| Exposure of the United States population to severe storms has amplified over time, causing increased damage totals. However, prior research examining normalized damages suggests that losses are not increasing when inflation, wealth, and increases in population are accounted. These normalized damages from severe weather imply population increase and spatial expansion are a driving force in the increased non-normalized damages. This research shows where and how quickly tornado exposure is growing by examining the spatiotemporal trends in gridded population and housing unit data for five Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States. The macroscale risk to tornadoes is represented by tornado day climatology and is related to the exposure of the five MSAs, which include: Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas/Fort Worth, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; and St. Louis, MO. Supplementing the macroscale investigation, an observationally derived, synthetic tornado track is transposed on various development types in each MSA to determine the microscale changes in human and built environment exposure. Through spatial cluster and statistical analyses, results demonstrate increased exposure in all MSAs studied on a microscale and macroscale. Of the five MSAs studied, Dallas, TX had the greatest potential for a tornado disaster due to the higher risk for tornado occurrence comingling with the amount of MSA exposure. These results reveal that amplifying exposure is the impetus behind increased impacts due to severe weather. |
