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359

YAO Yeqing, YU Xiaoding, ZHANG Yijun, et al.

Climate Analysis of Tornadoes in China

YAO Yeqing1,2,3 (

), YU Xiaoding

), ZHANG Yijun (
),

), XIE Wusan ( ), LU Yanyu ( ),
( ), and WEI Lingxiang ( )
4

ZHOU Zijiang (
YU Jinlong3

1 Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044

2 Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing 100081
3 Anhui Meteorological Observatory, Hefei 230031
4 China Meteorological Administration Training Center, Beijing 100081
5 National Meteorological Information Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081
6 Anhui Province Climate Center, Hefei 230031
(Received July 8, 2014; in final form January 13, 2015)

ABSTRACT
Based on analysis of historical tornado observation data provided by the primary network of national
weather stations in China for the period from 1960 to 2009, it is found that most tornadoes in China (85%)
occurred over plains. Specically, large numbers of tornado occurrences are found in the Northeast Plain,
the North China Plain, the middle-lower Yangtze Plain, and the Pearl River Delta Plain. A at underlying
surface is conducive to tornado occurrence, while the latitudal variation of tornado occurrence in China
is not so obvious. Tornadoes mainly occur in summer, and the highest frequency is in July. Note that
the beginning and the time span of tornado outbreaks are dierent in North and South China. Tornadoes
occur during MaySeptember in South China (south of 25 N), JuneSeptember in Northeast China (north
of 40 N), JulySeptember in the middle-lower Yangtze Plain, and JulyAugust in North China (between
25 and 40 N). More than 80% of total tornadoes occurred during the above periods for the specic regions.
The 1960s and 1970s have seen about twice the average number of tornadoes (7.5 times per year) compared
to the mean for 19602009. The most frequent occurrence of tornado was in the early and mid 1960s; there
were large uctuations in the 1970s; and the number of tornadoes in the 1980s approached the 50-yr average.
Tornado occurrences gradually decreased in the late 1980s, and an abrupt change with dramatic decrease
occurred in 1994. The decrease in the tornado occurrence frequency is consistent with the simultaneous
climatic change in the meteorological elements that are favorable for tornado formation. Tornado formation
requires large vertical wind shear and sucient atmospheric moisture content near the ground. Changes in
the vertical wind shear at both 01 and 06 km appear to be one important factor that results in the decrease
in tornado formation. The changing tendency of relative humidity also has contributed to the decrease in
tornado formation in China.
Key words: tornado, China, climate change
Citation: Yao Yeqing, Yu Xiaoding, Zhang Yijun, et al., 2015: Climate analysis of tornadoes in China. J.
Meteor. Res., 29(3), 359369, doi: 10.1007/s13351-015-4983-0.

1. Introduction
Tornadoes are quite common weather phenomena
in China. On 26 March 1967, a total of 13 tornadoes
consecutively struck Shanghai and northern Zhejiang
Province. These tornadoes pulled up 22 electricity
pylons that were designed to withstand winds of up

to double scale 12, and caused widespread damage in

northern Zhejiang Province. Many buildings collapsed
and the casualties were signicant (Zhu et al., 1985).
Because of the small-scale feature of tornadoes, it is
hard for an observation network to capture them. As
a result, tornado research is much less developed than
the research for other mesoscale disastrous weathers

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41175043).

author: xdyu1962@126.com.
The Chinese Meteorological Society and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Corresponding

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JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH

