James Spann speaks to the NWS and the media concerning tornado warnings and other...

[beaudodson]

Well worth the read - also the comment section is worth reading. Some interesting viewpoints.

http://www.alabamawx.com/?p=48699

Clips from the article

I ask the NWS to consider stopping the use of tornado warnings when trying to catch small spin-ups within a squall line (or QLCS). These tornadoes rarely last more than a few minutes, and are next to impossible to detect in advance. And, in most cases, the greatest damage from a QLCS is from widespread damaging straight line winds, not tornadoes.

and

*NOAA Weather Radio must be upgraded to the polygon warning system soon, or it will become obsolete.

Sure, it is the best thing we have now, and I still promote it heavily. But, why hasn’t NOAA upgraded their system so the receiver manufacturers can produce models with GPS included so they sound only when the receiver is a in a warning polygon? If something doesn’t change soon, the private sector will be the ones that push the warning process into the new technological era.

and


*Social media is not a time waster or a novelty, it is a lifeline during severe weather, and must be used by TV meteorologists.

Lives were saved April 27 by pushing tornado information to the masses through Facebook and Twitter. Seems like many old school news directors think this stuff is for high schoolers. How wrong is that; these social media services are mainstream and reaches across all demographics.

And, you just can’t throw up a Twitter or Facebook account and expect to be successful. It takes years of conversation and interaction with followers to grow your numbers and reach critical mass.

Broadcasting is now a conversation. The people that follow you on Facebook and Twitter aren’t idiots… they are our friends that can offer a treasure trove of information during active weather and any kind of breaking news event. They follow you, you follow them. Most media people just don’t get it.


More in his article above...

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Thanks for posting this. It's interesting to see the perspective of a person who works communicating the warnings and deals explicitly with the public enter into the discussion of how to improve the NWS warning system.

What's also interesting are the comments people are posting regarding the topic. I highly recommend that others check those out.

Also, I'm rather pleased to see media sources investigating more into severe weather awareness this season. It's sad to see that such a large impact like this tornado season had to instigate investigative journalism in the media towards topics that are important i.e. the St. Louis Airport tornado.

 

[Andy Jackson]

My guess is an upgrade to radio towers might require some big time cash and that's what the NWS may not have at their disposal. I look forward to seeing some changes in the way tornado warnings are handled in the future. I also think people in tornado prone areas are probably a little more aware this season after seeing catastrophe after catastrophe unfold I hope I'm right.

 

[Logan Karsten]

I can completely understand the argument of complacency with regards to the number of deaths this year, but I think it's very very premature to blame all the deaths on complacency. Yes, some people probably didn't heed the warnings, and that probably was a factor in their deaths. However, we do NOT know how many people that were killed were neglecting the warnings. We most likely will never know this number. When a violent tornado rips through a large population area, you should expect deaths, no matter how high your POD is or how low your FAR is. The problem is people are trying to point to warning statistics as a cause for the high number of deaths without any real evidence to back that claim up. You can interview those who survived to get an idea, but does that really apply to those who were killed? We may never know.

Yes, I completely agree that we need to be finding better ways to convey warnings to people. Using social media, cell phones, etc to do this with polygon warnings is something that should be researched and implemented.

Another very interesting aspect to this that I can't quite wrap my mind around. I can see a higher level of complacency perhaps with the Joplin tornado due to how quickly it developed and not being on the ground for a long period of time, but what about April 27th? On that day, there were several violent tornadoes on the ground at the same time, with wall to wall coverage covering each tornado. There was tower cam footage showing tornadoes rolling into large towns and cities. Granted some people may have had their power knocked out, but it was widely known that that was a dangerous day. The Tuscaloosa tornado was on the ground well before it hit Tuscaloosa, and the media was covering it. How can anyone be complacent in a situation where there is live footage of the tornado heading towards your town? When there is a tornado warning issued and all you here is "radar indicated" you may be complacent. However, when you see tower cam footage and hear newscasters talking about a tornado on the ground, live, with coverage, I would expect that complacency to start to decrease in some fashion.

Another thing to note, there are some people that may not take shelter no matter what. There could be people that will go out there, and watch the tornado roll in, knowing very well they are in danger.

The point is, there is only so much you can do to prevent tornado deaths when it comes to warning techniques, communication, etc. There are several other factors at play, such as structural engineering, etc.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

Just a little warning regarding social media - if you happen to be posting there - make sure the info gets out in a timely manner. During a weather event in May I discovered that updates on my weather page had a delay of about 15 minutes when appearing on the page... It eventually did get fixed - but I think always helps to keep many ways of communications open - even as if just for redundancy ... and likewise people should monitor several sources, not just FB/Twitter.

