A Climatology of Synoptic Conditions Associated with Significant Tornadoes across the Southern Appalachian Region

Abstract

A 54-yr climatology (1950?2003) of synoptic conditions associated with significant (F2 or greater) tornado events in the southern Appalachian region was compiled to 1) investigate the observed relative minimum of tornadoes in the Great Tennessee Valley, 2) test a hypothesis concerning northwest versus southwest 500-hPa flow events across the Great Tennessee Valley and Cumberland Plateau, 3) examine common operational forecasting techniques often used with synoptic-scale data to determine potentially tornadic environments, and 4) compare the patterns associated with significant, outbreak, and weak tornado events. Individual surface and upper-air charts along with composite charts closest to the time of significant tornado occurrences were used in this investigation. It was found that significant tornado events that occurred with prefrontal troughs (the most common surface boundary in the study) produced significant tornadoes almost exclusively over the Cumberland Plateau and southern Appalachian Mountains, with very few prefrontal trough events producing significant tornadoes in the Great Tennessee Valley of eastern Tennessee. Only four northwest 500-hPa flow events (which produced significant tornadoes almost exclusively in the southern Appalachian Mountains and during the summer) were found in this study, which refuted the initial hypothesis that northwest 500-hPa flow may produce tornadoes mainly in the Great Tennessee Valley with southwest 500-hPa flow producing tornadoes mainly across the Cumberland Plateau. Most significant tornado events in this study were associated with southwest 500-hPa flow ahead of a neutral-tilted trough, which revealed that the particular tilt of a 500-hPa trough does not necessarily enhance the formation of significant tornadoes in the southern Appalachian region. However, outbreak events (with five or more significant tornadoes) in the southern Appalachian region were typically associated with positive-tilted troughs. At 300 or 250 hPa, the southern Appalachian region was frequently located on the right side of a jet streak, with an even split between the entrance and exit regions. This finding indicated that significant tornado events in the southern Appalachian region did not necessarily favor the right-entrance or left-exit regions of a jet streak where rising motion is expected to be most intense (with straight jet streaks). A comparison of the composites of weak, significant, and outbreak tornado events revealed that wind dynamics were more important than instability in the distinction between weak and significant tornado events across the southern Appalachian region.