---
title: A New Twist on Tornado Tracking
date: 2025-05-14T10:00:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/a-new-twist-on-tornado-tracking"
section: Articles
---
# A New Twist on Tornado Tracking

*May 14, 2025* — by [John Tucker](/authors/john-tucker)


- *Illustration by Valerie Morgan*

> Undergrad Coproduces First Database Documenting Events Worldwide

*tornado coming out of laptop*

**THE WORLD’S OLDEST** documented tornado likely occurred in Sardinia in 200 AD. What’s probably the northernmost recorded twister hit Norway in 2005, a rare occurrence in the Arctic Circle. In 2001, one that ripped through the University of Maryland campus killed two students.

Those are among the facts detailed in a first-of-its-kind archive built by a research team co-led by UMD undergraduate Malcolm Maas ’25. It offers a historical record of more than 100,000 tornadoes that spun through all 50 states and every continent but Antarctica.

Until now, individual attempts to document twisters outside of the United States have been inconsistent, sometimes even contradicting each other. Maas’ archive streamlines data cultivated from all corners of the globe. The project was detailed in a [recent paper](https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/105/7/BAMS-D-23-0123.1.xml) published in the *Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society*, with Maas serving as lead author.


*Malcolm Maas ’25 headshot — Malcolm Maas ’25*




**Issue:** [Spring 2025](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/spring-2025)


**Types:** [Explorations](https://terp.umd.edu/category/explorations)