April 9, 2008 -- While tornadoes hold the title for most murderous winds in the United States, there are less infamous winds which could give twisters some deadly competition, say meteorologists.
Mountain winds, dust storms, gap winds and winter storm winds that often occur under clear blue skies, it turns out, could potentially kill more people than hurricane winds.
Most deaths from these "non-convective" winds have been on the West Coast and in the Northeast, and mostly among people who are boating or driving, say researchers who studied weather-related fatalities from 1980 to 2005. Falling trees and signs are particularly to blame in many cases.
"Basically nobody has ever summarized these kinds of things," said weather researcher Walker Ashley of Northern Illinois University.
The far racier things like tornadoes and hurricanes have always received more attention, he said. Ashley and his co-author Alan Black published their study of wind fatalities in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.
Ashley and Black report that in the study period there were 616 fatalities from non-convective winds. That compares with 696 deaths caused directly by hurricane winds. Surprisingly, most hurricane deaths are not from winds but from flooding and other factors. Tornadoes killed 1,388 in the same period.
Even more compelling is their discovery that during the shorter period from 1990 to 2005 there were more deaths from non-convective winds than from non-tornado thunderstorm winds. On average, about 24 people die every year in non-convective wind events, they report.
Another surprise is that the areas with the most fatalities are not those traditionally known for the highest winds.
The Great Lakes region has some very strong winds but has a low rate of fatalities. On the other hand, the Northeast had high fatalities: 57 in New York, 23 in Pennsylvania, eight in Connecticut, 11 in New Jersey, 12 in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and one in Delaware.
Three western states accounted for a third of all the fatalities: 96 in California, 46 in Oregon and 66 in Washington.
Population density probably has a lot to do with the numbers of fatalities, Ashley said. But it's hard to say for certain.
What can be said with more certainty is that the general public is less aware of the dangers of non-convective winds, said research meteorologist John Knox of the University of Georgia in Athens. He co-authored another paper about what creates the powerful winds in the Great Lakes region, which appeared in the December issue of the Journal of Climate.
"People don't think they can be killed when it's a clear blue sky," Knox said.
And often wind speeds are underestimated in forecasts, he said. In many parts of the country winds can gust at a violent 90 miles per hour or more. The extreme potential in the Pacific Northwest, he says, is particularly underappreciated.
"What we need to do is make sure people understand that high winds are deadly," said Knox. "All high winds can kill, period."
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