Analysis of Tornado Debris Trajectories During the 27 April 2011 Super Outbreak as Determined Using Social Media Data

Using publicly available information gleaned from the “Pictures and Documents found after the April 27, 2011 Tornadoes” Facebook page, we have created a database of nearly 1,000 objects lofted by tornadoes during the 27 April 2011 Super Outbreak in the Southeast U.S. Analysis of the takeoff and landing points of these objects using GIS and high-resolution numerical trajectory modeling techniques extends previous work on this subject that used less specific information for much smaller sets of tracked debris. Our analysis extends previous research on the trajectories of objects carried by tornadic thunderstoms and the larger-scale wind field surrounding them. We discuss the implications of our work for severe weather research based on radar observations and numerical modeling.