It's time to do away with severe thunderstorm warnings

[Dan Robinson]

I'm saying if you have on-air mets making statements like "people - this is a seriously dangerous situation - do not travel if you don't have to - if you do go out, please slow down - many people die in conditions like these"

with the SAME tone and inflection they have for a tornado bearing down on a town. Urgency - communication of the danger. An 'official' warning from the source - the NWS - helps facilitate that.

It's hard to shrug off 500 deaths a year. Do people even know that the toll is that high? I never did until I started researching it. I never knew how bad it was myself until I started seeing it first hand. That and reading all the stories of lives lost has made an impression on me. People say I'm crazy for chasing tornadoes and yet will go take their kids to school in freezing rain. That, and watching people go 70 on an interstate covered in nearly invisible ice, shows me that they don't realize the level of risk even if they knew it was there.

Will stronger wording fix that? I can't see how it wouldn't make any difference at all.

 

[Justin Wiley]

I dunno how many times on local tv or radio do I hear the phrases "please be careful driving. It's awfully slick out there.... please stay off the roads if possible...only go outside if it is absolutely necessary".. etc., etc.

There is plenty of warning to let people know how the roads are without checking radar, surfaces obs, etc.

It's always the people who think they are the best drivers in the world and are "above" the weather that end up in the ditch or are killed. No, I don't have statistical proof in front of me but I would be willing to venture out a guess that 95% of all ice road related accidents occur from people who KNEW the roads were slick or potentially slick and simply ignored the warnings. It really doesn't take rocket science to just simply slow down when you know it's cold outside and you know some form of precipitation is present or has fallen.

While I agree severe thunderstorm criteria should be upgraded, there is a certain angle to protecting the public's property when it is so often in put in jeopardy with little or no advanced warning. Could you imagine how much more damage to property would happen without the warning of hail and high winds? Not to mention the jeopardy of lives? And of course I don't think property is more important than a life. I just know that's one of the reasons the warnings are put out.

With winter weather, it's a much more methodical process and more of a common sense thing. People should know that it's cold out and precipitation, even in its slightest form, is present. With thunderstorms, it's almost impossible (for the public) to tell by looking at it whether it's gonna produce large hail and/or intense winds. Unfortunately in this great country, there's a lot of people lacking common sense and a lot of people with complete arrogance.

 

[Dan Robinson]

It's always the people who think they are the best drivers in the world and are "above" the weather that end up in the ditch or are killed. No, I don't have statistical proof in front of me but I would be willing to venture out a guess that 95% of all ice road related accidents occur from people who KNEW the roads were slick or potentially slick and simply ignored the warnings.

This is absolutely wrong. A common misconception that I think is almost a bigger obstacle to saving lives than the ice itself. There is no question that a few of the accidents fit that profile, but it does not fit many of them. Reading the news stories, there are plenty of examples of people who encountered ice unexpectedly. Bridges are a classic example. Clear roads everywhere, bridge suddenly icy. Again, I'll copy and paste this for the fourth time:

Many of the deadliest events have an element of surprise - intermittent icing, bridge icing, freezing rain and freezing drizzle are visually undetectable at worst or very subtle at best.

You can go to the icyroadsafety.com web site and check the stats for yourself. There is an Excel file you can download and use it to look up individual accidents. A lot of the news articles are still online.

Why would people intentionally put themselves in that type of danger? We are talking about families, young and old drivers, all demographics. The woman in Kentucky yesterday - do you think she willingly put her two young kids in that situation?

Wow guys - I have to say I'm extremely dissapointed in the response. I thought the spirit of chasers was to use our passion for weather to help save lives and make a difference. You all are saying you don't care and all of these people who died are simply idiots. Making a big stink about changing some words to help convey the danger. Don't make all of our critics right and all the stuff I've said in our support all these years wrong. Say it ain't so.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Many of the deadliest events have an element of surprise - intermittent icing, bridge icing, freezing rain and freezing drizzle are visually undetectable at worst or very subtle at best.

