Relationship between vegetation boundaries and severe local storms in the Delta region of Mississippi

This study examines how the Delta-bluffs interface in the Mississippi River alluvial flood plain of western Mississippi affects the spatial variation of tornado occurrence and the characteristics of tornadoes that occur within fifty km of the interface. An in-depth analysis of eight tornado events reveals the Delta-bluffs interface enhanced reflectivity and velocity values when seven of eight of the storms were within twenty km of the topographic boundary and that changes in the roughness of the Earth's surface can affect the SRH being ingested by a thunderstorm. It was found that F0-F1 tornadoes are significantly (p < 0.01) clustered along the interface but F2-F5 tornadoes were not significantly (p < 0.05) clustered along this boundary. It appears unlikely that characteristics of tornadoes within and outside of the Delta are statistically different.