Talk:Lists of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks

Area covered

If this article is only going to cover tornadoes in North America, shouldn't that fact be reflected in the title of the article? As recent events have shown, NAm does not have a monopoly on the things! Loganberry (Talk) 12:55, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't have to. But North America probably has the most tornadoes in the world. So it may be worth breaking this list into either continents, or North America and Outside of North America. --Rob 03:49, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

While other places have tornadoes, almost no where else has anywhere remotely near the amount of intense tornadoes that North America does. A notable exception is Bangladesh (and nearby areas of India). I have added the most notable Bangladesh tornadoes and broke up the event listing by time periods. Tornadoes like the Birmingham one which are rare in their destructiveness for respective areas certainly are appropriate for this page. Evolauxia 21:44, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Tornado events project?

Autumn outbreaks are not as rare as most people think, and certainly not nearly as the media portrays. November in particular has a history of many major outbreaks; it's just not an annual thing for big outbreaks unlike spring usually is consistent in producing. Both transition seasons are times of increased occurrence (temperature differences increase over the northern hemisphere, increasing jet stream strength and thus number of strong dynamic systems with lots of strong wind shear hitting what are still a decent number of warm, moist, sufficiently unstable air masses), and tornado frequency plotted throughout the year is indeed bimodal. The early spring and late fall systems tend to be very dynamic and further east in the MS-OH-TN Valleys/Southeast region rather than the popularly conceived "tornado alley" of the Great Plains (the Iowa outbreak is more rare in that respect). These areas see most of their tornado counts in these large and less annually consistent outbreaks. The number of outbreaks this year is somewhat unusual, but there have been other years with multiple November outbreaks as well. As I know there are a lot of tropical cyclone enthusiasts, one thing that has contributed to this November's volatility is the same thing that contributed to hurricane strength in the Gulf of Mexico, water temperatures are still above normal.

Anyway, I, myself, prefer doing the majority of the content of the articles after time allows a better idea of what actually transpired (for a more encyclopedic write-up; and I'm also generally busy before/during/after events). Kudos to those that maintain stuff in a more news-like fashion; though there are some potential issues, such as unconfirmed reports will have to be cleaned up in time, that's not very encyclopedic --but fine in the preliminary/early stages when it's a current event. We will also not want to load the list with every event that comes along, only those that are sufficiently significant and rare (the list will always be somewhat arbitrary but we can minimize that). I'd like to improve the event pages significantly and am willing to collaborate with others. I can provide a lot of resources of information. The info box introduced with the Evansville outbreak and now several other articles that was borrowed from the tropical cyclone project is a very good step; and it's good to go through each significant tornado of an event, though I think it needs some cleanup or organization in how its presented. Some kind of standardization like for tropical cyclones would be a good thing as well. I've improved some articles already myself, but have limited time, so haven't finished any of them, or even started on many. Evolauxia 07:55, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Support, as part of a larger project - WikiProject:Meteorology. CrazyC83 03:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm about to post a revamping of the tornado event listing with a table format and some other additions. If we can get enough willing and able collaborators, then the meteorology project is a great idea. The tornado events project I suggested was just an informal thing. Evolauxia 04:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

One already exists: Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones. CrazyC83 06:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Climate change but not an overarching Meteorology WikiProject. The TC project is a good source of ideas and experience, as well as potential collaborators. Evolauxia 13:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

My contributions

The above ideas are all excellent; as time permits I plan on revising my own contributions, as an attempt at standardizing things.

I think overloading the list would be an easy mistake, and would make the list incomprehensible as a practical reference tool quickly.

I do have specific rationale behind my own contributions: my own research into varied outbreaks and events focuses almost exclusively on the East (U.S.) Coast and Southeast, specifically due to the size and severity of some outbreaks in the region, which are generally not well-documented, even in the recent past. This lack of documentation does present some research challenges; the data that I've used to assemble articles is from raw NCDC statistical data, which is public domain material, but also requires some translation. Due to the relative lack of other info, the climatology of outbreaks on the East Coast and Southeast is less understood (certain outbreaks in the region, like the 1988 Raleigh NC outbreak or the 1996 Petersburg VA outbreak, deviate somewhat from the climatological outbreak norms observed in Tornado Alley); a detailed survey of major outbreaks in the region serves both as a tool to increase awareness in the region, and as a place to conveniently assemble summarized case histories/articles that may be consulted or enhanced, as research needs demand.

