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Subject : L3) What percentage of tropical cyclones spawn tornadoes?
Contributed by Bill McCaul
Almost all tropical cyclones making landfall in the United States
spawn at least one tornado, provided enough of the TC's circulation
moves over land. This implies that Gulf coast landfalling
TC's are more likely to produce tornadoes than Atlantic coast TC's
that "sideswipe" the coastline. The rate at which TC's produce
tornadoes (waterspouts) over the ocean is unknown, although Doppler
radars have identified many cases where storm cell rotation
suggestive of the presence of tornadoes was observed over water
(Novlan and Gray 1974,
Spratt et al. 1997).
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