I agree with you, but again, this is where common sense comes into play. Not a warning, not strong wording, not signs posted up everywhere, just a little common sense.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I agree with you, but again, this is where common sense comes into play. Not a warning, not strong wording, not signs posted up everywhere, just a little common sense.

That common sense isn't working very well. Again, is 500 deaths per year acceptable? We should do nothing?

 

[Jason Boggs]

People die every day from activities due to lack of common sense. This subject is no exception. People die from cleaning guns. Is that acceptable? Well, not really, but should we do nothing. We do something...we tell people to check to see if it's loaded before cleaning it, but yet, people still die. What gives??? The subject in question here is no different. It starts with the public to decide if they want to act in a responsible way or not. Do I speed today or do I slow down since there are signs and warnings telling me of danger.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Do I speed today or do I slow down since there are signs and warnings telling me of danger.

That's not the case here. I'm talking about instances where there are few signs of the hazard. Again:

Many of the deadliest events have an element of surprise - intermittent icing, bridge icing, freezing rain and freezing drizzle are visually undetectable at worst or very subtle at best.

We are talking about a weather hazard that either:

a.) people do not see in advance
b.) people do not recognize the level of risk

warnings telling me of danger.

There are no warnings. Right now it is only an SPS, an advisory and in some cases, nothing at all.

If a gun was a direct weather hazard to people, I'd say the NWS should warn for it.

Back to the old SVR. Why should the NWS warn for severe thunderstorms, which have plenty of their own inherent and clear warning signs?

 

[Dan Robinson]

During a flash flood warning, the NWS text includes a line that says to not drive into flooded roadways, and that most flood deaths occur in automobiles.

What is the huge travesty in saying something similar for icing?

 

[Paul Hadfield]

Despite those who willfully disregard common sense, "Turn Around Don't Drown" has been a very successful public campaign. So if the system can allocate resources to raise awareness to the dangers of locally flooded roadways at low water crossings which are but a fraction of the overall network then what is the harm of raising awareness to the quiet danger encompassing hundreds of square miles of exposed blacktop during Winter events? Warnings are no different than marketing and even though every single one of us know who Walmart is, people as a whole have short attention spans and need reminding lest we become complacent. Telling your kids the chemicals under the sink are poisonous is like the current system but telling them those chemicals have the potential of KILLING THEM is the effective change that needs to be implemented.

"Turn Around Don't DROWN" a.k.a. DIE

 

[Bonnie Frank]

Dan I think what you may be overlooking here is that a great many people choose to ignore warnings no matter what you tell them. We currently have a boatload of snow coming down, and for 2 days prior to today we've been warned about this storm the guys on the radio AND tv have been telling people to STAY HOME unless absolutely necessary and went I had to go out for work this morning there were all kinds of people out ba-ha-ing around. And these were not people going to work either. The grocery store was packed as was Wal-Mart. I don't know what it is about people but the minute someone tells them not to go out in inclement weather they all have some urge to igore the warnings and go out and see for themselves. I fully understand what you are trying to promote, but the sad fact of the matter is peope are really stupid about this stuff 70% of the time.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Dan I think what you may be overlooking here is that a great many people choose to ignore warnings no matter what you tell them. We currently have a boatload of snow coming down, and for 2 days prior to today we've been warned about this storm the guys on the radio AND tv have been telling people to STAY HOME unless absolutely necessary and went I had to go out for work this morning there were all kinds of people out ba-ha-ing around. And these were not people going to work either. The grocery store was packed as was Wal-Mart. I don't know what it is about people but the minute someone tells them not to go out in inclement weather they all have some urge to igore the warnings and go out and see for themselves. I fully understand what you are trying to promote, but the sad fact of the matter is peope are really stupid about this stuff 70% of the time.

