PT134 · S1 · Q6 The number of tornadoes recorded

We need something that changed after 1953 that has allowed us to record three times as many tornadoes. This is saying what changed after 1953 was our understanding of what factors create tornadoes. Having better knowledge of what creates a tornado might lead to better reporting of tornadoes, because if you know the causal factors that lead up to a tornado, then maybe you can devote more tracking resources to areas that have those causal factors. But since this answer isn't directly telling us that we've changed how we track tornadoes, it's not as clear or direct what impact it has on the surprise.

We need something that changed after 1953 that has allowed us to record three times as many tornadoes. This says that tornadoes are on average more intense. Does being more intense have any common sense connection to "we've recorded 3 times as many"? A little bit! I mean, it'd be easier to observe a more intense tornado than a less intense one. The smaller tornadoes might be the ones we were missing pre-1953, but now that tornadoes are more intense, even the smaller ones are now on our radar. This answer doesn't actually say the smaller tornadoes nowadays are more intense, though. The uptick in average intensity could be purely because the biggest tornadoes got worse. We were already noticing those monsters. The fact that they're bigger wouldn't make it easier to track the small tornadoes. Since this answer isn't directly telling us that we've changed how we track tornadoes, it's not as clear or direct what impact it has on the surprise.

We know that reported tornadoes have tripled since 1953. This answer is saying that 2025's number of tornadoes wasn't much bigger than 2020's. Cool, but the mystery remains why the number we're recording in 2020/2025 is three times higher than what we recorded in 1953.

Wow another answer that kind of does have a common sense connection to more reporting. A tornado that comes and goes in the middle of nowhere would be easy to miss; it might not be recorded. Meanwhile, tornadoes that do property damage will probably be noticed, even if it's only after the fact (i.e. you wake up and see stuff strewn across your yard and realize there was a tornado last night). However, like (B), the problem here is that we don't know whether the uptick in damage is from major or minor tornadoes. Presumably the major tornadoes have always been tracked/reported pretty well. The ones we were probably missing in 1953 would be the smaller, more remote, more subtle ones. So if the extra damage is coming from the major tornadoes, this doesn't actually give us a way to explain why we'd be so much better at tracking the smaller tornadoes nowadays.