A similar rationale would underlie significant outbreaks elsewhere in the world - as forecasting and reporting abilities improve elsewhere, certain other 'Tornado Alleys' (Bangladesh, but also parts of China, Australia and Argentina) may be better understood, and the differences and similarities in their climatology may be noted.

Thanks for your work so far and in the future. Possible overloading of the list and arbitrariness of what is included is an issue. There is a glut with the November 2005 outbreaks, which aren't quite as rare as commonly believed (though it was anomalous to be sure); for example, if similar November events were included from throughout the record there would easily be 100+. All of them (2005), however, were significant enough due to anomalies (size of Iowa outbreak for season) and impacts (Evansville fatalities) and are fine remaining. Additionally, more recent events will be overrepresented obviously with older events having a higher "threshold" for inclusion.

Although my focus has been on articles, to avoid some issues raised as the number of events increases and to improve the list itself as a quick reference, I recently thought to expand the information on the listing with a table format. I would keep the divisions by time periods (leaving the actual intervals open to adjustment). Fields to be included are the name (I will make every attempt to synchronize naming with the event names in the literature and meteorological community, and those otherwise popularly known) and dates as are already included; plus number of tornadoes, death/injuries, and some factor quantifying "severity" of an outbreak (such work is actively ongoing by researchers) --a reasonably precise available parameter now is the destruction potential index (DPI) which I could easily obtain for 1950 and after, and I could calculate for prior events. I do not think monetary damages should be included in the listing itself because of significant accuracy (and availability, consistency) problems. Any other ideas on what should be included, or anything on expanding the listing information is welcome.

Your work on the East Coast (especially) and the Southeast is much welcomed. Significant events certainly occur there and aren't well known; I'm not as familiar with that area myself as the Plains, Midwest, and Mississippi/Ohio Valley. I'm more familiar with the Southeast than the East Coast, outside of huge events and some derecho activity (often accompanied by significant tornadic activity). Some work has been done on events there recently, some presented at the last Conference on Severe Local Storms and others by local NWSFOs and universities (and to a lesser degree the more well-known research entities).

International tornado climatology knowledge is rapidly expanding. This is especially true in Europe, which should see a very sharp rise in quality/availability of data (indeed it's already begun, just isn't well known yet) as a big effort throughout the EU is ongoing; implementing a SPC-like agency for the continent, a Skywarn-like network for real-time spotting and verification, various work by universities, and better collaboration between meteorological agencies.

Eventually, I'll add some work on "tornado outbreak sequences" which are subdivided into continuous active periods such as 4-10 May 2003 (an article in need of major improvement) and broken events like Nov 2005, which occur sporadically. Also, I added most of the good publically available data sources in the external links. Lastly, I really like the event summary and F-scale tables in the articles, but do strongly take issue with the inclusion of wind speed. There is just not the accuracy and precision available to do that (despite NWS survey reports; indeed the original Fujita scale wind speeds are being significantly adjusted and Enhanced Fujita scale implemented in 2006 in the US), a maximum Fujita rating is about all we can ask for with reasonable confidence (and even that is debatable such that I and many experts generally think of tornadoes in the weak/strong/violent classifications given all the issues with the Fujita scale ratings much less wind speeds). Evolauxia 00:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Revision

I've posted a work-in-progress using tables and additional info. I have to finish some events like the complex outbreak sequence of May 1917 and various post 1950 entries. Right now I have the location field set up as regions rather than states, partly because for older events especially, not all tornadoes are counted, and listing just states might be misleading. But noting that caveat, the regions could certainly be changed to the more specific states affected, though that would be a long list in some cases. Also, I've kept the article subdivided into sections by time period with multiple tables so one can click on the period of interest in the TOC. We could combine them all into a single table, in which case we would want to color code by period. If we kept separate tables, we could color code events or cells for location, intensity (highest f-rating?), death toll, etc. Only significant tornadoes are available before 1950, those could be listed, noting that only significant and not all tornadoes are listed.

Any suggestions for change or additions are much welcomed. Please don't add tornado, death, or injury counts to the listing article unless your direct source is the Tornado Project or Storm Data, for consistency I'm using those databases and will finish out the listing myself. Does anyone think we should retain the listing of just events with articles somewhere? Lastly, a suggestion was made to write articles with an annual tornado summary, I think either an annual or perhaps decadal global summary is a good idea. The tropical cyclones project's seasonal summaries are a good starting place for ideas. Evolauxia 16:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that the version of Storm Data at the National Cllimatic Data Center lists tornado segments, not tornadoes. Segments are one entry per county. If a single tornado goes through multiple counties, it will have multiple entries. The so-called ONETOR database is a version of the database that has only one entry per tornado. It's available at the Storm Prediction Center Historical Data page.

