2011 HotSpots

[Paul Sherman]

Happy New year To You All and Lets Hope 2011 is as active as 2010 was

Would like to gauge your opinion on the Following 2 Questions, 1 For Maybe a Place Name and The Other a Bit More Seriously With what looks like an odds On La Nina Spring.

2008 Saw Quinter In Kansas Get Hit 4 Times by Tornadoes and 2010 Saw the Unfotunate Yazoo City Hit I think 3 Times in the End, other places over the years have seen Multiple Tornado Strikes Like Norman and Moore.

So what place do you think will be the Hotspot and Unlucky Place in 2011 and on a More Serious Note what General Area likely be affected by the Upcoming La Nina Season.
Am I right in thinking Traditionally Places further North and possibly East of I-35 would be favoured in this Outlook or do you have your own theories.

Regards

Paul Sherman

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Paul, I paste the same thoughts I made in a similar thread some days ago.
As every year I try to find comparison between years by taking a look at the Oni index pattern.

As for the statistical models forecasts we'll have a moderate La Nina condition in 2011. I tried to realize a map with a possible paralelism between 2009-2010-2011 and 1997-1998-1999: I mean, if you look with attention the dynamics of these years, you will find they are very very similiar in terms of Oni pattern and also in terms of outbreaks and periods of tornadoes.
So if 1999 has similarities with 2011 we could expect few and devastating outbreaks in May and a very active June (expecially in NE, SD,ND,IL,TN), many severe weather episodes and tornadoes in the northern Plains.
Infact during June 1999 we had many outbeaks in the northern plains: 1 June; 3 June with 22 tornadoes among NE and ND; 4 June in Ne and SD with many tornadoes in SD and 65 injuries in Shannon, SD; 6 June: 56 tornadoes in ND e IA; 20 June: 3 wedges in ND (200-300 yards of diameter).

 

[Paul Sherman]

Wow Thanks for that Andrea, Just out of Curiosity how close did 2010 come to 1998 then ??

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Wow Thanks for that Andrea, Just out of Curiosity how close did 2010 come to 1998 then ??

I don't know Paul, I'm pretty convinced that both years had some outbreaks in SD and ND in late may, some outbreaks in Misissipi, Ohio valley, Tennessee valley in April with violent tornadoes, some outbreaks in IA,MN,IL in June. I found many similarities in terms of periods, regions and tornadoes.
This is what I found:

- I remember a late may ( may 29-30-31) tornado outbreaks in South Dakota (included the Spencer,SD monster) while on May 22-24th 2010 we had SD and ND tornado outbreaks.

- On April 6-7-9 1998 we had many other tornadoes in Alabama,Georgia,Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois with the famous Birmingham F5 while on April 8 2010 we had some tornadoes in AL and GA and SC.

- Then on April 15-16 1998 many strong tornadoes were reported across the Mid-Mississippi Valley and southern Ohio Valley in Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, while on April 24 2010 we had a tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys.

-Early june 1998 had an outbreak in the North-East while in june 2010 we had an outbreak in IL, OH,MI

-June 14 1998 had an outbreak in MO,IA,IL.

-June 18 1998 had many tornadoes reported in IA,MN,IL while June 17 2010 had an outbreak in MN.

-both june 23-24 in 2010 and 1998 had Great Lakes region tornadoes.

-june 27 1998 had an outbreak in IA and MN while june 25-26 2010 had 22 tornadoes in IA and MN.

 

[Jeremy Den Hartog]

I'm thinking southern Minnesota will be a hotspot - but then again, I may be a bit biased

In all seriousness though I think the Northern Plains will be active again - in particular in June and July - especially across the Dakotas and Minnesota. So far this winter has been very similar to last winter for Minnesota with a very active December for snow storms. It will be interesting to see if things settle down here in January and beyond like it did last year. Really though at the end of the day I'm just basing what I'm saying on a hunch and I could be completely wrong...

 

[Rob H]

A local TV meteorologist was saying that he did a case study about MN and temperature/snowfall vs. number of tornadoes and found a positive correlation. I'm hearing this second hand, so please chime in if you know more about this. This winter was just like last winter here in MN however, so it might be another good year.

1998 had some similarities, but some major differences too. 98 had a March outbreak in MN and an early April outbreak in IL, and then nothing really until MN/IA outbreak on 5/15. There doesn't appear to be a proper southern plains chase until 5/25 and 6/14, so this pattern is rather different than 2010. Large scale climate trends can affect the general synoptics, but tiny mesoscale features like an outflow boundary being in the right place can sometimes mean the difference between a bust and a major outbreak - so I don't have too much trust in basing anything off La Nina/El Nino.

Pessimism aside, I've said before that I think the Sioux Falls - Sioux City corridor will be the hot area this year and the northern plains will be active again. Nothing really to back it up - this corridor just hasn't seen a lot of tornadoes recently and I have a gut feeling.

 

[Josh VandenTop]

Pessimism aside, I've said before that I think the Sioux Falls - Sioux City corridor will be the hot area this year and the northern plains will be active again. Nothing really to back it up - this corridor just hasn't seen a lot of tornadoes recently and I have a gut feeling.

