Toward Twister Forecasting: Scientists Make Progress in Assessing Tornado Seasons


"Understanding how climate shapes tornado activity makes forecasts and projections possible and allows us to look into the past and understand what happened," said lead author Michael Tippett, a climate scientist at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI).
Lack of an accurate long-term tornado record makes it hard to know the truth, and has also hampered scientists' ability to relate tornadoes to cyclical weather patterns that could aid in forecasting. While individual hurricanes can be spotted days in advance, tornadoes appear with much less warning. A tornado watch typically gives only a few hours' notice that dangerous conditions are brewing, while warning of an actual tornado bearing down may give people just a few minutes to get out of the way.
Tippett, a seasonal forecasting expert, had already built statistical models to understand how climate change might affect hurricanes by adding more heat and moisture to the air. But applying the same methods to something as tiny and complicated as a twister is trickier, said study co-author Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and School of Engineering and Applied Science.

"A tornado is not a lot bigger than the house it has just destroyed," Sobel said. "It's a small thing and short-lived."

"The real breakthrough is that CFS is skillful enough at the right scale," Brooks said. "With greater lead time, communities and relief agencies could prepare. It's not like the hurricane problem where we can tell people to evacuate. But if I'm a state emergency manager I might be really interested in knowing at the end of March that by the end of April we could have a big problem. You could be better prepared with generators and supplies."

"Before you can use an index to diagnose future climate, you have to be confident that it explains the observed variability," Brooks said.

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