Researchers use Facebook to analyze tornado debris

Social media has enabled the tracking and analysis of tornado debris by researchers in the department of geography:

After tornadoes touched down in the Southeast on April 27, 2011, many people in the storm's path did the most logical thing they could-they posted images of the aftermath on Facebook.

The University of Georgia's John Knox and his student researchers went one step further. They used the social media site to create and analyze a database of the debris, turning photos and comments into the most comprehensive study, to date, of debris trajectories from a tornado outbreak.

All 11 of Knox's co-authors are current or former Franklin students, which itself sounds like some kind of record. But there are actual firsts in this work and congratulations to the whole team for this comprehensive study that has a great deal of relevence in the lives of the thousands of people devastated by tornadoes annually.

The full Journal of the American Meteorological Society study is available here.

Image: Associate professor John Knox, right and former undergraduate student Synne Brustad courtesy of UGA photographic services.