Defining Derecho Intensity and Impacts Through Physical Properties, FEMA Assistance, and an Emergency Management Impact Scale and GIS Response Tool
Open Access
- Author:
- Kramer, Adrienne Katherine
- Graduate Program:
- Geography
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 27, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Andrew Mark Carleton, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Andrew Mark Carleton, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Douglas Alan Miller, Committee Member
Robert George Crane, Committee Member
Yvette Pamela Richardson, Outside Member - Keywords:
- derecho
Northern Tier
FEMA assistance
GIS tool - Abstract:
- A derecho is a convectively induced windstorm produced by an extratropical mesoscale convective system (MCS) with straight-line winds exceeding 25ms-1. Fourteen derecho corridors exist in the U.S. The Northern Tier corridor includes derechos that track northwest to southeast from the North Central Plains and Upper Midwest regions through the mid-Atlantic states. This corridor produces more frequent and damaging derechos than those of other U.S. corridors. This dissertation investigates Northern Tier derechos to improve understanding of the factors that influence their intensity, to predict the cost of federal response and recovery activities, and to develop and apply a meteorological impact scale and emergency response GIS tool. Fifty-six summer (JJA) Northern Tier derechos along with their physical atmospheric and land-surface attributes and population characteristics of those impacted by the events are examined to clarify their climatology and impacts. Multiple and geographically weighted regressions, principal component analysis, spatial analysis, and cluster analysis are used to reveal characteristics of derecho intensity and impact such as track length and federal assistance required for response and recovery. Results show that derecho intensity is influenced strongly by the atmospheric and land-surface variables of CAPE, the LLJ, and land use boundaries. Response and recovery funding is related to the area impacted and underlying attributes of the affected populations (e.g., socioeconomic status). A meteorological impact scale classifies the different event impacts and an emergency management GIS response tool is applied and shown to be useful in depicting resource access after a derecho. The research enhances understanding of Northern Tier derechos to help refine attempts to understand their impacts and improves the ability of emergency managers to prepare for these events.