NOAA weather Radio

[Mike Johnston]

Gee, glad everyone else was so "right" about this event, and there is evidently no room whatsoever for any constructive criticisim - even from an amatuer with no ax to grind. Too bad 23 people died and 200 were injured. As I said, I think it was the watch system that failed. And, in particular, TWC also failed. However, I guess if we can do no better, powers-that-be prevail and nothing is to be learned.

 

[Glen Romine]

I was not attacking the NWS. I was defending the private sector.

Fair enough. I'm not sure the situational awareness aspects that both the NWS and your company are all that different - other than you are providing a spot forecast for a much smaller region and only for the aspects important to your client - so I'd view the availability of the NWS watch and warning system as synergistic.

Since a person has to buy a wx radio to get the broadcast service - it isn't unreasonable to expect the individuals to have to have a cell phone for wx alerts - but the service should be free. What backups would be in place if the technology fails - and who would be to blame? The positive for phones though might be that I expect a lot more folks have cell phones than wx radios.

Clearly there is some TWC bashing going on - and so what is the private wx industry's role in weather threat dissemination? Also - why does the Santorum plan preserve the Watch/Warning responsibilities of the NWS if the feeling is that their service isn't good enough? Still seems like a lot of double talk - but I think the private mets need to band together more in how they will more effectively transfer information than the current NWS system, with access to all (not just those that can afford premium service). Instead the efforts, from my perspective, appear to focus on repackaging instead of content enrichment. Maybe I should start my own company....lol.

Glen

 

[rdale]

"The fact is - for many folks - hearing a human voice posting an alert gives a more heightened sense of viligence. "

If you watch TWC, they run the crawl saying a tornado is 10 minutes away from striking yourtown USA, and you don't take cover - you are stupid. If at the very least you don't tune to your local TV station for better information - you are stupid. So "blaming" TWC for having ANYTHING to do with the deaths or injuries as you claim is absurd.

"the 1050 tone apparently failed during the warning (is the NWS to blaim for this though, or local EM's?"

I'm not sure how the EM's can be faulted because the NWS radio system failed? The NWS All-Hazards Radio is operated and distributed solely by the NWS. Can we blame that for deaths? I doubt it. I guess we'd have to check with the families / residences of those who were killed to see if they had a non-SAME NOAA Weather Radio. If I were a betting man - I'd say no.

"glad everyone else was so "right" about this event, and there is evidently no room whatsoever for any constructive criticisim"

Go ahead - but be constructive. Saying that SPC erred by not issuing a TOR watch, when it was "painfully obvious" to you, is just wrong. Saying that the lack of the TOR box had _anything_ to do with deaths is even worse.

 

[Mike Johnston]

"The fact is - for many folks - hearing a human voice posting an alert gives a more heightened sense of viligence. "

If you watch TWC, they run the crawl saying a tornado is 10 minutes away from striking yourtown USA, and you don't take cover - you are stupid.

Go ahead - but be constructive. Saying that SPC erred by not issuing a TOR watch, when it was "painfully obvious" to you, is just wrong. Saying that the lack of the TOR box had _anything_ to do with deaths is even worse.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Go ahead - but be constructive. Saying that SPC erred by not issuing a TOR watch, when it was "painfully obvious" to you, is just wrong. Saying that the lack of the TOR box had _anything_ to do with deaths is even worse.

Excellent point... Mike, do you really think that the nobody would have died if the SPC had issue a tornado watch intead of a severe thunderstorm watch? All those folks would have stayed up to wait out the weather, or they would have open windows so they could have heard the sirens better? The fact of the matter is, at 2am, if you are out of range of a civil defense siren, I think there are only three potential saving graces -- (1) a call or visit from friends or family alerting you of the situation, (2) police/fire dept folks driving around with their sirens on to wake people up, or (3) having a weather radio with the alert on. I don't really think this is a discussion about whether the SPC should have issue a watch or not, but rather whether or not the SPC watch type could have saved the 22 people who died. The fact is, there just wasn't much to be done outside of hoping one of the three possibilities listed above happen to you. If you lived in a mobile home, most of which can be severely affected by winds >90mph, would you REALLY treat a tornado watch differently than a severe thunderstorm watch in the middle of the night? Again, if so, what would YOU do? Only a tiny amount of people are ever directly affected by a tornado, and those folks have probably been through hundreds of tornado watches without being directly affected, so you can understand the complacency. A recent AHR / weather radio probably would have saved most of those folks, assuming they ACTED on the information they were given. I think it all boils down to preparation, much of which is done long before a tornado is bearing down on your home.

