Tornado Migration

Here is a map of the seasonal migration that tornadoes take.

Tornado migrations can be mapped like birds or wildebeests or commuters. Like just about everything else on this amazing planet of ours, they have a seasonal circuit and an ebb and flow. I live in Michigan, where I’m coming out of another winter. Believe me, when I smell the cool damp earth of Spring, it isn’t lost on me, and I’m keenly aware of my progress toward more direct, and longer, sunlight. Especially today, opening day for the Detroit Tigers.

Speaking of direct sunlight, here’s a closer look at the wandering average center of tornadoes throughout the year…

Looks remarkably like this thing…

An anelemma is a confusing little thing you might see on globes from time to time. It’s a diagram that illustrates the wandering position of the sun in the sky, at a fixed time of day, throughout the year. The sun appears to have a variable location because of our earth’s tilted axis, coupled with our annual trip around the sun. Spherical geometry and the physics of orbiting bodies is beyond me (clearly, since it’s why calculus was invented), but I get the concept. I certainly feel it. The migration path of tornadoes is an echo of this grander phenomenon, not a coincidence. Few things are.

Here’s a closer look at the small multiple of tornadic distribution. That sentence was only an excuse for me to use the word tornadic.

If you are interested in how to make these maps, find all the scintillating details here.

Happy Mapping. John