Author(s)

Igor G. Zurbenko, Mingzeng Sun^*

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, State University of New York at Albany, New York, USA.

Using the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalysis data resources for the period 1979 to 1988, we defined the spatial distribution and temporal trends of jet stream by month, and analyzed geographic distribution of the smoothed hourly wind speed of jet stream in May, after applied Kolmogorov-Zurbenko Adaptive (KZA) filter. We showed the impressive synchronousness between hourly tornado risks and diurnal distribution of top 3 maximum daily wind speed of jet stream over USA. We observed that latitudinal distribution of jet stream concurrently oscillated with latitudinal distribution of tornado outbreaks. KZA filter smoothed spatial distribution of jet stream on tornado days showed a substantial increase in presence of jet stream over tornado alley region, compared to that on non-tornado-days.

Jet Stream, Tornado, KZA Filter

Zurbenko, I. and Sun, M. (2016) Jet Stream as a Major Factor of Tornados in USA. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 6, 236-253. doi: 10.4236/acs.2016.62020.