In the Dark: Public Perceptions of and National Weather Service Forecaster Considerations for Nocturnal Tornadoes in Tennessee

Abstract

Tornado fatalities have disproportionately occurred in the southeastern United States due to social and meteorological factors (Ashley 2007), and this is expected to continue because of elevated development rates in the region (Ashley and Strader 2016). This disparity, and the deadly April 2011 outbreak across the Southeast (NOAA 2011), led to a Congressional mandate in early 2015 that spawned NOAA’s VORTEX-Southeast program. VORTEX-Southeast (SE) encourages collaborative efforts from physical and social sciences and operational meteorology to address many facets of the Southeast tornado problem, emphasizing research that can directly integrate into operations and improve the tornado warning process. As part of this program, authors L. M. and K. E. assessed tornado challenges in Tennessee from a multidisciplinary perspective, including social work and physical geography. We focused on nocturnal tornadoes because they compose nearly half of Tennessee tornadoes and are 2.5 more times likely to be fatal than those during the day (Ashley et al. 2008).