like rainstorms.
The rst paper on the topic of tornadoes written by Chinese scientists was published in the 1960s
(Bao and Zhao, 1964). Since the late 1960s, observations from the meteorological research radar in China,
the type 711 radar with a wavelength of 3 cm, have
been applied to tornado research (Ge, 1979; Zha, 1979;
Zhen and Liu, 1982). Using observations from the
type 711 radar in Guilin, Guangxi Region in 1977,
Zha (1979) conducted the pioneering research to detect
the tornado columnar echo in anvil clouds. The tornado echo sometimes could nd its way to the ground
and stay away from the main thunderstorm. From
the radar observation in Guilin in 1977, it was found
that the observed tornado formed in the middle troposphere, and dissipated after it hit the ground, lasting
less than 18 min. The complete life cycle of a tornado
with a diameter smaller than 1 km was observed by
Zhen and Liu (1982). Since the beginning of the 21st
century, the CINRAD-98D network has been operated
in China. Tornadoes that have signicant impacts
have been detected by Doppler weather radar many
times. Researchers are able to further understand the
tornado by analyzing features of the tornado radar
echoes (Yao et al., 2004, 2007, 2012; Zhen et al., 2004,
2009; He et al., 2006; Yu et al., 2006, 2008; Zhang et
al., 2012; Meng and Yao, 2014; Zhou et al., 2014).
With an appropriate radar location (within 100
km), it is found that the observed tornado is often
characterized by a base velocity and a strong cyclone
or tornado vortex signature, a lower top and bottom mesocyclone, and a large wind shear compared to
other severe convective weathers. Tornadoes tend to
form when the height of the bottom of the mesocyclone
reaches a minimum value. Based on the analysis of a
tornado case in Beijing, Meng and Yao (2014) found
that a descending reectivity core appears before the
tornado formation and shrinks after its formation. In
the late stage of a tornado life cycle, a tornado debris signature can be detected. Synoptic background
situation has been investigated with a focus on the environmental conditions and mesoscale features, which
have signicant impacts on tornado formation and dissipation (Li and Liu, 1989; Shen, 1990; Wang, 1996).

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It is found that tornadoes often form when the atmospheric stratication is unstable, and temperature and
humidity both are high at low levels. Signicant vertical wind shears have also been observed in tornado
events in recent years.
Most tornado studies in the past decades have
focused on various single tornado cases, while few researchers have investigated tornadoes across the entire
China. Wei and Zhao (1995) described the distribution of tornadoes for the period from 1980 to 1993 in
eastern China. Xue et al. (2003) studied climatic characteristics related to tornadoes in Shandong Province.
Lu (1996) analyzed tornado characteristics in Fujian
Province, and Lei et al.(2005) showed the spatial distribution and temporal variability as well as the diurnal variation of tornadoes in Shanxi Province. A
common conclusion from these studies is that tornadoes mainly occur in summer.
Based on analysis of the frequency of tornado
occurrence in China, this paper investigates the spatial and temporal variation of tornadoes to present an
overall picture of tornado generation. In order to explore the reasons for tornado changes in China, we also
investigate the climatic changes in some meteorological elements that are important for tornado formation.
2. Data
Tornado information is derived from the raw
weather records and observational products archived
by the National Meteorological Center of China. The
data from the primary observation network of weather
stations in China cover the period from 1951 to 2010.
During this period, the number of weather observation stations has increased from 150 in 1954 to 658
in 1960, and to 684 stations in 2010. To avoid the
problem of data inconsistency caused by the changes
in the number of weather stations, we only analyze the
observations from January 1960 to December 2009. A
tornado is identied if the meteorological observation
meets the criteria specied by the China Meteorological Administration (2003).
Tornado is a small-scale violently rotating column
of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to

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YAO Yeqing, YU Xiaoding, ZHANG Yijun, et al.

the ground. From the outside, a funnel-shaped cloud

extending from the cumulonimbus cloud base can be
observed. The funnel-shaped cloud sometimes looks
like it is stretching or hanging in the air, and the
cloud base can reach the ground or water surface. A
tornado can cause serious damage to almost everything along its path. Based on these specic features,
tornadoes can be identied and recorded by professional weather observers. Reports by amateur observers are not included in this analysis, since these
reports are often incomplete or inaccurate. Tornado
events have a small spatial scale and a short span of
life time. Many tornadoes occur far from observation
stations, and thus are not recorded. As a result, the
real number of tornadoes could be much larger than
that of recorded and analyzed tornadoes in this paper. For instance, Bao and Zhao (1964) stated that
seven tornadoes occurred in Shanghai from 1962 to
1963, but none of these tornadoes has been recorded
by the primary network of national weather stations.
Even so, the tornado records from national observa-

361

tion stations are still the most representative and most

objective records available for the present study. We
used these records to analyze the spatial distribution
and interannual and interdecadal changes in tornado
events across China. Note that in the past 50 years,
the number of the national observation stations has
increased a little, which may have some impacts on
this analysis.
3. Geographical distribution of tornadoes
The number of tornadoes observed by the primary
network of national weather stations across China in
the past 50 years (19602009) is shown in Fig. 1.
Tornado distribution in China shows an obvious geographical characteristics: they mainly occur in eastern
China (about 81%), especially in the eastern plain of
China. The elevation is higher in western China than
in eastern China, and demonstrates a step-like staircase decrease from the Tibetan Plateau towards the
sea. The Tibetan Plateau with average elevation

Fig. 1. Tornado occurrences (black numbers) observed by the national principal observation stations (dark blue dots)
from 1960 to 2009. The seven highest frequency tornado occurrence regions in China are labeled from I to VII.