 

[Mike Johnston]

If you watch TWC, they run the crawl saying a tornado is 10 minutes away from striking yourtown USA, and you don't take cover - you are stupid.

Go ahead - but be constructive. Saying that SPC erred by not issuing a TOR watch, when it was "painfully obvious" to you, is just wrong. Saying that the lack of the TOR box had _anything_ to do with deaths is even worse.

With regard to the first comment, I guess if one can read a crawl at 2:00am at night - when not previously alerted to say awake and watch - then, by all means, blame it on the "stupid" folks in the trailer park, and just chalkd it up as an inevitable, unforunate event. Reading implies that a person is awake. Being awake at 2:00am is either by happenstance or prior knowledge of a reason to be awake!

With regard to the latter comment, I thought I was being constructive by proposing a broader definition of risk when it comes to the PDS watch. Again, if you were up last Sat. night and looking at the observations, and firmly conclude that there was no meteorological justificiation for a very firm TOR Watch, then that is an honest difference of opinion - but don't just sit there and say that no one could have predicted.

I guess someone just appointed you defender of the status quo. I personally believe something can and will be learned from this event. Be it a public or private solution - the system could have performed better.

 

[Mike Smith]

Glen,

#1. Yes. The situational awareness was very similar, I'm sure.

#2. Agree. I have never seen a conflict between the NWS role of warning the public and the private sector role of taking care of individual clients. It constantly amazes me that this is controversial.

#3. "[cell phone weather alerts] should be free." Why? Cell phone service is not free. Cell phone games are not free. "Desperate Housewives" downloads cost 99 cents. Why shouldn't a premium weather service cost something? Here is the analogy: Local governments provide police service and it is free to all (as it should be) and everyone gets the same basic level of service. But, if someone wants a special police service (i.e., a lobby guard, someone to continously patrol your property) you pay a private security company. The same theory should hold for weather. Government should provide a basic level of forecast and warning service for the public-at-large. Beyond that, premium or special services should cost a fee.

#4. Why does Santorum provide for NWS to do forecasting and warning? Good question. Here is my answer. It isn't because the private sector cannot do it, clearly we can. Under the traditional theory of American government it has been seen as a basic role of government to provide "protection" (from foreign and domestic threats). Given that, it seems to us that warnings of dangerous weather fall into that category and should continue in a governmental role, at least as they pertain to basic services. I have strongly supported the polygon warning concept (just ask Pete Wolf) even though some would say it could potentially cost us business because I want the NWS provide good quality warnings for the public.

Instead the efforts, from my perspective, appear to focus on repackaging instead of content enrichment.

#5. I don't know what this means, but the "repackaging" myth is one of the most destructive that affects our industry. WeatherData's storm warnings are original content as are just about all of our other products.

If you don't think our content is "rich" (which I presume means "valuable"), please let me direct you to www.weatherdata.com and to the lower right side of the home page. Download the one pager about WeatherData saving the Amtrak train (it is under the ice storm photo). According to our client, our track-specific storm warning prevented an Amtrak train from going over a 90 ft. washout at 59 mph last month. I'm certain the passengers and crew of that train have no idea that they were saved from injury or death by our warning. But, if they did, I have a feeling that they would say our content is "valuable."

Glen, I am sincerely tired of the NWS v. private sector back and forth and have been for years. There is an important role for both. Why the NWS felt it had to criticize telephone warnings (especially when their system failed) and why Santorum came up in this thread I don't know.

When we are wrong (and we sometimes are), I try to gracefully accept criticism. But, when the criticism is gratuitous or silly, I vigorously defend my company or our industry.

Thank you for your comments.

Mike

 

[Glen Romine]

Well, as I looked for more information on this case from a watch/warning perspective - I did find at least somewhat of a "smoking gun" for the failed watch aspect of this case. In fairness I will detail it here.

I had found this report from the Evansville EM's:

http://www.vanderburghgov.org/home/index.asp?page=1022

"At 0132 CST, the National Weather Service office in Paducah, KY issued a Tornado Warning for Posey County; followed by Tornado Warnings at 0146 CST and 0159 CST for Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties respectively. None of these tornado warnings occurred in areas covered by watch "boxes"."

Actually - this appears to be true. Here is the coverage for WW0843 and WW0844:

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/ww0...43_warnings.gif

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/ww0...44_warnings.gif

Evansville is clearly within the second box - but is more than a county outside of 843. Box 844 was issued at 2:00am local, and the tornado had already passed through the mobile home park by that time. So, if you want to hack at the SPC performance, this I guess gives you some extra ammo. Will be interesting to see if the official assessment will consider this event as within a watch box or not.

