24SMOI Infrasonic Detection of Tornadoes Using Interferometric Beamforming

Tornadoes pose a severe risk to human and environmental safety. It is reported that, on average, 26 tornadoes strike in the state of Georgia, leading to injuries, fatalities, and $45M in damages annually. Limitations in predictive ability of these catastrophic weather events reduces human ability to prepare and take safety measures. While several detection systems exist to produce early warnings of tornado strikes, these methods are unable to detect all storms with sufficient advance warning. Tornadoes have been shown to emit infrasound in the 0.5-5 Hz range prior to touching the ground, and in some cases infrasound has led to detections earlier in the tornado formation process. In other cases, infrasound signals are too weak to be detected. Interferometric beamforming is a relatively untapped analytical tool in infrasound that can advance tornadic detections for infrasonic signals that are below local background. Here, we present findings in the use of interferometric beamforming from the Severe Storms Research Center at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in the ability to detect tornado infrasound by way of analyzing historical infrasound data, that will allow for advancements in weather prediction that will support the early detection of tornado initiation.