 

[Mike Smith]

but what about April 27th? On that day, there were several violent tornadoes on the ground at the same time, with wall to wall coverage covering each tornado. There was tower cam footage showing tornadoes rolling into large towns and cities. Granted some people may have had their power knocked out, but it was widely known that that was a dangerous day. How can anyone be complacent in a situation where there is live footage of the tornado heading towards your town?

The point is, there is only so much you can do to prevent tornado deaths when it comes to warning techniques, communication, etc. There are several other factors at play, such as structural engineering, etc.

There were more than 700,000 people without power at 3pm in the area where the killer tornadoes occurred in the hours immediately following. We got those numbers from Alabama Power and TVA. You mention TCL. According to Alabama Power, there were 59,000 "customers" (homes and businesses) without electricity in Tuscaloosa Co. as of 3pm. The utility industry assumes 3.5 people per customer which means about 200,000 without power! How were they supposed to see the "wall-to-wall" coverage?

Take a look a this video: Watch video >
Notice anything odd? The cars are driving around with their lights on but none of the windows in the immediate vicinity of the photographer -- including the motel or apartments across the street have their lights on. Note the fact the lights are not on inside the home where the cameraman is filming and you do not hear a radio or see a TV. The power was out! And, in TCL Co., it had been out for more than twelve hours.

Yes, it may have been "widely known" it was a "dangerous day" but that is hugely different from knowing you are in the path of the tornado and told to take cover. I have interviewed two survivors of the April 27th tornadoes and they told me they had no TV, no internet, no cell service, and one told me about her husband sitting in the driveway with the truck radio on desperately trying to get warnings but they could not. Their local radio stations (including NOAA weather radio) were off the air!

I do not understand why so many seem to be inclined to minimize the effects of being without power 12-16 hours before the killer tornadoes arrived. Other people are not like us. They do not sit around watching the weather all day, especially by late afternoon when they are wondering where they might spend the night and the food spoiling in their freezers.

I do agree with your second point. The death toll will never be zero in F-4 and F-5 tornadoes.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

I do agree with your second point. The death toll will never be zero in F-4 and F-5 tornadoes.

I don't have time right now to read through everything, but skimming through I saw this nugget and must disagree. The 24 May 2011 tornado outbreak in OK had at least one, and I believe two, EF-4 tornadoes that had 0 fatalities. Be very careful saying never.

Also, how do you explain the number of fatalities in Joplin, Mike? There was power, and the warning had approximately 20 minutes of lead time...

 

[Greg Higgins]

This has been my soapbox for many years and until the data from Joplin is released, I can only speculate. But, the soapbox: I think there are a number of people that heeded the warning but took shelter in buildings that offer NO protection and in fact are designed to fail because of thier construction. People DO NOT think about anything other than to "get to cover". This is an educational issue that needs to be addressed.

 

[Keith Turner]

on the social media portion of this...i want to second this. I have a facebook page called vortex trackers and within a week i had over 1000 friends. During the may 24th outbreak I was giving live updates on our fb. Afterwards i recieve numerous stories of how my warnings were recieved up to 5 MINUTES prior to their tornado sirens sounding. I knew then that i was on to something. As long as im near a computer, I will use FB to update my area for possible tornados and other dangerous weather. I hope the media and NWS up on this!

 

[Mike Smith]

I don't have time right now to read through everything, but skimming through I saw this nugget and must disagree. The 24 May 2011 tornado outbreak in OK had at least one, and I believe two, EF-4 tornadoes that had 0 fatalities. Be very careful saying never.

Also, how do you explain the number of fatalities in Joplin, Mike? There was power, and the warning had approximately 20 minutes of lead time...

Patrick, please read carefully. Plural: Tornadoes. Meaning cumulative. Of course, STL's Good Friday tornado -- densely populated area -- had zero fatalities. I know that. We will never get the death toll to zero in all 4's and 5's because you can do everything right and still loose your life as several poor souls in Greensburg did.

Joplin: Based on the survivors I have debriefed, videos, the radar, etc., here is what I speculate:

1. Since an unwarned early morning derecho in the 1970's JLN/Jasper Co. has sounded sirens for severe thunderstorm as well as tornado warnings. The sirens go off often in thunderstorm situations. That 'trains' people that the sirens are generally not an indicator of something really serious.
2. The tornado was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. I have a video from people in the damage path but right on the edge. You just could not see it.
3. We know that people need multiple sources to take cover. When you combine the fact the tornado could not be seen and that, in JLN, the sirens did NOT automatically mean "tornado," people did not draw the connection.
4. By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late to seek quality shelter.

