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Subject : L13) How does the damage from hurricanes compare to
tornadoes?
Contributed by Chris Landsea
Even though winds from the strongest tornadoes far exceed that
from the strongest hurricanes, hurricanes typically cause much more
damage individually and over a season. (The strongest tornadoes -
those of Fujita Tornado Damage Scale 4 and 5 - have estimated winds of
207 mph [333 kph] and higher, while the strongest hurricanes - those
of Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale 4 and 5 - have winds of 131 mph
[210 kph] and higher.) Hurricanes in the continental U.S. cause on
average about $3 billion per landfall and about $5 billion annually
(Pielke and Landsea 1998). The roughly
1000 tornadoes that impact the continental U.S.each year cause about
ten times less - about $500 million in total (
Brooks and Doswell 2001). The top 30 most damaging hurricanes
in the last 100 years (normalized to account for higher population,
wealth and inflation) have each caused over $2.9 billion
(Jarrell et al. 2001). In comparison,
only the most damaging tornado in the last 100 years or so - if it
hit today - would cause about $2.9 billion in damage: the May 1896
St. Louis tornado (Brooks and Doswell 2001).
Hurricanes tend to cause much more destruction than tornadoes because
of their size, duration and variety of ways to damage items. The
destructive circular eyewall in hurricanes (that surrounds the calm
eye) can be tens of miles across, last hours and damage structures
through storm surge, rainfall-caused flooding, as well as wind
impacts. Tornadoes, in contrast, tend to be a mile or smaller in
diameter, last for minutes and primarily cause damage from their
extreme winds.
References:
Brooks, H. E., and C. A. Doswell, III, 2001: Normalized damage from
major tornadoes in the United States: 1890-1999. Wea. Forecasting
, 16, 168-176.
Jarrell,J.D., M. Mayfield, E.N. Rappaport, and C.W. Landsea, 2001:
"The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes
from 1900 to 2000 (and other Frequently Requested Hurricane Facts)"
NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS/TPC-1.
Last updated August 13, 2004
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