OUN WX - Fail?

[Billy Griffin]

Wanted to start an 'unheated' discussion about what happened tonight with the failure of Norman, OK, as well as the media, on the surprise tornado event? Failure = lack of or late warnings to the public.

Granted, I'm watching from 2000 miles away, but by all accounts, this one snuck in on them! Media coverage, online at least, was minimal at best. Warnings went up, but when speaking with folks back home (Norman,) I've heard that sirens never sounded or were very late into the warning.

Media chasers were not out, granted; it was 10:30 pm.

Was this a case of a rogue storm, or was there an epic fail here on the part of warning the public of this storm and tornado?

Note: I am not "bashing" anyone, just wanting to hear some thoughts on this. One thing I guess, we can all be happy it didn't turn out to be a significant event afterall. Although I'm not sure what damage may have occurred from the tornado. Has anyone heard further reports from Greg?


Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I would have titled this thread differently; as it is not directed at OUN NWS.
Should have just kept it simple "surprise event in Norman, OK." (sigh)

 

[Jason Foster]

I've always noticed a significant drop of attention paid to storms past 10pm local. Media doesn't get much in the way of ratings (remember that 10pm in the plains is 11pm on the east coast....a major portion of the TV ratings). It's dark, and everyone is done for the day. It isn't that big of a surprise to me....as far as the media and chaser side of things.

I can't comment on the warnings however, because.....well I too was not paying attention. Remember it is a Friday night....time to party!

 

[Billy Griffin]

Good points, Jason. What was disturbing to me is that I was watching the radar and saw the warning go out just as the next scan showed the couplet. My son was playing on XBox with the neighbor kid in Norman, and just as I saw the warning, my son said his friend back in Norman was knocked offline on the game they were playing.

I took another look and saw the couplet right over what appeared to be SE 24th and Hwy 9 intersection. My son got in touch with the kids in Norman and when I spoke to their parents about the approaching storm, they said that the news was on...... YET NOTHING WAS EVEN BEING MENTIONED !!! Do.... what ?????????? That is the thing that had me the most shocked. Typically, OKC stations are all over the first clap of thunder!

And even minutes into the warning, still no sirens on that side of town.
Basically why I affectionately titled this one a "fail," is because by the time everyone seemed to have a grasp on what was occurring, the couplet had all but dissipated and the storm was off to the ESE towards Lake Thunderbird.

Any news on how the campground made out?

 

[John Massura]

Definitely a rogue storm. I think the NWS did OK on this one. The first echo at 0.5 degrees was around 0244z. OUN issued a special weather statement at 0259z regarding the storm, and a SVR warning at 0309z, and the TOR warning at 0324z. I'm not sure when the tornado reports were.

Several co-workers were "chasing" this, and I think there may have been 2 tornadoes. This is all second-hand information, so it could be inaccurate. The first tornado may have been relatively significant-looking, a brief elephant trunk, and the 2nd could have been a brief rope. I personally am taking all of this with a huge grain of salt, since it was dark.

We work right next to the NWC, and the sirens were extremely late, as mentioned in other areas, a good 10-15 minutes after the warning, when the storm was already weakening. I'm not sure who controls the siren activation here in the city/county though.

(edit) Another co-worker mentioned that IR satellite imagery and radar seemed to possibly indicate a boundary interaction near TOR time, with a n-ward moving outflow from the earlier storms in southern OK, and the nearly stationary boundary over the OKC metro, which may be the outflow from the bow echo this morning over northern OK. This may need further analysis to make sure the timing and everything was right, I only had a few minutes to look at anything.

 

[Billy Griffin]

I would debate (not argue) the rouge storm theory, only because there are other cells ongoing in eastern OK along this old boundary from yesterday's derecho.
I'm guessing that it took much longer for the cap to be overcome and when convection did not break by dusk, everyone had let their guard down just a little ???


I'm wondering if due to the lack of severe weather activity until of late, coupled with the number of "busts," that the cry wolf scenario was guarded against today, and Mother Nature just simply had other plans this evening?

I'm just glad I've not heard any reports of damage or injuries. Dark-thirty tornadoes, of any kind, can be very tricky.

 

[Payton Gannaway]

It was very weird, I was sitting in my house watching the GR3 when I first started seeing the Lightning extremely close, and the warning popped up on GR3 but the sirens didn't go off for at least another 5-10 minutes. Couldn't quite understand why.

 

[John Massura]

By rogue storm, I just meant it was one of the first storms to go, right around the same time as the storms in eastern OK, certainly no longer than 30 minutes after they initialized.

So not "rogue" in the normal sense, we had a feeling that storms would backbuild down the line, especially after SPC put out the SVR box. "Rogue" in the sense that it went up quick.

Yeah, I'm probably confusing myself by now.

Looks like someone just posted tornado pics in a reports thread.

 

[Billy Griffin]

Awesome pictures and nice catch of the brief tornado event in Norman tonight!


http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?t=21087


Great job, Brett !!!!!
Sure makes me miss hearing even a faint clap of thunder! (sigh)

 

[Gene Moore]

I just checked all three OKC news stations and no mention of the incident.

What actually happened, was there damage to property, injuries?

 

[John Massura]

A storm went up over east Norman just before 10pm, and moved extremely slowly to the southeast, dropping at least one brief tornado somewhere in the SE 24th/SE 48th/Alameda/Lindsey street box, sometime between 10:30pm and 10:55pm. Reports I've seen seem to be mainly minor damage (trees down, fences down, possible powerlines down). No reports of any injuries from what I've seen.

 

[Rob Satkus]

I took another look and saw the couplet right over what appeared to be SE 24th and Hwy 9 intersection. My son got in touch with the kids in Norman and when I spoke to their parents about the approaching storm, they said that the news was on...... YET NOTHING WAS EVEN BEING MENTIONED !!! Do.... what ?????????? That is the thing that had me the most shocked. Typically, OKC stations are all over the first clap of thunder!

