An Augmented Tornado Climatology

Careful screening of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center's tornado log eliminated almost 20% of the reports as doubtful, leaving 17,659 tornadoes during 27 yr, 1950-1976 (654 annually). Newspaper accounts and other local information provided intensities (Fujita scale) for all but 2346 tornadoes and path lengths for all but 2011 tornadoes. There were 14,409 tornadoes for which both intensity and path length estimates were made. Of these, 61.7% were weak (