Population Bias on Tornado Reports in Europe

Răzvan Pîrloagă,Bogdan Antonescu,Dragoş Ene

doi:10.3390/app112311485

Răzvan Pîrloagă, Bogdan Antonescu + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app112311485

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Abstract

Tornadoes are associated with damages, injuries, and even fatalities in Europe. Knowing the spatial distribution of tornadoes is essential for developing disaster risk reduction strategies. Unfortunately, there is a population bias on tornado reporting in Europe. To account for this bias, a Bayesian modeling approach was used based on tornado observations and population density for relatively small regions of Europe. The results indicated that the number of tornadoes could be 53% higher that are currently reported. The largest adjustments produced by the model are for Northern Europe and parts of the Mediterranean regions.

Highlights

ObjectivesThe aim of this article is to analyze the effects of population bias on tornado reports in
The highest difference between predicted and observed tornadoes is over Iceland and northern parts of the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and Finland (Figure 1). This is not surprising given that the population density of these regions is low compared with other regions of Europe and given that the number of observed tornadoes by NUTS3 regions in this area is less than 10 tornadoes over the entire study period
The predictive capacity of the model in these areas can be improved by improving data collection or by considering as covariate meteorological factors related to tornado occurrence [17]