I can only speak for Ch9 as I didn't watch the other stations, but as soon as the warning came out they went wall to wall, interrupting the sports cast to do so...the sports guy didn't seem to thrilled about that. I chase for Ch9 and unfortunately my chase partner was out of town for business reasons...his vehicle is the one we use, so I was pretty much screwed. An old chase partner of mine did come to the rescue and we got out in time to catch the end of the tornado, but that's another thread. They (Ch9) called me at least 10 minutes before the official warning came out hoping we were available, which means someone was on the ball and felt things warranted attention. I can say other of our chasers as well as chasers for other stations were out for much of the day, sitting along the boundary waiting for development, so it's not like we weren't prepared and ready. However as nightfall came most were sent home. Crews had sat around all day for nothing. Many had been out since the early morning thanks to the big MCS that blew through. We do have family and real jobs so we can't sit under a boundary for days on end "just in case" and believe it or not the stations do have budgets to consider. Besides, this storm went from nothing much to tornadic to nothing much in a very short period of time. Given the poor lightning situation, streaming video don't mean squat if you can't see anything and yes, there will be a drop off in coverage after dark, because you just can't see much. If the situation warrants coverage it will continue as it did on April 25/26 where we reported on the northern OK storms until at least 2am.
As best I could tell, this was a classic case where a storm went up, interacted with a boundary long enough to tornado, then crossed the boundary and wasn't much of a threat anymore. I don't see how this was a fail by anyone...there is only so much you can do...although I can't speak for the siren situation...

Rob

 

[Chris McBee]

A storm went up over east Norman just before 10pm, and moved extremely slowly to the southeast, dropping at least one brief tornado somewhere in the SE 24th/SE 48th/Alameda/Lindsey street box, sometime between 10:30pm and 10:55pm. Reports I've seen seem to be mainly minor damage (trees down, fences down, possible powerlines down). No reports of any injuries from what I've seen.

To be honest, I wasn't even watching this, and ths sirens woke me up. Epic fail on my part. But I realized that some of my friends were probably in the path, between 24th and 36th, just south of Alameda. So I went over there, and the guy behind them had lost most of his roof and had damage to the front of his house. My friends had some fence, roof, and auto damage and were without water, but that's about it. Everyone was ok and in fairly good spirits, but not terribly happy about the lack of warning. They said the sirens didn't go off until after the storm had passed. (not a criticism of anyone, just passing along what I saw and heard)

 

[David Wagener]

For me I was only watching FOX 25 and Channel 9 at the time. The FOX 25 guy was going on about nothing happening, even when initial convection started firing from Eastern OK County to the east. I'm guessing he didn't think much would happen with it, or was totally blind sided. Michael at KWTV did a pretty darn good job IMO - granted I really like the fact they use GR2AE which was on the ball with the markers last night.

I would say the only failing last night were the sirens not going off until anywhere between 18 to 20 minutes after the official NWS warning was issued. I wouldn't want to be David Grizzle, Norman EM, on Monday morning. The last tornado warning for Norman had similar results in when the sirens were sounded in relation to the warning being issued by OUN. That case was a bit more understandable since the main circulation stayed around Draper Lake. This situation though of a warning going out from OUN, first reports of it on the ground about 5-10 minutes later, and the the sirens not going off in Norman until the circulation was pretty well close to Lake T-Bird...just not going to be a good day. It would also appear that he is the only one in the city that can activate the sirens, so he probably has to be woke up, get dressed, drive in and activate...which probably would take the 15-20 minutes. Might be time for a policy/procedure change within the city on how it is handled.

I also take note with what Gene said...pretty much nothing much on the local media, but KFOR is showing pics this morning of it.

 

[bvassmer]

I live in the South Lake addition in South Norman, and I can say during the tornado the only siren I heard was the sirens in Noble, and I am not sure it was even that close to me because they were so faint. The sirens didn't go off where I could actually hear them until the tornado was nearly gone (if not completely gone). The rotation was gone on radar as well.

I remember that it caught my attn because I had gone inside because there was nothing else to video (the tornado was gone from my perspective), and I was looking at the newest scan on GR2 and the rotation was gone, and THEN the sirens started, and continued for a while.

Now, the NWS OUN did a WONDERFUL job. The warning was out right on time, my wx radio was going off (it was the only reason I knew there was a tornado). Hats off to OUN.

Ben Vassmer

 

[Jay McCoy]

I wouldn't want to be David Grizzle, Norman EM, on Monday morning. The last tornado warning for Norman had similar results in when the sirens were sounded in relation to the warning being issued by OUN. ...... It would also appear that he is the only one in the city that can activate the sirens, so he probably has to be woke up, get dressed, drive in and activate...which probably would take the 15-20 minutes. Might be time for a policy/procedure change within the city on how it is handled.

Not sure about Norman but I know in our OEM and nearly all others the EM has the capability to sound the sirens remotely from anywhere. I cant imagine a place like norman having a system where you have to drive into city hall to sound the sirens. We have equipment in the EM vehicle and he can set them off by page using a special pager. He and all our OEM people carry a pager that gives all severe warnings for our area soon as they are issued so he knows instantly. And our policy is to sound the sirens anytime a tornado warning is issued for southern potter/ northern randall counties (amarillo proper) period. Last week we had a storm drop 3 very small tornados (weak landspouts at best) about 14 miles west of amarillo moving due south but AMA NWS issued the tor warning for amarilo proper as a precaution so the sirens went off.

I cant imagine Normans EM not having that kind of capability and not receiving the warning in a timely manner so no clue why it would take so long to sound them.