0, 1.69, 0.00
TN, 48, 210, 14, 4.37, 0.29
TX, 139, 73, 2, 0.52, 0.01
UT, 1, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
VA, 13, 14, 1, 1.07, 0.07
WA, 3, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00
WI, 3, 5, 0, 1.66, 0.00
WV, 2, 0, 0, 0.00, 0.00

*IPT = Injuries Per Tornado
**FPT = Fatalities Per Tornado

  • Bobby Parker

    Patrick, Are two conclusions that could be drawn from the data that shows even though OK only had 16 tornadoes (15th highest on the list), we had the most deaths per tornado (.62) 1. Poor warning times, I know the tornado in Adair county a couple of weeks ago had a very short lead / warning time. (According to a local TV Meteorologist, storms this time of year develop very quickly and produce tornadoes in slightly different conditions than the Springtime super cell storms we are use too. He said more these winter storms are more closely related to the cells that produce tornadoes formed in Hurricane bands) 2. Types of Structures damaged… again the most significant damage reported in Adair CO involved mobile homes and farm structures such as barns. Be interested to see if additional data i.e. warning times and death locations supported these conclusions. Just some thoughts from a local EM…

  • http://www.kait8.com Ryan Vaughan

    Delaware. Didn’t see that coming. Makes sense then…

  • http://www.zorm.org Zac Flamig

    California’s number of tornadoes really surprises me! I generally don’t think of CA as having many tornadoes to begin with nonetheless a whole bunch in January. Is there a reason for that? I know the winter months are the raining season out there but I believe most of those are just that rain only events.

    The number of injuries california has is also a bit surprising as I would expect it to be higher. I wonder if that is due to a combination of having generally weaker tornadoes striking generally wealthier areas leading to few injuries?

  • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

    Hi Bobby,

    Sorry for the delay in responding; it’s been a busy few days. I definitely agree with your statement about structures that are hit. That will make a huge impact. More specifically to the Oklahoma case, all 10 fatalities were the result of a single, F4 tornado at 6:45 AM CST on 22 January 1957. In 1957 there were no official warnings and lead time was always an issue with tornadoes. Couple this with a tornado early in the morning, you probably did have a population that was even more unaware of the danger than normal for 1957!

    Being from Fort Smith area, I can take a guess as to who might be your source about winter time tornadoes. Wintertime tornadoes tend to develop in a region where we have a lot of shear and not a lot of instability. Additionally, wintertime tornadoes tend to move extremely fast, because the wind speeds aloft (which are a function of the horizontal temperature gradient at the surface) tends to be much faster during the winter. So, we get fast moving, strongly rotating storms that don’t always look that impressive on a reflectivity radar image. Not a good situation.

  • http://www.patricktmarsh.com pmarshwx

    Hi Zac,

    Based on the location of most of the tornado reports, these are almost all the result of waterspouts moving ashore. Since most waterspouts don’t persist far inland, the ability for them to produce injuries is fairly limited. I’m also sure that waterspouts are one of the reasons why Hillsborough County in Florida (just east of Tampa Bay) has such a high number of tornadoes. In fact, just today with the squall line that moved through a waterspout was reported over Tampa Bay.