The Storm Prediction Center Tornadic Storm and Environment Database: Development and Application

A limited number of studies have examined convective mode and severe weather occurrence (e.g., Trapp et al. 2005, Gallus et al. 2008), but a comprehensive examination of the relationship between convective mode and the near-storm environment was lacking in formal literature. Therefore, an ambitious effort to develop a multifaceted severe storms database began at the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in 2009 and continues to the present. The primary motivation was to develop a tornadic storm and environment database to document convective mode for tornadoes, significant hail (i.e., 2 inches in diameter or larger), and significant measured or estimated wind gusts (i.e., 65 kt or greater), and associate near-storm environment data to each report (Smith et al. 2012a; Thompson et al. 2012).