I agree, and I am fully aware that many people will ignore the warnings. It would be impossible to expect everyone to. But it's not those people I'm concerned about. It's the ones that will listen, and there are those who will. Just like those who do and don't heed severe thunderstorm, flash flood and tornado warnings.

 

[Jim Cross]

Dan i agree with you. If they can issue flood warnings for water on roads they should be able to issue ice warnings for the same.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

I'm late to the party, but my thoughts.

First, in the case of a severe thunderstorm warning, a forecaster is forecasting a direct and tangible threat - hail or wind is is likely being generated by the atmosphere without human intervention. In the event of the winter weather product issuance, again, forecasters should forecast the direct and tangible threat being generated directly by the atmosphere. Road ice is a combination of a lot of things outside the direct realm of the atmosphere including, but not limited to, soil temperature, the material used to build the road, frequency of automobiles traversing the area, what pre-treatment was applied, what 'during-the-event' treatment has been applied, etc. When you start asking meteorologists to forecast things that are outside their area of expertise you are inviting trouble. Furthermore, you have failed to make the argument that the NWS should be responsible for these warnings. It seems to me that a road ice warning would actually under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation. You can get road ice from non-meteorological factors.

Second, winter weather advisories should adequately relay the threat that icing is a concern. There is no minimum threshold required for an advisory (except that the event is possible). Advisories are issued when events are expected to remain below the warning criteria, but still cause significant inconvenience. I spent most of the night under a winter weather advisory and for the most part all we had was freezing drizzle, freezing mist, and freezing fog. If an individual doesn't check to see if they are under a winter weather advisory before heading out, then what makes you think they will check to see if they have a road ice warning?

Third, what you really need is to argue for is an increase in public education of what the NWS products convey and not to argue for additional winter weather products (which are too bloated already in my opinion). In some of the cases of fatalities with respect to icing, and I think you mentioned one, a winter weather advisory wasn't issued. Argue then for a more uniform application of the winter weather advisory...not a new product all together. This coupled with DoT issued Road Ice Warnings should satisfy the concern.

 

[Justin Wiley]

Many of the deadliest events have an element of surprise - intermittent icing, bridge icing, freezing rain and freezing drizzle are visually undetectable at worst or very subtle at best.

I realize you keep repeating this for a reason but do you actually have any factual evidence that shows what percentage of the 500 people killed each year are a direct cause of "surprise" icing, and that they had no idea of any such weather hazard?

I think someone else brought up hydroplaning. Do we need to give sprinkle warnings or rain puddle warnings every time a shower passes through? I know A LOT of accidents that occur from the slightest amount of moisture on the road mixing with pavement oil to that of ponding on roadways which results in hydroplaning and loss of control with the vehicle.

Again, common sense is the overwhelming factor here. I cannot imagine that when black ice, or some of form freezing drizzle/rain is present that local weather authorities and media outlets don't warn people that it's freezing out and precipitation is possible/present. That would be my first clue to slow down or just simply stay off the roads, if possible.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I realize you keep repeating this for a reason but do you actually have any factual evidence that shows what percentage of the 500 people killed each year are a direct cause of "surprise" icing, and that they had no idea of any such weather hazard?

I am offering facts. At icyroadsafety.com, visit the stats link. I am keeping a log of all fatal accidents. You can do a Google news search for any individual incident and read about it in detail by the reporting media outlet.

I think someone else brought up hydroplaning. Do we need to give sprinkle warnings or rain puddle warnings every time a shower passes through?

I have already addressed this three times now. Rain does not nearly have the death rates on par with freezing precip. Rain does not cause thousands of accidents in a couple hours in a small regional area.

Again, common sense is the overwhelming factor here. I cannot imagine that when black ice, or some of form freezing drizzle/rain is present that local weather authorities and media outlets don't warn people that it's freezing out and precipitation is possible/present. That would be my first clue to slow down or just simply stay off the roads, if possible.

They don't ever tell people that this has a high chance of killing them. I have never read an NWS product or heard a media outlet address the hazard as such.