February & March Tornado Day Climatology: 1980-2010

[mikegeukes]

FEBRUARY TORNADO DAYS 1980-2010.
Researched by Mike Geukes Copyright 2011

I only keep tracked of 15 states for the Number of Tornado Days

38 Tornado Days: Texas
12 Tornado Days: Missouri
08 Tornado Days: Oklahoma
05 Tornado Days: Illinois
04 Tornado Days: Indiana
04 Tornado Days: Kansas
03 Tornado Days: Ohio
00 Tornado Days: Colorado
00 Tornado Days: Iowa
00 Tornado Days: Michigan
00 Tornado Days: Minnesota
00 Tornado Days: Nebraska
00 Tornado Days: North Dakota
00 Tornado Days: South Dakota
00 Tornado Days: Wisconsin

MARCH TORNADO DAYS 1980-2010.
Researched by Mike Geukes Copyright 2011

I only keep tracked of 15 states for the Number of Tornado Days

108 Tornado Days: Texas
53 Tornado Days: Oklahoma
38 Tornado Days: Kansas
24 Tornado Days: Missouri
23 Tornado Days: Illinois
18 Tornado Days: Iowa
11 Tornado Days: Nebraska
09 Tornado Days: Indiana
09 Tornado Days: Ohio
07 Tornado Days: Colorado
06 Tornado Days: Wisconsin
05 Tornado Days: Michigan
04 Tornado Days: Minnesota
02 Tornado Days: South Dakota
01 Tornado Days: North Dakota

Mike

 

[Dave Rennie]

Jeremy, that three in thirty years. Jim Carey may have more luck than you will in March! Of course, then it will only be three months until June!

 

[Jeremy Den Hartog]

Jeremy, that three in thirty years. Jim Carey may have more luck than you will in March! Of course, then it will only be three months until June!

Lol, yep - but when you have -10 temps and a foot and a half of snow on the ground you have to stay positive about any possible thing, even if it only happens once every 10 years

One of the more recent (if not the most recent) March tornado events in Minnesota happened close to where I live. St Peter, MN is about 10 miles north of where I'm from. In 1998 an F4 (obviously before the scale changed) came through Comfrey and St Peter, MN and damaged/destroyed a significant portion of the town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Comfrey_–_St._Peter_tornado_outbreak

 

[Dave Rennie]

I'm from Waseca, and Aprill 30, 1967, was the big tornado day there.

 

[Mike Johnston]

Thanks for the stats. Interesting Missouri is up there in Feb and March; I'd have to believe Arkansas would also be but looks like the southern states weren't part of the data.

 

[Tim Shriver]

February is the longest, dullest, most depressing month of the year.
Like your stats reflect there has never been a tornado in WI during that month.
We did have one in January last year, something different.

SDS becomes a real factor as attendance at meetings is usually down.
March and April always turn that around in short order when things start firing South of us.

The snow cover in the states South of us will delay the arrival of
Spring time weather some here in WI I would think.

TX appears to be "the place 2b" during these dreary months.

Thanks for the stats!

Tim

 

[Elaine Spencer]

February and March tornado days in IL may not be frequent, but when they do happen they can be doozies! The Tri State Tornado, the worst ever in the U.S. in terms of loss of life, happened in March.

Here's an interesting study of tornado climatology in the St. Louis area. One of the surprising findings in this study is that while tornadoes are, of course, much less frequent during the winter, when they do happen, they actually have a higher than average probability of being strong to violent:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/?n=tornado_climate_paper

 

[Jonathan Whitehead]

All I got to say to that is...God Bless Texas (and Oklahoma too)


Mike-Is there a way you could break down the number of tornadoes in Texas in Feb/Mar by WFO so that we can get a better idea of which region is favored.

EDIT: I have taken the data and correlated it to each states sq miles and came up with this chart


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