New chart I created

I've decided to create a chart, intended to show details of individual tornadoes as part of a larger outbreak. (Main tornadoes in an outbreak with a large section should be linked below)

F#	Location	County	Time (UTC)	Path length	Damage
{state/country}
F1	Anytown	Unknown	0000	5 miles (8 km)	Several barns were destroyed and one home was damaged. No injuries reported.
As verified by  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Weather Service.

Not only should it be used on tornado outbreak pages, but it can also be used on hurricane pages for tornado outbreaks within hurricanes (starting in 2006 + past storms if information is found).

CrazyC83 03:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Very good, thanks. That really presents the information more concisely, it does just such the cleanup/better presentation that I suggested. Somewhere around or in the table it should be noted that time refers to touchdown time (unless further info is available, then noting that). I suggest stacking the F-scale count table and the individual torndoes table. Evolauxia 04:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Only the most recent outbreaks will have the information available to insert all the individual tornadoes into that format...although that will become standard for all future outbreaks (as well as hurricane-induced outbreaks on their pages). CrazyC83 06:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that information is available at least back to 1957 (first year of StormData) and probably to 1950 (cutoff for modern tornado climatology). For significant tornadoes (F2-F5 or killer), that information is available back to 1680.

And I must have missed it when I first looked, but windspeed should absolutely NOT be included in the table, the F-scale rating will cover intensity just fine. It's just not possible to ascertain specific winds, to feign that is utterly pseudoscientific (and yes, this includes NWS offices that do so). Or if that's what you meant by the information is only available recently, I very strongly object to its inclusion (and you will find that not all NWS offices include wind speed info). Evolauxia 13:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It's totally unjustified and not something that should be perpetuated by Wikipedia or any encyclopedia. Ask a NWS meteorologist if they really can say that those exact speeds are known and they would say no. NSSL, SPC, researchers, Fujita, Grazulis, etc. would tell you the same and it is very well reflected in the literature. Given that *some* NWS offices do unfortunately post this information, here a couple of authoritative online sources in support of my position:

http://www.srh.weather.gov/jetstream/mesoscale/tornado.htm

"The F-scale is to be used with great caution. Tornado wind speeds are still largely unknown; and the wind speeds on the F-scale have never been scientifically tested and proven. Different winds may be needed to cause the same damage depending on how well-built a structure is, wind direction, wind duration, battering by flying debris, and a bunch of other factors."

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#f-scale1

"Tornado wind speeds are still largely unknown; and the wind speeds on the original F-scale have never been scientifically tested and proven. Different winds may be needed to cause the same damage depending on how well-built a structure is, wind direction, wind duration, battering by flying debris, and a bunch of other factors. Also, the process of rating the damage itself is largely a judgment call -- quite inconsistent and arbitrary (Doswell and Burgess, 1988). Even meteorologists and engineers highly experienced in damage survey techniques often came up with different F-scale ratings for the same damage."

"So if the original F-scale winds are just guesses, why are they so specific? Excellent question. Those winds were arbitrarily attached to the damage scale based on 12-step mathematical interpolation between the hurricane criteria of the Beaufort wind scale, and the threshold for Mach 1 (738 mph). Though the F-scale actually peaks at F12 (Mach 1), only F1 through F5 are used in practice, with F0 attached for tornadoes of winds weaker than hurricane force. Again, F-scale wind-to-damage relationships are untested, unknown and purely hypothetical. They have never been proven and may not represent real tornadoes. F-scale winds should not be taken literally."

Project introduction

I've proposed the tornado project as a subproject of Meteorology and Weather Events - the proposal page is User:CrazyC83/Meteorology and the official information page is Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Meteorology_and_Weather_Events. CrazyC83 21:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Split the charts?

