A Spatial Point Process Model for Violent Tornado Occurrence in the US Great Plains

Abstract

The authors illustrate a statistical point process model that uses the spatial occurrence of nonviolent tornadoes to predict the distribution of the rare, violent tornadoes that occur during springtime across the US central Great Plains. The average rate of nonviolent tornadoes is 55 per 104 km2 per 62 years which compares with an average rate of only 1.5 violent tornadoes per 104 km2 over the same period (less than 3 %). Violent tornado report density peaks at 2.6 per 104 km2 (62 yr) in the city but is only 0.7 per 104 km2 in the countryside. The risk of a violent tornado is higher by a factor of 1.5, on average, in the vicinity of less violent tornadoes after accounting for the population bias. The model for the occurrence rate of violent tornadoes indicates that rates are lower by 10.3 (3.6, 16.5) % (95 % CI) for every 1 km increase in distance from the nearest nonviolent tornado, controlling for distance from the nearest city. Model significance and the distance-from-nearest nonviolent tornado parameter are not sensitive to population threshold or the definition of a violent tornado. The authors show that the model is useful for generating a catalogue of touchdown points that can be used as a component to a tornado catastrophe model.