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JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH

above 4000 m occupies the rst upper step of the topographic staircase, and elevations in the region corresponding to the second upper step is about 1000
2000 m in average, and mainly consists of plateaus
and basins. Plains and low hills in eastern China occupy the lowest step of the topographic staircase with
average elevation of less than 500 m. Most tornadoes
occur in the eastern plain, and some occur over the areas between 100 and 115 E. Occasionally tornadoes
can also be observed at both sides of the western Tianshan Mountain and in areas near the Ili River valley
in western Xinjiang. In general, the number of tornadoes in the eastern plain of China is much larger than
that in the west. No signicant dierences in tornado
numbers are found between South and North China.
The Northeast Plain, North China Plain, middle-lower
Yangtze Plain, and Pearl River Delta Plain are the areas with high frequency of tornadoes.
Figure 1 illustrates the terrain height in China.
From the geographical distribution of tornado occurrence, it is clear that tornado occurrence is highly related to terrain height. More than 80% of the tornadoes occur over eastern China, corresponding to the
region that occupies the third (lowest) step of the topographic staircase, where the terrain is largely comprised of plains and hills. Note that more tornadoes
occur in plains than over the hilly regions. Although
the distance from the Northeast Plain to the Pearl
River Delta Plain is quite long and the climate regime
changes from temperate to tropical, the frequency of
tornado occurrence varies little over this vast region.
In the southeastern hilly regions (Fujian, Jiangxi, and
southern Anhui provinces) that are within the region
of third step of the topographic staircase, the synoptic weather systems aecting the northern part of the
region are similar to those aecting the middle-lower
reaches of Yangtze River. In the southern part of this
region, the synoptic weather systems are quite similar to that in the Pearl River Delta Plain, which is
under strong inuences of ocean and typhoons. Tornadoes are rarely observed in the southeastern hills of
this region, but occur frequently in the middle-lower
Yangtze Plain and nearby the Pearl River Delta Plain.
This result indicates that the reason why fewer torna-

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does occur in the southeastern hills is not because of

the weather conditions, but rather due to the eects
of terrain forcing. A similar number of tornado events
is found over plain areas where the climate regimes
are dierent but the terrain features are similar. The
border areas between the hills and at plains share
a similar climate regime but the number of tornado
events varies largely, following the variation of the terrain features.
4. Seasonal variation of tornado occurrence
The season can be quite dierent in dierent regions of China. In this study, seven regions were dened according to the geographic distribution and frequency of tornado occurrence (Fig. 1). The seven
regions are: I: Northeast China; II: North China; III:
middle-lower Yangtze Plain; IV: South China; V: East
Tibetan Plateau; VI: Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau; and
VII: West Xinjiang.
Figure 2 shows the monthly accumulated tornado
occurrence for the period 19602009 in the seven dened regions. It illustrates two distinct phenomena.
First, it shows that areas with large frequency of tornado occurrence are located in Northeast China, the
middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River, South and
North China. Apparently, more tornadoes occur over
East China than over West China. Second, the highest frequency of tornadoes is in July for all the seven
regions.
Figure 3 is the percentage of monthly tornado occurrence out of the annual total number of tornadoes.
It shows that most tornado events occur in the warm
months, with more than 80% of tornadoes observed
during JuneSeptember in all the regions except South
China. A specic month is dened as the tornado
outbreak month if the total number of tornadoes in
that month is equal to or larger than 10% of its annual amount. Due to the large north-south extension in China, the peak time of tornado occurrence
is quite dierent between North and South China.
Figures 3 and 4 show that tornado outbreak time
is JuneSeptember in Northeast China, JulyAugust
in North China, JulySeptember in the Yangtze River

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363

Fig. 2. Monthly accumulated tornado occurrences in seven regions of China from 1960 to 2009.

Fig. 3. Monthly percentage of the number of tornadoes to annual total in seven regions of China from 1960 to 2009.

region, and MaySeptember in South China, where

the longest time span of tornado occurrence is found.
In the eastern region of China, the earliest tornado outbreak appears in South China in May, followed by that in Northeast China in June. However,
in the Yangtze River region and North China, the tornado outbreak occurs in July. It is clear that the beginning of the tornado outbreak does not postpone
following the increased latitude. This is attributed to
the inuence of typhoons in the Yangtze River region.

