An overview of this research will be presented as a poster session at the 20th Conference on Severe Local Storms September 11-15, 2000. The University has received many benefits from the collaboration. The exchange of ideas concerning methods and approaches has been invaluable for our students. It has allowed real-world interaction and exposed our graduate students to the struggles involved in answering scientific questions. The Georgia Tech researchers have also greatly enjoyed the professional interaction over the course of the last year between the two institutions.
Increased interaction is anticipated.
The initial poor correlation between terrain variables and tornadogenesis was the primary problem encountered during the collaboration effort. Once the original approach proved fruitless a more refined model was employed with much better results. The research effort has also provided the Georgia Tech researchers with a very detailed climatology of tornadogenesis statistics for the state and some very detailed population statistics which will likely help in any future research efforts regarding tornadoes in Georgia. The Georgia Tech researchers have also gained a greater understanding of the quality of the dataset that makes up Georgia's tornado climatology. The collaboration has not indicated a significant population bias in tornado statistics for the state.