Jason Boggs
I agree...nothing more needs to be said.
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I agree...nothing more needs to be said.
Darrin Rasberry
As someone who travels 90 miles across my state to work everyday, I have been impressed with Iowa's warning system regarding areas of icy roadways that could be caused by the weather. Each time a system has come through that produces conditions on the road that could be treacherous, KDMX has been successful at issuing proper notifications to the public and, most importantly, to school officials. I'd hope this sort of standard eventually gets applied where you guys are down south.
James Hammett
EF4
I couldn't agree more. KDMX has been doing an excellent job emphasizing the threat of ice accumulation on roadways (and we've had plenty this winter). In addition the media here seems to do a good job of relaying this information directly to the public. KCCI's heavily trafficked website always includes the NWS hazard info directly within prominently-placed winter weather stories (the other news outlets may as well but I haven't looked).
Mike Johnston
EF5
With regard to the question of whether it should be the responsibility of the NWS or the state DOT to warn of icing on roadways, here is one for you:
This past winter we had a very rare ice storm impact Charleston, SC. There was actually an ice storm warning issued, schools were closed for 2 days and basically most people stayed at home. On the third day, the ice storm warning had been lifted and it dawned clear and sunny. Then, around mid-morning, the local news broke in for reports of huge chunks of ice falling onto cars crossing the big bridge that connects the two main parts of town. It is a huge bridge, like 2 miles across with massive overhead cables. As the word icicle isn't even in the vocabulary down here, the TV newsmen were struggling to come up with a name for the phenomena - they finally started calling them ice spears. And massive spears they were indeed as camera crews got there quickly showing what were probably 6-8 foot long ice spears falling from the bridge cables that were ~100 feet above down onto the hapless cars. I think 8 car windshields got shattered, one person had to be hospitalized, and countless cars were weaving around trying to dodge the ice spears. As it turned out, the bridge had to be closed for the greater part of the day.
Now, whose responsibility - if anyone's - was it to "warn" for such a freakish event? You could argue, since both the original icing and the subsequent melting were both caused by meteorological events, the NWS should have put out an overhead falling ice advisory or some such statement. On the other hand, the DOT should have had engineers familiar with the bridge's construction on hand, and should have taken pre-emptive steps such as closing the bridge until the ice had melted. So, which is it?
This past winter we had a very rare ice storm impact Charleston, SC. There was actually an ice storm warning issued, schools were closed for 2 days and basically most people stayed at home. On the third day, the ice storm warning had been lifted and it dawned clear and sunny. Then, around mid-morning, the local news broke in for reports of huge chunks of ice falling onto cars crossing the big bridge that connects the two main parts of town. It is a huge bridge, like 2 miles across with massive overhead cables. As the word icicle isn't even in the vocabulary down here, the TV newsmen were struggling to come up with a name for the phenomena - they finally started calling them ice spears. And massive spears they were indeed as camera crews got there quickly showing what were probably 6-8 foot long ice spears falling from the bridge cables that were ~100 feet above down onto the hapless cars. I think 8 car windshields got shattered, one person had to be hospitalized, and countless cars were weaving around trying to dodge the ice spears. As it turned out, the bridge had to be closed for the greater part of the day.
Now, whose responsibility - if anyone's - was it to "warn" for such a freakish event? You could argue, since both the original icing and the subsequent melting were both caused by meteorological events, the NWS should have put out an overhead falling ice advisory or some such statement. On the other hand, the DOT should have had engineers familiar with the bridge's construction on hand, and should have taken pre-emptive steps such as closing the bridge until the ice had melted. So, which is it?
rdale
EF5
I'm not sure how you can argue the NWS would have any responsibility. You don't really need a NWS alert in the first place - when drivers approach the bridge and it's closed, they just take other routes.
Mike Johnston
EF5
The damage and injury happened before the bridge was closed. It took the authorities at least 1/2 hour after the incidents to realize the bridge had to be closed. I remembered this thread and the controversy, so thought it might be interesting to continue for a most unusual case. My question is around whether someone should have reasonably anticipated this problem ahead of time.
For the record, there is really only one other way to cross that river and it's miles out of the way, so it snarled traffic for hours.
rdale
EF5
You'd think they would close it after the first car was impaled 
Mike Johnston
EF5
You'd think they would close it after the first car was impaled
Yeah, ideally they would have. It was actually the police departments that initially closed it. At first, there was general confusion and it took awhile to figure out what was going on. Also, since the south entrance to the bridge is in the City of Charleston, but the north entrance is in the Town of Mt. Pleasant, there were 2 different jurisdictions involved. For awhile, one of them had closed it while the other had not - so there was traffic moving in one direction but not the other. Eventually, SCDOT sent out people to climb up and visually inspect.
Dan Robinson
EF5
Mike, that's a good question. I think if that sort of event was frequent, was happening in widespread locations across the country and was a condition where hundreds of fatalities/thousands of injuries were happening in, there would be a good case for the NWS and DOTs to put some additional collaborative effort into informing the public and/or closing the roads. I'd again appeal to the flash flood analogy.
Mike Johnston
EF5
Well, after reading back through this long thread and all of the good points made, I have a few thoughts:
1. Road ice hazards aren't always the fault of careless drivers. They can emerge quickly and silently, and catch drivers by surprise.
