A Neural Network for Tornado Diagnosis: Managing Local Minima

There exist radar-based algorithms designed to detect circulations in the atmosphere. Not all detected circulations, however, are associated with tornados on the ground. Outlined herein is the development of a multi-layered perceptron designed to classify the two types of circulations – nontor-nadic and tornadic – based on various attributes of the circulations. Special emphasis is placed on the role of local minima in determining the optimal architecture via bootstrapping, and on the performance of the network in terms of probabilistic measures.