Reporting Caution

[rdale]

A few nights ago the Kentucky region was "supposedly" being hammered by several wedge tornadoes, some between 3/4mi to a full mile wide. Multi-vortex and all. Spotters, chasers, and the public reported them - sometimes miles apart on the ground at the same time.

Oops.

Night-time reporting requires EXTRA caution.

A survey found evidence of 0 wedge tornadoes. 0 tornadoes of any size actually in those areas. The only tornadoes confirmed by the survey came prior to the "wedgefest" and were NOT reported... Use caution at night when reporting something that bad.

 

[chrisbray]

Those reports are still showing up on the SPC reports page. Where are they saying there was no evidence of tornados found?

 

[Mark Ellinwood]

Those reports are still showing up on the SPC reports page. Where are they saying there was no evidence of tornados found?

The reports are considered preliminary. Bad reports won't show up in any sort of QC'd/finalized tornado count. The SPC isn't in the habit of deleting bad reports from the preliminary stuff.

 

[rdale]

Where are they saying there was no evidence of tornados found?

The picture I attached shows a list of tornado reports. The two found by survey were indicated at the top. The others do not have a tornado verified because it wasn't found. You can also see information at the PAH website. Only straightline damage was found where the wedges were reported.

 

[Jeff Duda]

And I bet local WFOs will still get harassed for "crying wolf" for issuing a bunch of tornado warnings that didn't verify. I'm sure each case is different, but in a place like Kentucky that has a lot of trees and hills and maybe not as experienced or as extensive a spotter network, it might be hard for an NWS meteorologist who's on warning duty to refuse to pull the trigger when getting several reports of large tornadoes from multiple sources. Stuff like this certainly does not help the NWS achieve their POD/FAR stats.

 

[rdale]

Well, the strange thing is that PAH kept putting out statements about Doppler indications were adding credibility to those reports. The rotation was far from capable of a 1 mile wedge, and to have two wedges at the same time at such close range to the radarsite -- you'd have seen SOME signs of debris. There were no signs of a debris signature.