Expanding warning times for tornadoes....

[Andrew Burnett]

That requires WAY too much resources that the NWS doesn't have. Private sector already does a great job with it. Anyone can sign up at weather.com for free



I'll throw a HELL-no on that one. The warning decision still needs to have human interference. If you want to sound sirens based on that, so be it, but no warning.



Take that up with your town. That has nothing to do with NWS or the warning process. There are some VERY-low cost systems out there which tell EMAs which sirens to sound and which to keep quiet in a VERY timely manner.

First off I never said this was a NWS only idea and as far I can tell the OP is not limted to that. To me it seemed to be an outside the box thinking idea limited only by imagination. Folks are crying to faster response times and saving lives. One way to effectively do that is getting the actual notices to the citizens more effectively. My opinion is right now there is not an easy, effective way to market that capability across multiple platforms from anyone, private or NWS and it certainly isn't real time. Frankly the NWS web site is pretty crappy in this regard and needs major upgrading.

And you are wrong, increasing warning times has everything to do with how the down stream localities deal with situations. What good is it to have an 1hr long warning if the local areas are not going to react to it properly? It needs to be made easy and understandable. By understandable, a guy who likely only has a HS diploma who may be on the late shift at the dispatch office or the voluntary fire dept guy who may work production at the local widget factory.

RE: Hell no.... - There is much research on human detectors for various items, ie accidents, biological attacks, virus breakout, ect.. There is no better warning system than a given(the exact number would have to be tuned) number of folks tweeting, texting, whatever, that there is a tornado on the ground in your area. You could literally be warned of a tornado in your town seconds after it touched down.

Believe me I know the situation here... my town was hit by a tornado in 2000 (Parsons, ks) and my sisters house was leveled by the Franklin, KS tornado a few years ago.

 

[rdale]

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010WCAS1067.1

"Most respondents (86%) were not concerned about a limited number of false alarms or close calls reducing their confidence in future warnings, suggesting no cry-wolf effect."

I'm certainly not a fan of the FAR, but the more I look at it - more people can die from an unwarned tornado event than an overwarned tornado event.

 

[rdale]

First off I never said this was a NWS only idea and as far I can tell the OP is not limted to that.

Understood. I'm just pointing out the large number of free alerting systems that already exist.

What good is it to have an 1hr long warning

None at all. That's why I agree with NWS directives for 15-45 minutes max.

number of folks tweeting, texting, whatever, that there is a tornado on the ground in your area.

I've seen that in action... Any idea how many people retweeted the Photoshop'd tornado with the Statue of Liberty? Or how many people post "tornado" reports on FB that are nothing more than 60mph winds?

 

[ChristianTerry]

Every bit of research says that is not the case...


I've not heard of people going into panic ahead of a tornado and forgetting to go to the basement - is that a common issue.

I may not have done my research. What about the people without basements or storm cellers?

 

[Andrew Burnett]

I've seen that in action... Any idea how many people retweeted the Photoshop'd tornado with the Statue of Liberty? Or how many people post "tornado" reports on FB that are nothing more than 60mph winds?

I get what you are saying, any system has to be calibrated somehow. If a certain % of any group reports something they are seeing realtime, chances are that event is occuring. And it may not end up being very usefull, but typically the most deadly(non F5 monsters) tornadoes have very short warning or none at all. In those cases non-trained human reports would be key. But like I said qualifying them is the tricky part, but it warants some more investigation.

Kinda like the way some traffic reports are setup in some cities.

Let's say I live in a small town of 500 people.. no city police all volunteer Fire department. One evening 7 citizens text tornado to 911(OR whatever system is setup).. the 911 system immediately calls/texts/e-mails every house in the town and says "tornado reported seek shelter". to me that's the ultimate in a warning system. Now does the number need to be 7 or 17 or 57 citizens? That would need to be calibrated. You could also publish a list of people who reported the event, and eventually have an administrator that could ban or ignore repeat offenders of bad reports.
You could literally have warning in seconds, instead of minutes or 10's of minutes.

 

[rdale]

I may not have done my research. What about the people without basements or storm cellers?

Not sure what your question is... Are you implying that if they don't have a basement, they panic and go to the front porch? I can't imagine many of the deaths in tornadoes are due to people 1) not having any clue what to do or 2) knowing what to do but going into a panic and freezing.

