Losses from all natural hazards have increased steadily over the past 3 decades and a continuous cycle of Presidential disaster declarations was generated as communities rebuilt and recovered from these often devastating events. Using a 50 yr record, this paper examines the temporal variability and spatial distribution of tornado hazards in the United States. Tornado hazards are defined very specifically as any reported tornado that resulted in human injury, human fatality, or some amount of economic loss. The results suggest that, while the actual number of tornadoes (tornado segments) doubled over the entire time period, there was a smaller overall increase in the number of tornado hazards from 1950 to 2000. The ratio of tornado hazards to all tornadoes has remained relatively constant since the 1960s. There has been a steady decline in fatalities and reductions in injuries caused by tornado hazards. Losses are more variable over the past 50 yr, but the 1990s showed near record lows, in terms of both total dollar losses and mean losses per tornado hazard event. The statistical center of tornado hazard activity is in south-central Missouri, southeast of the statistical center of tornadoes identified by previous research. The density of tornado hazards has expanded outward from the historic 'Tornado Alley' region. The distribution of other high-density regions suggests additional tornado hazard regions in Florida, the lower Mississippi Valley, the Gulf Coast, and in the Carolinas. KEY WORDS: Tornado hazards · GIS · Spatial variation · Temporal trends Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherClim Res 24: [103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117] 2003 from these natural events. Three questions guide our analysis: (1) Are tornado hazards more frequent now than in the past? (2) Has the tornado hazard shifted geographically during the past 50 yr? (3) What specific regions have seen an increase in tornado hazards during the past half-century? DEFINING TORNADO HAZARDSIn our usage, tornado hazard has a very distinctive meaning, and clearly should not be confused with tornado climatology. Tornado hazard encompasses some aspects of tornado climatology, but also includes the effect of these events on people and the built environment. While numerous studies on tornado climatology have examined tornado frequencies (Schaefer et al. 1980, Grazulis 1993, Golden 1999, to date there is no comprehensive analysis of both tornadoes and their social impacts on a national scale. We define the tornado hazard as any tornado that results in a human fatality, or a human injury, or any amount of reported economic damage. We are guided in this approach by the natural-hazards literature, which defines a natural hazard as the interaction between physical systems and human-use systems that produces a 'loss' (White & Haas 1975, Burton et al. 1993. If a tornado occurs and is reported, but there is no recorded human injury, fatality, or economic loss, then it does...
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