Typhoons rarely reach North and Northeast China.

Severe convective weathers in the Yangtze River region mainly occur from May to August, and decrease
sharply in September. There are, however, more tornadoes in September than in June in the Yangtze River
region, accounting for up to 20% of the annual total
number of tornadoes. This result can at least be partly
explained by the fact that the typhoon season is May
August in the Yangtze River region. Many studies
have shown that tornadoes are often activated within

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JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH

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Fig. 4. Typical tornado outbreak months in regions IVII, as represented by the shading in each circle.

2000 km of a typhoon. This type of tornado mainly

occurs during JulySeptember, with a peak occurrence
in August (Shen, 1990; Xue and Yang, 2003). A similar type of tornado is also frequently observed in the
U.S. Schultz and Cecil (2009) showed that tornadoes
within 750 km of a typhoon accounted for 3.4% of the
total tornadoes in the U.S. from 1950 to 2007, and that
many of them occurred to the northeast of typhoons.
Compared to the situation in East China, tornado occurrence time in West China does not demonstrate
any specic patterns. Seasonal distribution of tornado occurrence in West Xinjiang seems quite random,
although more tornados occur during AprilAugust
than in other months. Tornadoes mainly occur in central regions during MayJuly.
5. Interannual and interdecadal variations of
tornado occurrence in China
Figure 5 shows that in the 1960s and 1970s the
number of tornadoes was about twice the 50-yr average (7.5 times a year; this 50-yr average is likely to
be underestimated because some tornadoes occur in
undetectable regions). In the 1980s, the number was
close to the average, and after the 1990s, the number

reduced signicantly. Except in 1991, when the number of tornadoes was close to the annual average, the
number of tornadoes in the most recent 20 years was
much less than the average.
A secondary sliding mean value of nine points,
calculated following the method by Wei (2007), shows
that the annual variation of tornado occurrence in the
early and mid 1960s, and in the mid 1970s and early
1980s, were all above average. In the mid 1960s, tornado occurrences reached the maximum. The interannual variability of tornado occurrence in the 1970s was
the largest in the 50-yr period. In the 1980s, tornado
occurrences decreased, but had a less interannual variability than in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, all sliding
mean values were below the average, with no obvious
interannual variability.
We further adopt the Mann-Kendall method proposed by Wei (2007) to conduct trend analysis for
tornado occurrence in China. The results are shown
in Fig. 6, in which the labels UF (positive sequence)
and UB (reverse sequence) represent sequences of sample statistics, respectively. The UF value is below zero
in the late 1960s, indicating a decreasing trend of
tornado occurrence. The value exceeds the critical
threshold (u0.05 = 1.96) in the 1980s. It is statis-

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YAO Yeqing, YU Xiaoding, ZHANG Yijun, et al.

365

Fig. 5. Annual variation of the number of tornadoes from 1960 to 2009.

Fig. 6. Mann-Kendall curve of tornado occurrences in

China from 1960 to 2009.

tically signicant at condence, and even exceeds the

u0.001 = 3.29 at = 0.001, indicating that the decreasing trend of tornado occurrence is signicant. According to the intersection of UF and UB, the abrupt
change in tornado occurred in 1994. In general, the
tornado occurrence decreases by about 4 times every
10 years.
6. Analysis of the trends of tornado occurrence
in China
Tornado formation requires specic atmospheric
conditions. Evans and Doswell (2002) and Craven and
Brooks (2004) both suggested that among the many
convection parameters, a low lifting condensation level
and a large low-level (01 km) vertical wind shear both
favor strong tornado formation (i.e., over F2 class).
Such environmental conditions are distinctly dierent to the conditions that favor for the development

