Some Comments on Tornado Season 2020, So Far

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The map below is of the reported tornadoes for this year as of 7am this morning.
You'll notice something highly unusual: California (1) and New Mexico (3) have more tornadoes than Kansas (0) or Nebraska (0). In tornadoes have been rather sparse, compared to average, north of Interstate 70.

What is tragic about this year is that we are up to 75 fatalities. This is, by far, the worst since the awful year of 2011.

Ted Fujita wrote a paper around 1970 (I don't remember the exact year) noting that major tornado events (he want back to 1916) tended to cluster the the Great Plains, then the Midwest, then Dixie Tornado Alley. Certainly the last two years have seen far about normal numbers of tornadoes in the South.

For the foreseeable future (in meteorology, about seven days), most of the tornadoes will be in the South.

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