Let’s take a look at how the year is shaping up for tornadoes in the United States. So far, preliminary statistics indicate that there have been 1264 tornadoes in the country in 2006. That is about the same number as last year, and far less than the 2004 official total of 1819, which is an all time record. The 1819 in 2004 easily smashed the previous record of 1424 in 1998. This compares favorably to the rolling ten year average for 1996-2005, which is 1290.
There have been 62 fatalities from tornadoes so far this year, including the nine recorded this week (one at Montpelier, LA and the 8 at Riegelswood, NC.) All nine fatalities this week were in mobile homes. The breakdown of fatalities this year is 24 in mobile homes, 31 in permanent homes, 3 in vehicles, 2 in businesses, 1 in the open and one unknown. Since 1985, there have been 1155 tornado fatalities in the U.S. 501 of those (22.8%) occurred in mobile homes. 363 (16.5%) occurred in permanent homes. 104 (4.7%) occurred in vehicles. 80 (3.6%) occurred in the open.
You can see the vulnerability of mobile homes to tornado winds. It underscores the importance of every mobile home being equipped with a NOAA Weather Radio. The specially designed receivers can be programmed to receive only the specific warnings for the specific counties that you designate. On this week’s Weather Brains netcast we heard about one woman’s efforts to make that a law in the wake of last year’s deadly Evansville tornado.
An interesting note: There have been 82 documented F5 tornadoes in the U.S. since 1850. But there has still not been an F5 tornado in the U.S. since the Oklahoma City tornado on May 3, 1999. This represents an F5 drought of 2758 days, or over seven and one half years. It is the longest such drought since 1900.