 

[Logan Karsten]

"There were more than 700,000 people without power at 3pm in the area where the killer tornadoes occurred in the hours immediately following."

IF, that was the MAJOR factor in deaths, then all the more reason to look into warning people via other means (cell phone, etc). However, If the power has been knocked out prior, weather radio knocked out, and cell phone towers knocked out, then it really doesn't matter how much warning you give people, or how accurate it is. They won't know it's coming because there won't be any way to convey the warning to them. If that was the case, then complacency is not the issue here. How do we deal with that?

What if people were driving in those cars, but had their Ipod plugged in? They didn't have the radio on, couldn't hear the sirens, and didn't notice the tornado until it was right around the corner. How are we supposed to warn them?

It's quite obvious in that video that the man filming saw the tornado coming towards him, but just kept on filming. How are we supposed to fix that?

"Since an unwarned early morning derecho in the 1970's JLN/Jasper Co. has sounded sirens for severe thunderstorm as well as tornado warnings. The sirens go off often in thunderstorm situations. That 'trains' people that the sirens are generally not an indicator of something really serious."

I agree that sounding tornado sirens for high wind events probably does de-sensitize the public. I think we need a better way to convey that to the public. How do we fix that?

"The tornado was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. I have a video from people in the damage path but right on the edge. You just could not see it.
We know that people need multiple sources to take cover. When you combine the fact the tornado could not be seen and that, in JLN, the sirens did NOT automatically mean "tornado," people did not draw the connection."

Very true. However, why do people have to see the tornado in order to heed the warning?

How are we supposed to separate those who died because they didn't heed the warning from those who took shelter but died anyways? If we can't answer that question, then we can't answer the question of how much complacency plaid a role in tornado deaths this year.

Every storm is different, and every tornado is different. With this, comes so many different social factors that play into how people respond to threats. There will never be one end-all solution to preventing massive amounts of tornado deaths in major population areas. Until we can get our warnings down to just storms that actually produce, then we might be able to put this "complacency" issue to rest. Until then, we can only mitigate it and deal with it the best we can.

I agree that it's an issue, and it needs to be addressed. However, you can't point to just that as the major reason why so many people died this year. Every person that died could have been attributed to a different reason from the next person. This is the ugly side to severe weather. No matter how much technology/research we have under our belt, it doesn't matter if we can't get it across effectively to people. Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that we just cannot control. I am not trying to be a smart a$$, I am trying to demonstrate that if you think about it, there are dozens of potential problems, issues, and situations that can arise outside of complacency that can lead to tornado deaths.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Patrick, please read carefully. Plural: Tornadoes. Meaning cumulative. Of course, STL's Good Friday tornado -- densely populated area -- had zero fatalities. I know that. We will never get the death toll to zero in all 4's and 5's because you can do everything right and still loose your life as several poor souls in Greensburg did.

Mike, please be more precise when you write. Plural: of, relating to, or constituting a class of grammatical forms usually used to denote more than one or in some languages more than two. Does not mean "all".

At no point did you specify you meant "all" tornadoes. Since you specifically listed EF-4 and EF-5 (actually F-4 and F-5), it could easily be inferred that any subset of this group would suffice. Otherwise, why stop with (E)F-4 and (E)F-5? We'll never have the death toll at 0 for all tornadoes of any of the rating categories. Some people will ultimately be at the wrong place at the right time. Isn't this the premise of your book? Otherwise, how have we "tamed" the weather when ~55 people died every year between 2000 and 2010 from tornadoes?

Yes, there has been an increase number of warnings in the past few years, and I have hard numbers to back this up. I concur from this information that there is an over-warning problem. There are a lot of non-meteorological reasons why. Something needs to be done, and internal, informal discussions regarding tornado warnings have been ongoing for several years. However, until the GPRA goals are changed, nothing is going to change.

 

[Jim Tang]

I think it all boils down to this: if a violent tornado barrels through a location where people do not have storm shelters or basements, many people are going to die. You can talk about power outages preventing people from receiving warning, cry wolf syndrome, timing and everything else in the book, but IMO they each had lesser impact than that one simple fact. We've just been incredibly lucky in the past few decades with tornadoes either steering away from vulnerable populations or hitting areas that have adequate shelter.

 

[Clarence Bennett]

We could just use the approach of quite a few in the business and say, "let the Social Scientists figure it out...we are in the business to forecast weather". This is a very general statement, but there is too much of a disconnect between many meteorologists and emergency management, etc. and until this gap is bridged, we will have many more opportunities to discuss this subject.

 

[Mike Smith]

Last night, we had tornado warnings in Wichita. They caused grumping and storm controversy. I address it here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-should-meteorologists-do.html