Chasers creating panic on social network sites

[Warren Faidley]

I have been seeing the whole CIPS analogy page being thrown around where May 3rd, 1999 is one of the analogous events for Saturday. However, if you look at all the events, there are only a few where severe weather occurred. Sure enough though, people are throwing the "May 3rd" term around to describe this weekend, which is irresponsible in my opinion.

The overall strategy of the chasers who post this BS is brilliant in a marketing sense. There are a lot of people who know little or nothing about severe weather. When they see this crap they believe it, like toy rockets actually having a "life saving" scientific purpose. Regardless, it's almost impossible to call anyone on this, because those who believe it are so enchanted with their "heroes" its become a cult-like following. The old method for this kind of brainwashing was television. Before that is was traveling snake oil salesmen. Some might remember the televangelists who were once very successful at capturing those who were weak minded to join the faith. The problem with building an empire on a false foundation is that eventually someone in the media will expose them and it all goes to hell.

W.

 

[chrisbray]

I wouldn't put money on it, but I 'woudn't be surprised' either. And im not sure getting a lot of folks attention for the potential is such a bad thing. Don't hate'm cause he's successful.

Oh I by no means was hating on him. Just wasn't sure if that fell into the mold of what you guys were talking about, or if that is more a precautionary statement which is useful for getting attention of the casual followers of his (which there are a ton). I follow very few chasers on facebook so I am just unsure which end of the spectrum you'd place that quote in.

 

[Jon Strebler]

You mean for example, yesterday proclaiming "I would not be surprised if this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday will be the most significant multi-day tornado outbreak in the U.S. since 2011"?

Someone must have had a memory lapse and forgot about last year. I would say that having EF4+ tornadoes for three days in a row last May 18th, 19th, 20th would be considered somewhat significant. It was more of a regional outbreak, but if you want to hype things up at least try to remember the things that happened within the past year.

 

[Warren Faidley]

I have to totally disagree that "any type of sensationalized forecast" is a good thing for public awareness. I am not aware of any public storm safety program that has been based on over-dramatized forecasts and worked. More so, there is no excuse for amateur scientists to do so, especially those "research-themed" chasers who have never published a peer reviewed scientific article to back up their claims of "science" or those who have no affiliation with any scientific entity to support or debunk their research as legitimate. And, if you were truly all about "public" information and that was your "honest" intention, you would conducting business a lot differently.

Nor does discontent equal "hatefulness." Why do people always think that anytime a chaser disagrees with someone in the chasing community it's hateful? Pushing people to point of panic several days out based on a so-so forecast is irresponsible - period. There is no excuse. In addition, the purpose is obvious. Does anyone here actually believe the chasers in question are doing this for public service? Does TWC do this with hurricanes to "make people more aware?" Hell no, it's all about gaining followers and making money from naive people who do not know any better. There is nothing hateful about this. If you are going to be a public figure and abuse your authority, it comes with the job.

If you are a "top-notch" meteorologist and promoting yourself as one, you should know better than to make over-dramatized forecasts based on very poor meteorological judgement. I actually question such chasers knowledge of operational meteorology -- or they are ignoring it in favor of their own gain. I could accept this being an "excitement" mistake, but there is a pattern here of over-dramatized events designed for profit and self-promotion and it's wrong.

W.

 

[Rob H]

I have been seeing the whole CIPS analogy page being thrown around where May 3rd, 1999 is one of the analogous events for Saturday. However, if you look at all the events, there are only a few where severe weather occurred. Sure enough though, people are throwing the "May 3rd" term around to describe this weekend, which is irresponsible in my opinion.

This is hilarious to me in a really sad way. It seems that many people in weather are prone to taking model output at face value without understanding the data that went into it, the models biases, and how to use it effectively as a tool. Anyone in their right mind would say "yeah there's a big trough, and a sharp dryline... but that's not just 5/3/99 that's like a million setups, including a lot of busts". I would always see the old-timers like Tim Vasquez warn about this, and the CIPS crap is a really good example. Quick someone tell the media about CIPS so they can hype things even more

I wouldn't put money on it, but I 'woudn't be surprised' either. And im not sure getting a lot of folks attention for the potential is such a bad thing. Don't hate'm cause he's successful.

You mean those huge 4/13-4/15 2012 and 5/18-5/20 2013 outbreaks?

He's right in this case, but it's disingenuous. These last two years have had extremely minor outbreak sequences (by count) so saying this is the biggest thing since the 2011 Super Outbreak is putting some false importance to the event. He's deliberately invoking the memory of the Super Outbreak, and that will definitely get people wormed up. I think it's a dangerous situation unfolding, but something about the way he hypes it rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's because of the way he hypes any system with 65 dews and 50kt LLJ - omg apocalypse!

The thing that bugs me with social media, and just look at Reed's wall if you need good examples, is that these people aren't more weather aware. They ask him if they're in danger because they have no idea about what websites they should be using, or what weather radios they should be buying. Then they go out in dangerous conditions to take pictures and share those on his threads. They don't learn to become informed about risk outlooks, or watches, or warnings. They depend on Reed posting. The problem is that it's not Reed's job to warn the public, so if he's sick, or tired from an all-night drive, or just misses an event - his fans are left unaware of any risk. He might have a very secondary purpose in keeping people safe, but his #1 goal is to attract fans and keep fans engaged because they're the ones funding him at this point.