2. The question of when a warning should end is a good one. On the one hand, it is true the job of a weather forecaster is to forecast the weather, so when the immediate threat has ended (eg. precipitation in the case of ice) NWS job has largely been accomplished and they can't be expected to be all things to all people for every conceivable consequence. On the other hand, some other situations seemingly go against this concept - such as chronic river flooding when flood warnings can last for weeks or even months.
3. With the ice storm in Charleston, NWS did an excellent job with the timing and communication of the ice storm warning. It was virtually an unprecedented event here. The school district was notified, and because they have an automatic call-out system, parents knew the night before that school was cancelled.
4. In the instant event, I'm not sure any NWS product would have done much good. The proper way to handle it, IMO, would have been some kind of back-channel communication between SCDOT and the weather service. Honestly, I doubt anyone at either agency "put 2 and 2 together" to realize the possibility. If someone with SCDOT thought about the possibility, then they should have made a call to NWS to ask about the prospects for melting the next day. If someone from NWS made the mental connection, then they should have been pro-active and put a call into SCDOT.
1. Road ice hazards aren't always the fault of careless drivers. They can emerge quickly and silently, and catch drivers by surprise.
2. The question of when a warning should end is a good one. On the one hand, it is true the job of a weather forecaster is to forecast the weather, so when the immediate threat has ended (eg. precipitation in the case of ice) NWS job has largely been accomplished and they can't be expected to be all things to all people for every conceivable consequence. On the other hand, some other situations seemingly go against this concept - such as chronic river flooding when flood warnings can last for weeks or even months.
3. With the ice storm in Charleston, NWS did an excellent job with the timing and communication of the ice storm warning. It was virtually an unprecedented event here. The school district was notified, and because they have an automatic call-out system, parents knew the night before that school was cancelled.
4. In the instant event, I'm not sure any NWS product would have done much good. The proper way to handle it, IMO, would have been some kind of back-channel communication between SCDOT and the weather service. Honestly, I doubt anyone at either agency "put 2 and 2 together" to realize the possibility. If someone with SCDOT thought about the possibility, then they should have made a call to NWS to ask about the prospects for melting the next day. If someone from NWS made the mental connection, then they should have been pro-active and put a call into SCDOT.
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rdale
EF5
Mike - is this a common occurrence? I've never heard of this happening, so expecting "2+2" when 2 and 2 never existed in the same equation before might be asking too much 
And again what exactly is the weather connection? This was a road hazard caused simply by the construction (apparently) as it sounds like it only happened on one bridge. Are you asking that the NWS issue a falling ice warning for just one bridge? It would seem the better route would be for SCDOT to close the bridge and leave NWS out of the equation entirely.
And again what exactly is the weather connection? This was a road hazard caused simply by the construction (apparently) as it sounds like it only happened on one bridge. Are you asking that the NWS issue a falling ice warning for just one bridge? It would seem the better route would be for SCDOT to close the bridge and leave NWS out of the equation entirely.
Mike Johnston
EF5
It's certainly not a common occurrence here. Other places, I couldn't say.
I'm not really expecting the NWS to have anticipated this. Like I said, it was a rare event in this area. Just saying, on the chance someone did anticipate it, an additional NWS product wouldn't have helped but a back-channel communication probably would have been appropriate. After all, it was physically possible and a consequence of the icing and subsequent thawing.
I can't even go so far as to say the bridge construction was flawed. There are other bridges around the world with the same design as I understand, such as one in Japan. Of course, there are other bridges with overhead suspension cables also where I suppose the formation of ice pillars could potentially be an issue. Yes, it is "just one bridge" as far as this area, but it is a vitally important one as a major strategic traffic artery on a U.S. highway. If that bridge is closed for any reason, it causes a major economic disruption. During the ice storm itself, the status of the road surface on that bridge was probably the #1 local news topic for two days. Now, it would have taken a pretty sharp cookie to realize the potential danger of ice falling from above, but a road engineer may have been able to figure it out.
This is kind of an example of asking just how far should the NWS be expected to go in anticipating the impacts of weather events? I read somewhere that we are now expecting weather forecasters to become "impact forecasters." My basic stance is the NWS shouldn't be expected to be all things to all people.
I'm not really expecting the NWS to have anticipated this. Like I said, it was a rare event in this area. Just saying, on the chance someone did anticipate it, an additional NWS product wouldn't have helped but a back-channel communication probably would have been appropriate. After all, it was physically possible and a consequence of the icing and subsequent thawing.
I can't even go so far as to say the bridge construction was flawed. There are other bridges around the world with the same design as I understand, such as one in Japan. Of course, there are other bridges with overhead suspension cables also where I suppose the formation of ice pillars could potentially be an issue. Yes, it is "just one bridge" as far as this area, but it is a vitally important one as a major strategic traffic artery on a U.S. highway. If that bridge is closed for any reason, it causes a major economic disruption. During the ice storm itself, the status of the road surface on that bridge was probably the #1 local news topic for two days. Now, it would have taken a pretty sharp cookie to realize the potential danger of ice falling from above, but a road engineer may have been able to figure it out.
This is kind of an example of asking just how far should the NWS be expected to go in anticipating the impacts of weather events? I read somewhere that we are now expecting weather forecasters to become "impact forecasters." My basic stance is the NWS shouldn't be expected to be all things to all people.
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Hannah.Taylor
EF4
I agree with Dan Robinson. This country needs a lot of natural selection invoked anyhow.
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