The data set, manipulations, formulas. By all means take a stab at the data yourselves if you want to call out something more interesting, like. Violent Tornado days on the plains, or break things down by month etc.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...481/Norman_Index_-_Tornado_Chasing_Stats.xlsx
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme...456131801132302366/Tornado_Chasing_Stats.xlsx
Attached are "Tornado days by year, for the plains, M-A-M-J."
Here are my own thoughts, musings.
For me personally. I set out to 'prove' (disprove) my logic that 1990-1991 are the peak of chase-ability and that modern storm chasers would likely not even know what to do with themselves with that much action. In some ways, that seems to be the case, but apparently the 1960's and 70's were living like it was 1991 every year.
-Good/Bad years seem to come in pairs
-The number of tornadoes is increasing, however the number of damaging tornadoes is decreasing (Well spread assumption/fact)
-The number of Damaging tornado days 1950 - 1985 were much more numerous than the last 3 decades. by a 2:1 margin in fact.
-We are having fewer outbreaks in the last 30 years, but that are more destructive.
Changes to the F/EF ratings, Increase in construction/sprawl/moving to the city/fewer-smaller rural towns, fewer-larger farms. all probably play a role.
-But the number of quality tornado DAYS is largely consistent
-2015 is apparently the most underrated chase year ever. Thoughts?
-1990-1991 are absolutely astonishing years. They may be almost singlehandedly responsible for modern storm chasing....
----I for one was inspired at 10 years old by Andover. I was already a weather nerd but this event put me over the top. Because of the nexus of banner chase-ability and the sudden pervasiveness of good quality color home video coming together... it inspired that generation of adults to make new documentaries, jumpstarted Vortex, resulted in a blockbuster movie soon after, and all of the echoes of storm chasing after that. You can almost see people dreaming about DOW trucks and turtle pods while watching the amazing footage of the early 90s. Had the droughts of 87-88 continued a bit longer, perhaps storm chasing, and tornado research for that matter, as we know it may have been set back as much as a decade.
