Scientists at Northern Illinois University (NIU) have found that the nighttime tornado death rate has changed very little in the past century, despite improvements in forecasting technology and the decline of the overall tornado death rate. The study, by NIU Meteorologist and Professor of Geography Walker Ashley, NIU Geography Chair Andrew Krmenec, and Research Associate Rick Schwantes, appears in the October issue of the American Meteorological Society's journal, Weather and Forecasting. "The proportion of nocturnal fatalities and killer tornado events has increased during the last half century," Ashley said. "Unfortunately, the nocturnal fatality rate appears to be a major factor for the stalled decline in national tornado-fatality tallies during the past few decades." The research team found that from 1950-2005 only 27 percent of tornadoes in the United States occurred at night, but 39 percent of tornado-caused deaths and 42 percent of overall killer tornado events took place during the night.
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