Severe Local Storms Log from 1955 to 1972

January 1955 to June 1972 of severe local storm event reports logged by the National Severe Storms Forecast Center. It contains approximately 3800 reports per year from around 600 surface airways stations. The dataset includes entries for tornadoes, funnel clouds, surface wind gusts, hail, and aircraft turbulence.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in tornado reports and funnel cloud sightings over the 17-year period.
• Correlating surface wind gust and hail event entries with geographical station data.
• Studying the frequency and distribution of aircraft turbulence reports logged by the NSSFC.
• Validating historical storm models using the logged event types and annual report counts.

Strengths

• Covers a 17.5-year period from January 1955 to June 1972.
• Includes approximately 3800 reports per year, providing a substantial annual sample.
• Logs multiple event types: tornadoes, funnel clouds, wind gusts, hail, and turbulence.

Limitations

• Data collection ended in June 1972, making it temporally stale for contemporary analysis.
• Specific column definitions and data structure are unknown, complicating direct analysis.
• The raw description does not specify total row count or confirm complete geographic coverage.

Provenance

Source

National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC), aggregated by SCIOPS.

Collection Method

Log maintained from reports submitted by approximately 600 surface airways stations.

Time Range

1955-01-01 to 1972-06-30

Freshness

Static historical archive; last updated 1972-06-30.

Geography

Presumably United States (implied by NSSFC jurisdiction), but not explicitly stated.