Glen

 

[Mike Johnston]

Jeff wrote:

"Mike, do you really think that the nobody would have died if the SPC had issue a tornado watch intead of a severe thunderstorm watch?"

Well, I never said "nobody" would die - I only suggested that a heightened watch may have prevented some deaths; a watch was justified in time for the local evening news, and certainly an awareness by TWC was justified.

I guess if there is no functional difference - in the public's eye - between a severe t-storm watch and a tornado watch, then one can be a complete skeptic and suggest no actionable difference. In this regard, I guess there is no difference between a watch and no watch at all! If this is practical reality, then why even have watches? Indeed, why even have an SPC?

 

[rdale]

Sounds like you completely miss the point of watches... Watches are there for the spotters / media / etc. to be prepared. In this case, regardless of the type of watch, they were prepared and a TOR warning was issued with ample time. So the exact status / county line of the watch didn't seem to play a role in the issue. In any case:

"With regard to the first comment, I guess if one can read a crawl at 2:00am at night - when not previously alerted to say awake and watch - then, by all means, blame it on the "stupid" folks in the trailer park"

You blamed TWC for not interrupting their programming to do live coverage... Now you say that people were asleep so it didn't matter?

 

[Chris Nuttall]

"At 0132 CST, the National Weather Service office in Paducah, KY issued a Tornado Warning for Posey County; followed by Tornado Warnings at 0146 CST and 0159 CST for Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties respectively. None of these tornado warnings occurred in areas covered by watch "boxes"."

Evansville is clearly within the second box - but is more than a county outside of 843. Box 844 was issued at 2:00am local, and the tornado had already passed through the mobile home park by that time. So, if you want to hack at the SPC performance, this I guess gives you some extra ammo. Will be interesting to see if the official assessment will consider this event as within a watch box or not.

Glen

Yeah, that may be a "smoking gun," but if it is, I consider that to be little more than a paintball gun. This is another example of "don't pay attention to the skinny black line" often cited in hurricane forecasts. I think nearly all watch boxes have something like this in them:

REMEMBER...A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH MEANS CONDITIONS ARE
FAVORABLE FOR SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS IN AND CLOSE TO THE WATCH AREA.

All of us on here know that, but then again we are quite a bit more educated in these matters than most of the general public.

While not defending TWC, I don't believe they had an "obligation" to cover this event. They are a private company, not public. The only obligation they have is to their own interests, and what they consider their "target audience." TWC's target audience is a national scale...not local (except Atlanta). TWC did the same type of thing with 5/3/1999 so, I'm not really surprised. Why then, you ask, did they cover the event with reports from the area for the next three days? Because then it was considered big national news.

Again, let me state that I am NOT a TWC fan.

 

[Ben Cotton]

I've been watching this thread from afar, but I want to take issue with the people who keep saying that the NWS didn't sound the 1050 tone. The implication I keep getting from that is the lack of 1050 tone was an intentional oversight by lazy NWS employees. Yes, the equipment malfunctioned at a very unfortunate time, but that hardly constitutes the dereliction of duty implied by the comments. When the IND radar was broken during the May 30, 2004 outbreak, did anyone say "the NWS didn't turn the radar on?" No, that would be stupid.


BC

 

[rdale]

I didn't detect that tone, but I would hope that nobody would make such a connection...

"When the IND radar was broken during the May 30, 2004 outbreak, did anyone say "the NWS didn't turn the radar on?""

Another private / public issue... There are many TV station radars which would be of great value to NWS offices, ESPECIALLY in that sort of event. But NWS HQ specifically forbids local offices from having access to that data. Even required some offices that had taps to take them out... Why?

 

[Ben Cotton]

Actually, Rob, I was at dinner with the IND MIC the other night and I asked him about that event. Among other things, he told me they used local TV radars in addition to surrounding sites (ILX, VWX, LOT, LVX, IWX) to aid them. I'm not sure why HQ would forbid the use of TV radars, except for the fact that in some (certainly not all) cases, the radar is just plain crappy or the TV/website images aren't updated frequently enough to be of real-time use in augmenting (or at need replacing) 88D data. I think in a case like that, I'd certainly be using any radar data I could get my hands on. I'm glad that the IND office did, and I think they did an excellent job (it helps that the storms were discrete and long-lived).

As for the implication that the NWS intentionally didn't sound the 1050Hz tone, maybe I'm the only one seeing that. If that's the case, then I apologize.


BC

 

[rdale]

A direct feed... KCCI and a few other stations I know of gave the NWS a direct link, so the office had immediate access and could pan/zoom just like we do. They also had velocity data. Those boxes were pulled, and repeated attempts to get around it with HQ have been rejected.

- Rob