does anyone know what Dr. Greg Forbes had the torcon listed at for 11/17/2013

[John Olexa]

It drove me absolutely nuts! when they would say " seven out of ten "... like they were talking to children. It's a "70%" chance for crying out loud! Be professional and stop talking down to people.

 

[calvinkaskey]

I wouldn't always go with the torcon values listed. I think there are others out there that could tell you better. I'm curious what people think about Carl Parker? He threw up a super-cell potential for the 29th of May 2013, said there was a lot of shear and bam I found myself in prolific funnel cloud machine in New York state! I hardly ever see super-cell potential maps on the Weather Channel and definitely not in New York.

 

[Jeff Hawkins]

I really wonder how many of those who slam Dr. Forbes's tor-con rating system would actually accuse him of the same things to his face. I bet there's an element of jealousy and ego actually driving that thinking. I agree there's a correlation between the SPC outlook and the tor-con, but I doubt he uses the SPC outlook to establish his outlook. I believe I've heard him say the tor-con is to help alert the average Joe who doesn't know much about weather to be on the alert (and isn't that the purpose of general weather forecasting anyways?).

 

[calvinkaskey]

I'm just saying that area of New York should have had a 6 but I don't even know if it was a 3.

 

[rdale]

Jeff he has been challenged by the best in the business (Spann) and refused to show any of the specific components or any verification studies. Since it isn't science based, it shouldn't be used as science.

Calvin - what are you talking about? What's the difference between a 6 and a 3? And if you don't know what it was in the first place, maybe it was a 6?

 

[Nick Dewhirst]

I’m pretty sure he gave northern Alabama a 10/10 on the infamous day of 4/27/11

 

[John Farley]

It is just as science based as SPC's tornado probabilies in their outlooks. Neither is based on some calculated index, rather on their best forecast of the tornado potential for the day, based on all the factors one would use to forecast tornadoes. Much like the way we chasers target, actually, although I would put either Forbes' or SPC's expertise way above mine or probably a lot of the rest of us. I heard Dr. Forbes talk about it at Chasercon, and as others have suggested, the larger radius (50 miles vs. SPC's 25 miles) was to make the numbers closer to the 1 to 10 scales that people are familiar with.