Updating and Tailoring Severe Weather Climatologies for NOAA’s Southern Region

Up to date climatological and historical weather data are of critical importance when informing decision makers, stakeholders, and the general public of severe weather characteristics in their geographic areas. Long term analyses of severe climatological data are often few and far between historically and are only updated periodically. As severe weather has shown significant changes in recent decades, up to date information on the probabilities of being impacted by severe weather is key. In this project, we collected severe weather events from NCEI’s Severe Events Database and the HURDAT2 dataset to get a comprehensive cross-section of severe weather impacts important to stakeholders in the Southern Region. Implementing a gridded approach, similar to that employed by NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, we have constructed daily probabilistic climatologies of severe winds, hail, tornadoes, and landfalling tropical cyclones that have impacted the Region from 1950 to 2023 (beginning in 1955 for hail). A suite of maps was generated implementing Python and ArcGIS tailored specifically for the Southern Region. Additionally, we will make the probabilistic grids available for download through the Southern Regional Climate Center website. These maps are one aspect of climate communication and outreach critical to protecting lives and property in the Southern Region.