Meteorologists at Barkley Field recently looked back at the locations of every tornado warning they issued over the past 30 years.
According to data posted last week on the Paducah National Weather Service Facebook page, the county with the most tornado warnings since 1990 is Christian County, KY. with 107. Stoddard County, MO had 87, and Hopkins County, KY, and Bollinger County, MO, tied with 84.
However, it was quickly noted that Christian County is also the largest county in the region.
A Facebook follower did some figuring, and offered that Lyon County actually had the most tornado warnings per square mile, but just barely.
Avery Welker's calculations ranked the top local counties as Lyon, followed by Massac, Alexander, Pulaski, Livingston, Marshall, Hardin and Trigg. But the difference between first and second on the list is only .003 warnings per square mile, and the difference from Lyon to Trigg is less than .04 warnings per square mile.
In plain talk, the actual difference in the frequency of warnings from county to county in our region is barely a handful over 30 years, and simply not very significant.
To see more measurable differences, the scale needs to be bumped up from the county to the state level. America's top ten states for tornado activity since 1990 are Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Mississippi.
One note that bodes a bit of a warning for us next month; Kentucky and Tennessee both vault into the top 5 for the number of tornadoes that occur on average in February. Illinois climbs into the top 5 during April and May.
On the Net:
NWS Paducah Facebook page
