Urban hailstorms: a view from Alberta

Charlton, Robert B.; Kachman, Bradley M.; Wojtiw, L.

doi:10.1007/bf00605280

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Media information can be a valuable source of quantitative and qualitative data about hazard extent and impact. Newspaper reports have been used to chronicle the occurrence of hazard events (Hewitt and Burton 1971;Jones 1993;Charlton et al 1995;Isben and Brunsden 1996;Downton et al 2005;Tarhule 2005), to estimate frequencies and return periods (Cutter et al 2000;Downton et al 2005;Schuster et al 2005), and to monitor trends in damages (Dore 2003). Newspaper and media accounts provide the foundation for two national natural disaster databases, the Canadian Disaster Database published by Public Safety Canada and Storm Data published in the United States by NOAA.…”

Section: Analysis Of Canadian Media Reportsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of lightning-related fatality and injury risk in Canada

et al. 2008

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This article summarizes research completed to assess the risk of lightning-related injuries and fatalities in Canada. Although lightning mortality has declined significantly over the past century, it remains a common meteorological hazard that regularly kills and injures. Based on an analysis of media reports, vital statistics, hospital admission and emergency room visit records, and fire loss data, the authors estimate that on average about 9-10 lightning-related deaths and 92-164 injuries occur each year in Canada. The distribution of casualties reflects current provincial population and cloud-to-ground lightning densities. Consistent with similar studies in other developed nations, most lightning-related fatalities and injuries in Canada occur during the June-August summer season, coincident with peak lightning, and during the Thursday-Saturday period, most likely related to higher rates of participation in outdoor activities. The majority of victims are male, less than 46 years old, and engaged in outdoor recreational activities when injured or killed in a lightning incident. Media reports used in the study were found to underestimate both lightning mortality (36%) and morbidity (20-600%).

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Section: Analysis Of Canadian Media Reportsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of lightning-related fatality and injury risk in Canada

et al. 2008

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“…Obviously, this conversion may produce errors, since, for example, not all oranges or grapes are the same size. Moreover, the work of Charlton et al (1995), based on surveys in Edmonton, Alberta, suggests that such public information overestimates maximum hailstone size by about 20%. It is also worth noting from Smith and Waldvogel (1989) that hailpad measurements are not free of errors.…”

Section: Hailstorm Magnitude 441 Maximum Hailstone Size Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A hail climatology of the greater Sydney area and New South Wales, Australia

2005

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“…Tornadoes are one of nature's most hazardous phenomena, capable of causing significant property damage and economic disruption as well as human injuries and fatalities. The tornadic events in Barrie 1985 (Etkin et al 2001), Edmonton 1987 (Charlton et al 1995), and southern Ontario 2009 (Ashton et al 2010a,b) are amongst the most significant and costly tornado events in Canadian history. Multidisciplinary forensic analysis of a number of tornado-damaged areas in eastern Canada revealed that buildings in which more than 90% of the occupants were killed or seriously injured did not have anchorage of house floors into the foundation or anchorage of the roof to the walls (Allen 1992(Allen , 1986(Allen , 1984Carter et al 1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probability of Tornado Occurrence across Canada

et al. 2013

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The number of tornado observations in Canada is believed to be significantly lower than the actual occurrences. To account for this bias, the authors propose a Bayesian modeling approach founded upon the explicit consideration of the population sampling bias in tornado observations and the predictive relationship between cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning flash climatology and tornado occurrence. The latter variable was used as an indicator for quantifying convective storm activity, which is generally a precursor to tornado occurrence. The CG lightning data were generated from an 11-yr lightning climatology survey (1999–2009) from the Canadian Lightning Detection Network. The results suggest that the predictions of tornado occurrence in populated areas are fairly reliable with no profound underestimation bias. In sparsely populated areas, the analysis shows that the probability of tornado occurrence is significantly higher than what is represented in the 30-yr data record. Areas with low population density but high lightning flash density demonstrate the greatest discrepancy between predicted and observed tornado occurrence. A sensitivity analysis with various grid sizes was also conducted. It was found that the predictive statements supported by the model are fairly robust to the grid configuration, but the population density per grid cell is more representative to the actual population density at smaller resolution and therefore more accurately depicts the probability of tornado occurrence. Finally, a tornado probability map is calculated for Canada based on the frequency of tornado occurrence derived from the model and the estimated damage area of individual tornado events.

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Urban hailstorms: a view from Alberta

Cited by 13 publications

References 20 publications

Assessment of lightning-related fatality and injury risk in Canada

Assessment of lightning-related fatality and injury risk in Canada

A hail climatology of the greater Sydney area and New South Wales, Australia

Probability of Tornado Occurrence across Canada

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