of other severe convective weather. The lower the

lifting condensation level, the greater the likelihood
of a tornado formation. Craven and Brooks (2004)
showed that more than 75% of tornadoes had a lifting
condensation level at 1200 m or less, lower than other
types of severe convective weather by 500 m or more.
Similarly, the greater the 01-km vertical wind shear,
the greater the likelihood of tornado formation. The
average vertical wind shear is 12 m s1 for a tornado to
form, while the value is only 46 m s1 for the development of hail and other severe convective weather. In
addition to the low-level vertical wind shear, the vertical wind shear between the ground and the middle atmosphere is considered an important condition for the
development of severe convective weather. Colquhoun
and Riley (1996) analyzed correlations between the
unstable parameters for over 200 tornado cases. They
found that the correlation coecient between tornado
formation and vertical wind shear from the ground to
600 hPa is 0.68. For this reason, the vertical wind
shear is considered to be the most relevant diagnostic
variable for strong convection development and tornado formation.
6.1 Climatic changes in low-level relative humidity
Studies suggest that a low lifting condensation
level is favorable for the tornado generation, while the
lifting condensation level depends on the relative humidity at low levels of the atmosphere. More specif-

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JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH

ically, the larger the relative humidity, the lower the

height of the lifting condensation level. The dew point
depression (the dierence between the temperature
and the dew point) is highly related to relative humidity. Using the NCEP reanalysis data with a grid
spacing of 2.5 2.5 and taking into account that
more than 75% of the tornados lifting condensation
level is at 1200 m or below, we further investigate the
climatic trends of atmospheric relative humidity below
1200 m. In this study, the ground and 925-hPa dew
point depressions are selected. Most of the tornado
events occurred during MaySeptember of 19602009
and more than 80% of tornadoes did in eastern part
of China. In addition, the altitude in western China is
mostly above 925 hPa. For these reasons, the analysis
of the relative humidity trends in the ground is performed for the entire country, while that at 925 hPa is
presented only in eastern China (east of 102.5 E; Fig.
7).
Figure 7 shows the trend of the dew point depres-

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sion at the surface and at 925 hPa. In eastern China,

where tornadoes occur most frequently, the depression
shows an increasing trend. This indicates that the relative humidity near the ground and at the surface has
been decreasing, leading to the environmental conditions unfavorable for a lower height of lifting condensation level. As a result, the increased lifting condition level makes it hard for tornadoes to form. Such
kind of environmental climate change aects tornado
formation, and partly explains why the number of tornadoes decreased in recent decades.
6.2 Climatic changes in vertical wind shear
The NCEP reanalysis gridded data are used to
calculate the climatic changing trends of vertical wind
shear (Fig. 8) from the ground to 1-km height (0
1 km) and from the ground to 6-km height (06 km),
respectively. The vertical wind shear is calculated with
shr01i = (v 1i v 0i )/1 and shr06i = (v 6i v 0i )/6
(103 s1 ). Here shr represents vertical wind shear

Fig. 7. Variation trends of the average dew point depression (MaySeptember; (10 yr)1 ) at (a) surface and (b) 925
hPa in eastern China from 1960 to 2009.

Fig. 8. Variation trends of the average vertical wind shear (MaySeptember; 103 s1 (10 yr)1 ) at (a) 01 and (b)
06 km from 1960 to 2009.

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YAO Yeqing, YU Xiaoding, ZHANG Yijun, et al.

(with its subdomain), i represents a grid point, and v 1

and v 6 represent the velocity vector of wind at 1 and 6
km, respectively. v 1 and v 6 were calculated by using
an inverse distance weighting interpolation method.
Comparing Fig. 1 with Fig. 8 nds that the vertical wind shear within 01 km shows a decreasing
trend over most of the regions where tornadoes are
frequently observed. A slight increasing trend is found
over Hainan Island, the Guangdong coast, Jiangsu,
and the Shandong Peninsula. The 06-km vertical
wind shear only slightly increased along the coastal
region in South China. Several previous studies have
revealed that the vertical wind shear is very important
for tornado formation, and usually tornadoes are easy
to form when there exist large vertical wind shears.
The decreasing trend in the vertical wind shear in
eastern China represents a change in the large environmental condition that became unfavorable for the
generation of tornadoes. This apparently is one of the
reasons that explain why tornado occurrences have reduced in recent decades.
In the following we analyze the annual change in
vertical wind shear. Tornadoes have occurred at some
of the national observation sites. The grid points nearest to those sites were selected for the analysis. Taking
the 06-km vertical wind shear as an example, calculation of the annual change in vertical wind shear is as
follows. First, the daily vertical wind shears at each
grid point are given by shri = (v 6 v 1 )/6, where i
represents the grid point, and then the monthly average vertical wind shear at each 
selected grid
 point
 i=k

