Tornadoes in santa catarina state (southern brazil): event documentation, meteorological analysis and vulnerability assessment

In this study we examine the space and time distributions of tornado events in Santa Catarina state, located in southern Brazil, based on reports obtained from a data set of 27 years of damage assessment files from Santa Catarina ́s Civil Defense System. We also evaluate the vulnerability of the local residents to such weather phenomenon. For the period analyzed, we found that tornadoes occurred in Santa Catarina almost every year, with higher frequency of events being characterized during Spring and Summer. Despite that, no proactive disaster-mitigation procedures exist in Santa Catarina to prepare the society to deal with such hazardous weather events, such that the vulnerability of the local society to tornadoes is relatively high. Because no disastermitigation measure associated with weather phenomena is complete without an efficient warning system, we also conducted a preliminary meteorological analysis of a well documented tornado episode reported in Santa Catarina on 3 January 2005. We found that the tornadic thunderstorm developed in an atmospheric condition that displayed some characteristics usually observed in mid-latitude-type severe weather environments. However, further analysis is necessary to characterize all mechanisms that led to the tornado formation, including local topography.