Ideas for Teaching
How Often Will Severe Weather Occur Near Me?
Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4
Maps and Risk
Dr. Brooks' work resulted in a series of maps and graphs that are on NSSL's web site under Severe Thunderstorm Climatology. One section of the site has maps of the total threat for the year from various kinds of severe weather.
Total Threat: Tornadoes
The map above shows the number of tornado days within 25 miles of a point. A tornado day is a day upon which at least one tornado occurs. This map is easy to read because it's in tornado days per year. For example, people in central Oklahoma can expect to have a tornado within 25 miles of them on 1.2 to 1.4 days/year.
We can still make some math out of this, though. How many years would it take to get an even number of tornado days? Depending on what you teach, you might start by converting 1.2 days/year to a fraction. No matter how you calculate it, you should find that central Oklahoma can expect 6 tornado days each five years.
What is the risk where you are? If you are in an area of black, use another area in the colored contours.
This map includes all tornadoes, even the really weak ones. Let's see how often F2 and greater tornadoes might occur on page 3...
Last updated: March
25, 2002
Created by: DSZ