1 d=n
is calculated by: shrm =
shri , where
n k d=l i=l
d

367

n represents the number of days in the month, k is

the number of grid points, and m is from May to
September. Finally, the monthly average vertical wind
shear from May to September is used to calculate the
annual vertical wind shear for the tornado occurrence

1 m=9
season (shr =
shrm ). In Fig. 9, the results show
5 m=5
a decreasing trend in both the 01- and 06-km vertical wind shear during 19602009. In the early 1960s,
the vertical wind shear is relatively large, and tornado
events are the most frequent. From the decreasing
trends, it is found that the vertical wind shear reduced
more rapidly in the 1960s and 1990s than in other
decades, which is consistent with the changing trend of
tornadoes. We also compared interannual changes in
tornado occurrence and vertical wind shear, and found
that they are not entirely consistent with each other,
suggesting that the change of vertical wind shear is not
the only reason to explain why tornado events were decreasing.
7. Conclusions and discussion
In this paper, the geographical distribution of tornado, its outbreak time, and the interannual and interdecadal variability of tornado occurrence are demonstrated based on analysis of tornado observations provided by the primary network of national weather stations from January 1960 to December 2009. The major
results are as follows.
(1) About 81% of all tornadoes occurred over the
plains of eastern China, i.e., the Northeast Plain, the
North China Plain, the middle-lower Yangtze Plain,

Fig. 9. Average vertical wind shear (MaySeptember; 103 s1 ) at heights of (a) 01 and (b) 06 km in regions IIV
from 1960 to 2009.

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JOURNAL OF METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH

and the Pearl River Delta Plain. The second most

tornado prone region is located along the border between the regions of rst and second steps of the
topographic staircase (100 115 E), including parts
of Yunnan-Guizhou and both sides of the western
Tianshan Mountain, as well as a small area in the
Ili River valley in West Xinjiang. Tornado occurrences demonstrate distinct geographical characteristics, which is highly dependent on the underlying
surface characteristics. Plain areas are conducive to
tornado occurrence, and no clear variation is found
along the latitude direction.
(2) Across China, the highest frequency of tornado occurrence appears in July. However, the beginning time and the time span of tornado outbreaks
are dierent between North and South China. The
earliest outbreak of tornado is found in May in South
China, and tornado occurrence can last until September. In the Yangtze River region and to its north,
tornadoes occur in June and July, and few are found
in September. The end time of tornado formation is
slightly later in South China than that in North China.
South China has the longest annual outbreak period
of tornado, which covers 5 months of the year. The
tornado outbreak in Northeast and North China, and
the middle-lower Yangtze River region covers about
34 months of a year. The beginning of the outbreak
in the Northeast Plain, which is located north of 40 N,
is in June. This is also the month when the number
of tornadoes accounts for 22.8% of the annual total.
However, in the middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze
River, tornadoes in June account for only 9.3% of
the annual total, and increase signicantly from July
to September (34.9% in July, 32.6% in August, and
20.9% in September). This may be related to the
inuence of typhoons, which often reach this region
from July to September.
(3) On the interannual and interdecadal scales,
the tornado occurrence demonstrates an overall decreasing trend in China. The number of recorded
tornadoes was relatively large in the 1960s and 1970s,
about twice the 50-yr average. The trend analysis by
using the Mann-Kendall method shows that since the
late 1980s, tornado occurrence began to signicantly

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decrease and the abrupt change occurred in 1994.

(4) Further analyses have been conducted to explore the reasons why tornado occurrence is decreasing
in China. It is found that the decreasing trend may be
related to changes in general climate conditions. The
changes in the vertical wind shear and the lifting condensation level in the past 50 years are not favorable
for the tornado formation. The dew point depression
at the surface has increased, and vertical wind shear
at 01 and 06 km has decreased.
The geographical distribution of tornadoes in
China shows that tornadoes mainly occur in plain areas, closely related to the underlying terrain. Since
the 1980s, urbanization has been advanced rapidly
in China. The expansion rate in the 1990s was 1.6
times as much as that of the 1980s. The urban expansion rate is now 2.7 times as much as that of 20 years
ago (http://www.chinautc.com/information/). Grasslands close to observation stations are often replaced
with buildings due to the expansion of urbanization.
The decrease in at grasslands is not favorable for
tornado formation. Changes in the underlying surface
caused by urbanization and that of atmospheric elements (vertical wind shear and relative humidity in
the low troposphere) may have jointly decreased the
tornado occurrence in China.

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