Doppler indicated tornado warnings

[rdale]

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Have you ever been hit in the head by a 1" hailstone

Well, no, but I'll take your word for it

Remember the point of the SVR. It's to tell people something they may not recognize on their own is coming. 1" hailstones come from thunderstorms. Lightning and thunder are very good notifications to people that a thunderstorm is coming, therefore it is time to take shelter at least from typical thunderstorm threats (rain and lightning.) The SVR is used to tell people "This isn't just a typical thunderstorm." But that's all it says (the public doesn't read the product so they don't know if it's 1" hail, 4" hail, 58mph winds, or 110mph winds.) Far and away most SVR are for 3/4 - 1" hail and 45-60mph winds. None of those are full-out life threatening killers. Therefore the 4" hail and the 110mph wind SVRs get lost in the mix. Changing criteria does nothing, because the public still doesn't care.

My point is that I think it is necessary to distinguish between hail/wind-only threats and tornado threats.

I get your point, I just disagree. Wind is wind, whether it comes from a tornado or downburst. If a storm is going to be producing deadly winds, then we tell the public that. The next day when they look out and see the destruction, they'll say it was a tornado regardless of the cause But at least they were in shelter because we told them deadly winds were coming.

In any event this is where Warn On Forecast is taking us. The grids will be based on specific threats, not their meteorological causes.

 

[MClarkson]

Wind is wind, whether it comes from a tornado or downburst

I agree with this. 100%. There is no difference, in the public point of view, from a typical downburst and a low end tornado. They both knock down some trees.

 

[Mike Johnston]

The Impact Based Warnings experiment was a knee-jerk response to the Joplin event, that caused the most deaths from a tornado in 60 years. The central problem (not the only problem) was the Springfield office didn't execute very well. Besides their performance during the event itself, there was a history of over-warning in that area. Rather than call a spade a spade and take on that issue head-on, the NWS decided it would cobble together some theoretical concepts and change the system. I do not believe there were serious flaws in the warning system, it just wasn't executed very well in that case.

Now, an experiment is meant to test the application in the real-world to see if the hypothesis holds up. So far, I've yet to see a shred of evidence showing any improvement in warning effectiveness under this new regime. Real progress will come with improvements in warning accuracy, not just changing definitions, making up new definitions, etc. This may be a slow and laborious process, but so be it.

 

[Stan Rose]

If we were to use 'warnings' simply as impact-based statements, do you think it would work? In other words, if we take the hypotheitical 110 mph wind example, is it sufficient to tell the public: "110 mile an hour winds are headed your way, you will be blown away..." In theory, sounds good to me, but in this already overwhelmed information society, i suspect a lot might get lost in the transmission. The public (and the media) love labels.

 

[rdale]

Good point Stan... But you're also imagining the media in 10 years as identical to the media today, and that I doubt.If your cellphone or Google Glasses (probably integrated contact lenses by then) say "110mph winds will be at your house in 4 minutes, take shelter now" I would think that might be effective?

 

[Stan Rose]

Nooooo, not the google glasses!