I've lurked on ST for a while and never really felt the need to jump into a discussion, but I will for this one...
As Kiel Ortega previously mentioned, we did the El Reno, Union City, and Minco damage surveys. Before this experience, I was in the same boat as most of you. I thought all tornadoes should be surveyed. Now I realize that as things currently stand, it is not feasible. And unless you have done a damage survey, I don't think you can begin to understand how difficult it can be.
Kiel and I spent two entire days doing nothing but damage surveys and writing reports on the surveys. Even after this, neither one of us were satisfied that we found everything. However, without the use of a helicopter we could have spent every day for a month out there before finding the "next" piece of damage. Additionally, while we were out there we were "blocked" from a lot of places we wanted to go because of incredibly muddy ground / underwater roadways (remember a lot of roads are dirt roads). Is searching through a field of trees for more broken tree limbs worth the NWS's time to go back several days later when water levels have receeded? Will you even be able to tell which tree limbs were downed from the storm in question from earlier / later storms. Can you tell if the storm damaged that single outbuilding or is it simply just falling apart? Are people still going to be around 3 days later to ask? Chances are they will have resumed their normal routines.
In defense of Greg Stumpf's post about where the "volunteers" were on May 4 and 5, while I can't speak for him, I would argue that his intention was that most of the people on these boards were still out chasing. It is crucial to do damage surveys as soon as possible, preferably no later than the next day. Why you might ask? As Kiel and I found out on the El Reno survey, that even though we got to a location at 11am the following day (less than 12 hours after the tornado) enough of the damage had been cleaned up ithat sorting things out became really complicated. We were very lucky that an individual from the local VFW had taken pictures before they started cleaning and was willing to share these photos with us. These images slightly altered our original thinking as to track of the tornado.
So here is my question. How should a local NWS office proceed in doing storm surveys when there is severe weather possible the same day as the survey? Should they jeapordize the warning process to complete a storm survey? While Kiel and I were doing the surveys we actually had to worry about severe weather while we were out in the field.
The best thing people can do is to spread the word that people need to report damage to the proper authorities and this needs to make its way to the NWS. Kiel and I found damage on the survey that completely altered the start point of the tornado, and we found it by "accident" (won't go into the details on this now). Additionally, while surveying the Union City tornado, we came across damage from a tornado 2 months earlier that no one reported. The only reason we know when the tornado occurred is the fact that residents told us when it had occurred (and it jived with radar data). They never bothered to report the damage to anyone since it was an abandoned outhouse and some downed tree limbs. Thus no one outside of the locals knew about it.
The bottom line becomes that for most tornadoes in rural areas, it's extremely hard to do a damage survey. When you add multiple tornadoes in rural areas it becomes nearly impossible to survey EVERY storm. When you add additional threats of severe weather on top of the previous two, it is impossible.
Just for clarification, Kiel and I didn't write the official report. We didn't even give the official classificiation. We wrote a report based on what we found, listed explicity what DIs we found, provided pictures of the DIs, and the offered a suggested rating. Rick Smith took our information and pictures and further analyzed the information and wrote what was seen in the LSR. Please don't think that if you volunteer you are going to be giving the official ratings. In essence, Kiel and I were information gatherers.
Oh, by the way, there was the report of a tornado on May 8 near Lawton. Kiel and I went down there and looked in the surrounding areas but found nothing. We weren't about to survey the exact location that was reported to us for this storm. Why? It occurred in Fort Sill over the bombing range. If anyone wants to go survey that, feel free.
EDIT FOR SEVERAL BLATANT GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES
OUN can't keep up with the storm surveys and local storm reports. Several threads on the subject. Maybe because they cut their staff. Don't know. Must be some reason though because a lot of other offices are able to do the surveys and local storm reports in a timely manner. Different policy perhaps for Oklahoma. No wonder tornado alley has moved
And I thought it was because there was less tornadoes in Oklahoma over the past few years!
/sarc
) OUN was in warning ops. And last I checked, Sweetwater was damn near in TX. So taking into account driving time, I don't think Rick could have just "popped" up to the Arnette area to do that survey due to time constraints (and I'm pretty sure he went into TX to try and get a good handle on the Sweetwater tornado, so he was driving around searching for damage---which is very TIME CONSUMING). The Arnette tornado not being surveyed isn't going to hurt climatologies...it isn't going to hurt any science...it's not going to affect warning operations. So get over it!
