Tornadoes in Rural Areas vs Urban Areas
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Keywords
tornadoes, rural, urban
Biography
Tara Frey is a Senior, finishing up her final semester at Marshall University as an online student as she resides in the state of Kentucky. She is majoring in Geography with the College of Liberal Arts, and with her research project and fascination with tornadoes, she is presenting her findings on whether tornadoes touch down more often in rural areas or if they touch down more often in urban areas.
Major
Geography
Advisor for this project
Dr. Jonathan Kozar
Abstract
The proposed research question asked, “do tornadoes touch down in rural areas more excessively than urban areas?” The goal of the research is to find out if tornadoes do, in fact, touch down in rural areas more than urban areas. Many families have lost their homes due to tornado damage, so it is important to see where tornadoes most commonly strike, so residents can steer clear of those areas, plus it is important to see which states hardly, if any, see tornadoes at all. The research was done by pulling data from the website for NOAA that showed the exact location that every tornado touched down during the last week of May 2019 as well as the last week of June 2019. This data was pulled into ArcGIS Pro along with a county shapefile and a city shapefile. These shapefiles showed the rural areas and the urban areas throughout the United States. Once the data and shapefiles were pulled into ArcGIS Pro, the findings showed that there were significantly more tornadoes that touched down in rural areas than in urban areas. In just those two weeks, the difference was 142 more tornadoes in rural areas.
Tornadoes in Rural Areas vs Urban Areas
The proposed research question asked, “do tornadoes touch down in rural areas more excessively than urban areas?” The goal of the research is to find out if tornadoes do, in fact, touch down in rural areas more than urban areas. Many families have lost their homes due to tornado damage, so it is important to see where tornadoes most commonly strike, so residents can steer clear of those areas, plus it is important to see which states hardly, if any, see tornadoes at all. The research was done by pulling data from the website for NOAA that showed the exact location that every tornado touched down during the last week of May 2019 as well as the last week of June 2019. This data was pulled into ArcGIS Pro along with a county shapefile and a city shapefile. These shapefiles showed the rural areas and the urban areas throughout the United States. Once the data and shapefiles were pulled into ArcGIS Pro, the findings showed that there were significantly more tornadoes that touched down in rural areas than in urban areas. In just those two weeks, the difference was 142 more tornadoes in rural areas.
