CLIMATOLOGY OF TORNADOES ASSOCIATED WITH TROPICAL CYCLONES PRELIM

CLIMATOLOGY OF TORNADOES ASSOCIATED WITH TROPICAL CYCLONES (PRELIM) JIM HUDGINS NWFO Blacksburg, VA JIM HUDGINS NWFO BLACKSBURG VA

FUTURE PROJECT (From Last C*) • Associate tornadoes with certain tropical tracks • Use larger geographic area vs. just the Central Apps given small sample size? • May be limited by lack of tornado reports in Storm Data prior to modernization?

OBJECTIVES • DETERMINE WHICH TROPICAL CYCLONE TRACKS PRODUCED TORS • LOOK AT WHICH TRACK(S) PRODUCED THE MOST TORS AND PARAMETERS ASSOCIATED WITH THESE SUCH AS STRENGTH, SYNOPTIC FACTORS AND TIMING • EXAMINE “EXIT” TOR CONCEPT

DATA AND METHODOLGY • Used tropical cyclone tracks from 19502005 • Data from TPC, NCDC and SPC SVRPLOT used in combo with Global Tracks hurricane software • Focused on 6 states including the Carolinas/Virginias/TN and MD

TC TRACKS STUDIED

TORS BY STATE

RNK CWA TOR TC TRACKS

F-scale of ALL Tors Studied

PRELIM RESULTS • 78 % of all storms studied that produced tors made landfall as hurricanes • Majority had some sort of frontal/boundary interaction after moving inland • Late night/morning timing seemed to favor coastal tors (similar to land/sea breeze interaction? ) while inland tors were more afternoon/evening (espcly provided some heating) • Mostly F 0/F 1 • Gulf Coast/FL connection?

EXIT TC Tornadoes (Edwards SPC 1998) • System(s) must have made landfall as a TD/TS or Hurricane and exited as a cyclone of tropical or ET nature. • Inland for a min of 12 hours or 200 nm. • FL systems excluded due to short time over land as well as those only making brief inland passages across NC etc.

EXIT TC TRACKS (12)

EXIT TC TABLE

F-scale Exit Tornadoes

Exit TC Tor Characteristics • Exhibited clustering of tornadoes • Most exited as ET status but sample size small (28 examined with only 12 spawning tors) • Majority Gulf systems (25% Atlc landfalls) • Seem to produce larger more damaging tor outbreaks such as… • Bonnie(2004)-Pender Cty (Rocky Pt)-3 deaths/29 injured/1. 27 million in damages during 4 am F 1 -F 2 damage

Exit Tor Characteristics Cont • Ivan-51 Tors across the Virginias/Carolinas on 9/17/04 including F 1 -F 2 Tors in Bedford/Henry/Franklin/Campbell Ctys in VA and Rockingham/Guilford Ctys in NC • Cindy-15 Tors producing F 0 -F 1 damage in NC/VA on 7/7/05 • Earl-5 Tors in coastal SC resulting in 1 fatality and strong F 2 damage during morning of 9/4/98

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS? • Look more closely at boundary interaction including coastal front vs. synoptic scale and timing issues • Strength of hurricanes at landfall that produce tors (Cat 1 vs. Cat 2 and so on) • Need closer examination of sfc and U/A data plus effect of dry air into mini supercells • Future modeling via NCSU/VA Tech (longer term)?

That’s ALL!

Kermit…all red and white slides! Thanks for everything over the years and we will mi you. GO PACK!