Current lists are getting very crowded, due to more and more outbreaks (esp. non-US ones) getting added. Whilst this is very good, it also makes page difficult to read. I propose separate listings for North American and Rest-of-the-world tornadic events. It makes the page more readable.--Mikoyan21 11:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I support this. Evolauxia 11:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

A very good idea. This could be a disambiguation page, listing a brief definition of a tornado outbreak, and then sections with links to the main lists such as List of North American tornadoes and tornado outbreaks, List of European tornadoes and tornado outbreaks, List of Southern Hemisphere tornadoes and tornado outbreaks, etc. Maybe even have sections such as "10 most deadly tornadoes/outbreaks", "10 most prolific tornado outbreaks", or stuff like that. Sorry this whole thing excites me a little too much. -Runningonbrains 22:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The disambiguation page is a good idea. I would maintain the sources and external links (at least non-area specific ones) as well. Divisions for North America, Europe, and Asia are appropriate given the level of activity and number of events. There are hot spots in South America and Africa but probably not enough notable events to warrant separate pages, so Southern Hemisphere is probably appropriate. On that page, I suggest a subdivision of South America, Africa, and Australia/Oceania. Evolauxia 18:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The revamnp has begun. Input is welcome from all.

The additional sections suggested (and similar) are a good idea, though would probably go on a page of their own. I also suggest pages discussing tornado histories of US/Can, Europe, Australia, Bangladesh/India, etc. in more detail than a listing of events (climatology and meteorological aspects, geography, etc. --would be good breakoff articles from the main tornado article too). Evolauxia 22:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The move has been completed, a new layout may look better than the current one. Some good ideas for additions have been suggested and should be pursued. Evolauxia 23:38, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

March 1890 tornado

Is Mid-Mississippi Valley Tornado Outbreak of March 1890 the official name of this tornado? Since it took place around Louisville, Kentucky, wouldn't this be more precisely called Ohio Valley Tornado Outbreak of March 1890? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 14:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Event nomenclature

There are no official names (such as hurricanes have), though some events have widely recognized names (e.g. Super Outbreak). That is a minority of events, however, so naming is very arbitrary. For this event, Louisville was by far where the most significant effects were, though tornadoes occurred across a wide area. Labeling an outbreak for the area with the most significant damage and casualties, when damage is concentrated in that area and otherwise comparatively sparse, is a good idea as long as "outbreak" is in the name. It could be called "Louisville Tornado Outbreak of 1890". Some events do have multiple common names like the “Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak” which is also known as the “Wichita Falls Tornado Outbreak” or “Terrible Tuesday” (the latter is less known now). In that case there were other major tornadoes. Evolauxia 16:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

New format suggestions

To make the main page less empty, I was thinking we could add tables (as templates for use in other articles) for the 10 deadliest tornadoes in each category, and put these on this main page, with the link to each main page. These tables could be like the many made for the Tropical cyclone project, such as Template:Most intense Atlantic hurricanes. In fact, I'm going to start on that right now. Once I'm finished we can decide if we want to put them on the main page there. -Runningonbrains 01:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I created two just as examples. Check em out at Template:10 deadliest US tornadoes and Template:25 deadliest US tornadoes. I think they look good (not that I didnt steal most of the format from another template). I see it possible to make tables like this for everything...most damaging, longest track, deadliest F5s, deadliest European tornadoes, deadliest worldwide tornadoes (that is, if we can get reliable stats). I'll consider making this my next big project, unless someone else would like the honor... -Runningonbrains 06:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I like them and they would be good for anything where we have consistently verifiable information. That's fairly easy in the US except for damages. However, top damages could be obtained from the Brooks/Edwards paper and updated as need be if new events surpass those on the list. The normalization will have to be accounted for. Outside the US, we could use fatalities, it won't be perfectly inclusive and accurate but one works with the data one has. Hopefully people could find or assemble more non-US data. I'm willing to assist but don't have time to do such a project myself. Evolauxia 06:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Good source of links to news articles and other sites

Sirlinksalot Tornado Links has a large collection of links to various tornadoes sites, and if you go to "News Articles about Tornadoes" has links to many, many news articles about tornado events around the globe. Evolauxia 22:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1920

A few years ago, I did a research paper on this event, which was turned into a magazine article that was never published. I decided to create a new article here on the Wiki about this event. Moreover, I plan on adding additional information and graphics to this page in the future. This article came out of an extensive research project that I did on the 1965 Palm Sunday outbreak, which affected the area I was born in.

Currently, I am doing some rather intensive research on another tornado outbreak that occurred here in Michigan back in 1917. Apparently, the Michigan Dept. of Agriculture, in a report that detailed this event, concluded that a tornado in our state traveled along the ground at 130 km/h (80 mph) between two communities. If so, this would beat the old record set by the Tri-State tornado of 1925. I will post that article here in the future. USRoute66 07:04, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

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The redirect Tornado and tornado outbreaks has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 May 30 § Tornado and tornado outbreaks until a consensus is reached. Fram (talk) 07:12, 30 May 2023 (UTC)