Wsr-88d Tornado Intensity Estimates. Part I: Real-Time Probabilities Of Peak Tornado Wind Speeds

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has developed a database of damage-surveyed tornadoes in the contiguous United States (2009-17) that relates environmental and radar-derived storm attributes to damage ratings that change during a tornado life cycle. Damage indicators (DIs), and the associated wind speed estimates from tornado damage surveys compiled in the Damage Assessment Toolkit (DAT) dataset, were linked to the nearest manual calculations of 0.5 degrees tilt angle maximum rotational velocity V-rot from single-site WSR-88D data. For each radar scan, the maximum wind speed from the highest-rated DI, V-rot, and the significant tornado parameter (STP) from the SPC hourly objective mesoscale analysis archive were recorded and analyzed. Results from examining V-rot and STP data indicate an increasing conditional probability for higher-rated DIs (i.e., EF-scale wind speed estimate) as both STP and V-rot increase. This work suggests that tornadic wind speed exceedance probabilities can be estimated in real time, on a scan-by-scan basis, via V-rot and STP for ongoing tornadoes.