I hope you're right because that would mean alot of chases close to home for me
personally I have a feeling (nothing really to back it up, just a gut feeling) that the eastern half of South Dakota could be a good area this year come June/July.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

A local TV meteorologist was saying that he did a case study about MN and temperature/snowfall vs. number of tornadoes and found a positive correlation. I'm hearing this second hand, so please chime in if you know more about this. This winter was just like last winter here in MN however, so it might be another good year.

1998 had some similarities, but some major differences too. 98 had a March outbreak in MN and an early April outbreak in IL, and then nothing really until MN/IA outbreak on 5/15. There doesn't appear to be a proper southern plains chase until 5/25 and 6/14, so this pattern is rather different than 2010. Large scale climate trends can affect the general synoptics, but tiny mesoscale features like an outflow boundary being in the right place can sometimes mean the difference between a bust and a major outbreak - so I don't have too much trust in basing anything off La Nina/El Nino.

It's obvious that you don't have to make a systematic paralelism between the two years. You have to read something like a tendency.

By the way March 98 had a little tornado outbreak in the Carolinas in the last decade and March 2010 has a similar outbreak just in the Carolinas.

I don't want to give a too simplistic approach but it's even true that in the past, years with similar ONI patterns had similar tornado seasons and you cannot rule out this element. And I think this is very important for long term forecasts, even if it's not sufficient alone.

 

[Rob H]

It's obvious that you don't have to make a systematic paralelism between the two years. You have to read something like a tendency.

By the way March 98 had a little tornado outbreak in the Carolinas in the last decade and March 2010 has a similar outbreak just in the Carolinas.

I don't want to give a too simplistic approach but it's even true that in the past, years with similar ONI patterns had similar tornado seasons and you cannot rule out this element. And I think this is very important for long term forecasts, even if it's not sufficient alone.

It's also true that years with similar patterns have had different tornado seasons - 2000 and 2008 had similar La Nina springs, and a slightly cooler summer - and were very different years in terms of tornadic events. Aside from planning a chasecation, how would correlation be important to a long term forecast of tornado events? I'm not asking because I agree or disagree with your assessment. I'm genuinely interested in learning more, as I haven't done much research on climatology and tornado outbreaks.

 

[Jason Foster]

I'd have to do more reading on it, but I'd also be interested in keeping an eye on the GOM SSTs. I could see a correlation between ENSO years and La Nina years. Since the GOM is a significant source of moisture, that would be something I would add to the laundry list of comparisons.

 

[Rob H]

An interesting article at http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/papers/impacts_enso_tornadic_activity/

The results, shown in Table 3, reveal that only one outbreak out of the top 15 occurred during an El Niño event. Six of the top 15, including two of the top three, occurred during a La Niña event, while the remaining eight occurred during neutral ENSO years. This reveals that large outbreaks are indeed very scarce during El Niño events, and more common during non-El Niño years. Further, if you consider the fact that there are roughly twice as many neutral years than La Niña years, outbreaks during La Niña are also more common than in neutral years.

The second finding of Knowles and Pielke was that tornadoes during La Niña events were typically stronger than their non-La Niña counterparts. To test this result, annual F4 and F5 tornado data from 1950-1988 are taken from Grazulis (1991) and sorted by ENSO year. The results are listed in Table 4. La Niña years see an average of 16.2 F4 and F5 tornadoes. Meanwhile, neutral and El Niño years only see 8.42 and 8.2 F4 and F5 tornadoes, respectively. The data show that there is almost a doubling of the amount of devastating tornadoes during La Niña as compared to other years.

To summarize, it does appear that the conclusions of Knowles and Pielke were well founded. La Niña years shows a large increase in large tornadic outbreaks as well as an increase in the number of devastating tornadoes, while El Niño years show a significant decrease in devastating tornadoes and less potential to create large outbreaks.

Hopefully this isn't getting too far off from the OP's intent, but it is relevant to the conversation for sure. Here's the list of years/ONI btw:

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

 

[Andrea Griffa]

It's also true that years with similar patterns have had different tornado seasons - 2000 and 2008 had similar La Nina springs, and a slightly cooler summer - and were very different years in terms of tornadic events. Aside from planning a chasecation, how would correlation be important to a long term forecast of tornado events? I'm not asking because I agree or disagree with your assessment. I'm genuinely interested in learning more, as I haven't done much research on climatology and tornado outbreaks.

Robert, when I tell you about pattern I don't mean you have to compare Nina years with other Nina years. This is because I think that Nature would be too simplistic to create similar tornado season for each Nina year.

If you see the map I posted you could see a pattern with a overlap in terms of oni index from 2009-2010-2011 with 1997-98-99. All the 3 years have a basically overlapping pattern if you pay attention: here is the key to find a possible paralelism between the seasons. It's not a case that sometimes Nature repeats itself with groups of Oni pattern nearly equal and I tried to concentrate on these ones to elaborate a possible season long term forecast. Anyway this is only a play game for me.

http://digilander.libero.it/andreblu81/ONI%202011.jpg.

 

[Jason Boggs]

I'll go with Beatrice Nebraska.

 

[Danny Neal]

Take away the June 5th outbreak, IL had a surprisingly slow year. I will go with anywhere between Quincy to Effingham up to Rockford. *Wishful thinking*

 

[jcooper]

I can't think but help MO,IA,IL,MN,WI area this year and I think we will see an early Spring.So I am going to go with the late March early April time period.