Welcome to my third annual tornado season forecast! In this video, we'll attempt to make a forecast for tornado frequency and distribution across the United States for the upcoming 2025 tornado season (March-June). We'll use global climate teleconnections (namely, the El Niño Southern Oscillation), Gulf sea surface temperature anomalies, and drought in the elevated mixed layer source region to help us predict whether we'll see an above-average, near-normal, or below-average tornado count this spring, as well as which areas might be favored for enhanced tornado activity.
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Contents
0:00 Introduction
2:39 El Niño Southern Oscillation
11:04 Gulf sea-surface temperature anomalies
12:33 Drought in the EML source region
15:18 Introduction to analogs
18:00 Analog: 1996
19:15 Analog: 2006
20:50 Analog: 1967
22:15 Analog: 1984
23:37 Analog: 1981
24:28 Analog: 1989
25:57 Analog: 2018
27:12 Discussion on the exclusion of 2011 as an analog
27:59 Composite 500 mb height anomalies of analog years
29:56 Climate model output, seasonal forecasts
31:04 My final forecast
33:47 Wrap-up
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Resources:
My 2023 Tornado Season Forecast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9_gmsmkGqE
My 2024 Tornado Season Forecast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfLy7atk_0
"The Impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on Winter
and Early Spring U.S. Tornado Outbreaks" - Cook et al. (2017): https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/apme/56/9/jamc-d-16-0249.1.xml?tab_body=pdf
"US regional tornado outbreaks and their links to spring ENSO phases
and North Atlantic SST variability" - Lee et al. (2016): https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044008
Supplementary figures for Lee et al. (2016) accessible through the hyperlink in his article above (scroll down to where it says "Supplementary data")
"Is There an Optimal ENSO Pattern That Enhances Large-Scale Atmospheric Processes Conducive to Tornado Outbreaks in the United States?" - Lee et al. (2013): https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/26/5/jcli-d-12-00128.1.xml?tab_body=pdf
"Importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a climate driver for U.S. severe thunderstorm activity" - Molina et al. (2016): https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GL071603
Tornado maps for analog years collected from tornadoarchive.com
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