 

[ChristianTerry]

Not sure what your question is... Are you implying that if they don't have a basement, they panic and go to the front porch? I can't imagine many of the deaths in tornadoes are due to people 1) not having any clue what to do or 2) knowing what to do but going into a panic and freezing.

Not knowing what to do and being like WTF do I go.

 

[Tony Cook]

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010WCAS1067.1

"Most respondents (86%) were not concerned about a limited number of false alarms or close calls reducing their confidence in future warnings, suggesting no cry-wolf effect."

I saw references in the Barnes paper to this survey- thanks for posting the link. However, I would not call it conclusive proof of anything. For one thing, they conducted the survey in Austin, TX. I live here, and there are only a handful of tornado warnings annually for the whole region. Conduct that survey in Huntsville, AL, where I previously lived for 20 years. I think the results would be a bit different.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010WCAS1067.1
I'm certainly not a fan of the FAR, but the more I look at it - more people can die from an unwarned tornado event than an overwarned tornado event.

Agree with this 100%. The solution is definitely *not* to improve FAR by underwarning.

TonyC

 

[ChristianTerry]

Not knowing what to do and being like WTF do I go.

Of course, different areas might have different results. I live in Houston where we have little in the way of tornadic activity, so it may be more common here.

 

[Mike Smith]

Any idea how many people retweeted the Photoshop'd tornado with the Statue of Liberty?

Rob,

Are you speaking of the photo of the Statue of Liberty with the tornado that people said was the July tornado?

If so, the image is not photoshopped. It is of a real tornado that occurred in July, 1976. I remember being impressed with the photo long before Photoshop existed.

Mike

 

[rdale]

Ahh - thanks for the correction. I wasn't aware of that.

In any case, its spread was monumental during that event, so if you wrote something to automatically issue a warning based on Twitter -- it would get tripped.

 

[Adam Adkins]

I know how this may sound but let me state my opinion.

Overall I think this whole "chasing to save lives" thing is pretty much baloney. I mean if you look at the statistics less than 100 people die every year from tornadoes. Sure, that is a handful, but in the grand scheme of things, that is nothing. There are SO MANY more significant fatal things out there than tornadoes. I read somewhere that you are more likely to die in a vending machine accident than to even get within a mile of a tornado.

I guess my main point in this whole thing is that I believe that some people who say they are "chasing to save lives" aren't really. They are chasing because it is fun. For example, if storm chasing was actually sitting behind a desk and doing clerical work, I SERIOUSLY doubt there would be this many people out doing clerical work all day to save lives. There just doesn't seem to be just cause for it. Sure, I'm sure some people out there actually are chasing to save lives, but I believe that number is lower than those who claim that they are. Thats just my opinion.

 

[Mike Smith]

I Have a Book for You to Read!

Overall I think this whole "chasing to save lives" thing is pretty much baloney. I mean if you look at the statistics less than 100 people die every year from tornadoes. Sure, that is a handful, but in the grand scheme of things, that is nothing. There are SO MANY more significant fatal things out there than tornadoes. I read somewhere that you are more likely to die in a vending machine accident than to even get within a mile of a tornado.

The only reason the number of deaths is so low is because of the warning system and spotters/chasers are very much part of it. We have "tamed" the weather!

If the warning system did not exist, we would lose, in an average year, 900-1,100 people to tornadoes. In Greensburg, the death toll would have been 243.

That is not our only accomplishment. We have achieved, over the last 16 years, a 100% decrease in wind shear-related airline crashes. We have saved tens of thousands from hurricanes in the last decade.

I have a book for you to read that tells this amazing story -- including how the storm chase program began. Here is the Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/Warnings-Stor...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270000055&sr=1-1

 

[Jennifer Palmer]

Personally, I think the accuracy of warnings needs to be improved.

I live in an area that doesn't see that many tornado warnings. I heard the comment once at work "Well, it's only on radar, so we don't really need to do anything."

This is the mentality of the average person in my area. Not being from the Plains, I don't know if warnings are taken more seriously or not there.

I feel like if there were fewer, more accurate warnings, people would heed them. That's what I think the research should focus on.

 

[Adam Adkins]

Mike Smith: I am not referring to what we have done as far as warning times in the past. Just from now on.