It's not hating on Reed to say that his goals are selling video and attracting fans to pay his salary. As long as he's not endangering anyone he should chase how he wants to chase, and that's fine. But if he wants to start preaching about how he's saving lives and doing science, there's an argument to be made. You could also argue that he's brought a negative side to the forefront in chasing and that he's not the best role model. He's probably the closest thing we have to Jonas from Twister.

After five years of chasing and contemplating I'm still not closer to an answer as to whether that's a good thing, a bad thing, or not even a thing to be concerned with *shrug*

Nor does discontent equal "hatefulness." Why do people always think that anytime a chaser disagrees with someone in the chasing community it's hateful?

Because chasers are silly, insecure, opinionated nerds with a fierce independent streak. Myself included.

 

[chrisbray]

Yeah most of the people posting on Reed's facebook posts say "What about [insert person's hometown/state here]." It's like they are totally clueless, extremely lazy, or both.

 

[bradjones]

OK, I am getting a little frustrated with all the chasers and others in the Target area who are downplaying this Saturdays event. Ok i get it maybe its not going to be the sky is falling day that was hyped way up but i think just like one could call for the end of world and create panic I think the opposite is true as well. For one thing a slight risk is nothing to sneeze at and it just takes one isolated tornado in the wrong place to cause problems. While i agree that things can be blown way out of porportion one would need to be careful not to downplay things even if we are not looking at a classic severe weather pattern. We could be in for a surprise this weekend because of how strong this system is just saayin...

 

[Stan Rose]

Some good points made, guys--and I agree with much of the spirit of what you are saying.
When I said "don't hate..." I was just paraphrasing the "don't hate me cause i'm beautiful" line--I didn't mean literally "hate"

However, I'm not so sure I can dry the line as easily as you. Where is the line between sensationalism/hype and an enthusiastic desire to warn begin/end? what is "over-dramatization"?
Are those defined someowhere by the powers that be? I see SPC put out a Day 3 Moderate--that is pretty rare--quite frankly to a chaser that is probably a stronger statement than the one Reed made.
Who is to judge what someone's intentions are? Is it right to automatically assume that since someone is drawing a lot of attention, they must be playing things up soley for their attention?
I'm not so sure. I agree that with public attention comes responsibility, but how much responsibility must one bear for someone else's stupidity?

That said, I'm sure I would be a happier person if these 'hype artists' did not practice their craft, since then the roads would be a lot quieter for all of us.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

To be fair regarding Saturday's setup, we' seen the hype for about the last 5 days now but I've also seen the other end of the spectrum where a few visible meteorologist are using a more wait and see approach to offset the "it's going to be May 20th all over again" buzz. It's interesting to see the comments on both sides and the level of trust that people have in the person they are following.

Alot of it is in the wording. "Large tornadoes possible", "Significant tornadoes may happen in this area", "This area might be in trouble". You can't be wrong if you leave it that open.

 

[Rob H]

OK, I am getting a little frustrated with all the chasers and others in the Target area who are downplaying this Saturdays event.

Why? There are serious problems with Saturday's setup. There are dozens of slight risks every year. The Target Area is for chasers, not the general public looking for information, and most chasers don't get too excited about slight risks. This image is just scratching the surface but it speaks volumes:

 

[Paul Knightley]

One issue with social media overall is the general hyping-up of almost anything - this is something I posted the other day, which hopefully sums it up:

I see the latest fad in socialmedialand at the moment is to say something like: This man did something relatively normal. I CANT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!! Or Mind. Officially. Blown.

The latter seems often to be at relatively normal things on the planet...do people have no imagination any more? I don't image Einstein finished his General Theory of Relativity and then sat back and said it. Or maybe he did. At least he'd shed some light on the subject.

 

[Donovan Gruner]

So, what was it that you guys were saying about over-hyping this system? I'd really like to hear more of what you have to say after the fact.

Aight, late

 

[rdale]

So, what was it that you guys were saying about over-hyping this system?

We were discussing the comparisons that were made saying Saturday would be like 5/3/99. You can plot the storm reports at SPC for both dates but let me save you the trouble... They were not similar after all. The hype was unwarranted.

 

[Shane Adams]

So, what was it that you guys were saying about over-hyping this system? I'd really like to hear more of what you have to say after the fact.

Aight, late

Huh? I'm pretty sure April 26 was nothing like May 3, 1999....which was the comparison some people were making that other people on this thread were calling out for being over-hyped.

But, since you wanna be a d*ck about it, there's always the April 13 Ardmore, OK "tornado"

 

[Joey Ketcham]

So, what was it that you guys were saying about over-hyping this system? I'd really like to hear more of what you have to say after the fact.

Aight, late

I thought Saturday was what was being discussed as being over-hyped?

Anyways, when a person over-hypes every system that poses a severe weather threat, at some point that person will be correct and it'll be this mega outbreak with destructive tornadoes. I could come on here every day and predict a 8.0+ magnitude earthquake is going to happen somewhere, if I do it long enough that prediction will be right.