"Reverse" chasing (out of a TOR risk area)?

[Elaine Spencer]

This might sound like an odd question, especially for a storm chasing forum, but I wonder if anyone uses the forecast tools and strategies of chasing to chase "in reverse," i.e. get AWAY from where tornadoes are likely to occur and stay away until the danger passes?

Let me emphasize that I am NOT talking about attempting to flee from an imminent tornado or tornado warning (like people in OKC did on May 31). Rather, I mean looking at the forecasts a day or two ahead of time and if you find your area is likely to be outlooked as Moderate or High Risk for strong/violent tornadoes, making plans to travel to a lower-risk location well ahead of time, if that is feasible.

As an example, take the 11/17 outbreak in IL and IN. I was aware at least 2-3 days ahead of time that a severe weather outbreak was possible in our area. By Saturday it was becoming increasingly obvious that our area of central IL was very likely to be at risk for strong to violent tornadoes the following day. By early Sunday morning we were right smack dab in the middle of a High Risk, 30% hatched area and a PDS TOR watch.

Perhaps we could have removed ourselves from the area of greatest danger by packing up on Saturday morning (taking with us a bug out bag with supplies and important documents we might need if the house got hit) or early Saturday afternoon and driving into eastern IA or MO just west of the Mississippi, a little beyond the projected risk area, and getting a motel room. We could have monitored later developments and maybe moved a little farther west on Sunday morning to get behind the cold front and beyond the Mod Risk/hatched area until the danger was past back home. In other words I would be looking for a "target area" where tornadoes were LEAST likely to occur.

Although in the end, nothing happened in our part of SPI besides a few wind gusts and some hail, had we still been living in our first house in Washington IL (which didn't have a basement), we would have been spared a really harrowing experience as the EF-4 tornado passed within about a mile of that neighborhood. Yes, we would have endured a 2-3 hour drive home wondering all the while if we were going to HAVE a home when we got there... but at least we would have known we were safe.

Obviously one cannot do this all the time. If the risk area is so big you would have to drive several states away to get out of it, or there is a multi-day outbreak going on and you would simply be heading into the area your future severe weather was coming from, or if you had work/school/other obligations keeping you at home, you could not do this. I personally would only want to resort to this in High Risk situations, which occur maybe every few years in my area. In some ways it would be like evacuating ahead of a hurricane. Has anyone tried this or known someone who has?

 

[Shawn Schuman]

I don't know about anyone on this forum, but I've known people on other forums who have done that sort of thing (i.e. looking for a "target area" to temporarily evacuate to). As you said, it'd really only make sense in certain specific situations, but it may not be a terrible idea. In fact, for people who live in mobile homes or other vulnerable structures and don't have quick access to a storm shelter, it may be the best course of action.

Even when it comes to a home with a basement, evacuation may be worth considering on high-end days if you're sure you can do so safely and in a timely manner. In a violent tornado, even a basement is no guarantee. This is all on an individual basis, obviously. Larger-scale evacuations are a whole different ball o' wax, as we've seen.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I've heard of at least a couple storm chasers doing this very thing. They either did not want to chase the event for personal reasons, didn't want to deal with the stress or potential dangers of the event, or felt their family or pets were in danger. They drove west of the dryline in the morning or away from initiating storms.

For educated storm chasers, this is not a bad idea at all. For residents, I don't think it's a good idea for many of the reasons listed in the above posts. Evacuating high risks often means moving tens or hundreds of thousands of people (sometimes millions). That's just not practical, and the evacuation route or areas might still be in harm's way. Folks should be primarily focused on getting to a safe shelter with time to spare, rather than evacuating the area. Luckily for us in Illinois, most houses have basements. Our house west of Springfield actually has a bump out in the basement that runs under the porch, putting concrete on 5 sides with nothing overhead, built specifically for the previous owner as a storm shelter. I doubt I'll ever use it, but anyone in the home should be able to weather an F5.

 

[Elaine Spencer]

Well, I'm glad to know that it isn't a completely crazy idea. It was something my husband recently suggested after watching several documentaries on high-end tornadoes and tornado outbreaks (such as the 2011 Dixie Outbreak) and after we drove through the devastated area of Washington a few weeks ago.

We live in an apartment building that has no basement -- just a bottom floor slightly below street level. There are some underground shelter options in our area, for example, an underground parking garage about 2 blocks away and tunnels underneath the library at U of I Springfield, but these are not always open to the public. Going down to the bottom floor and hunkering down under the stairs would probably suffice for a tornado of EF2 or less intensity, maybe even an EF3, but not a really violent tornado a la Washington, Moore, Joplin, etc. If we had reliable underground shelter within walking distance we wouldn't even be considering this; our next home will have an underground shelter option or at least a basement if possible. I agree that evacuating ahead of a tornado outbreak is a last-resort option best reserved for people who have no reliable underground shelter available to them.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

I'd say large scale evacuations for tornado events are unlikely to catch on simply because even in the most extreme events such as April 27, 2011, the odds of being in the path of a violent tornado are low. In more "normal" significant tornado outbreaks such as the 11/17/13 mentioned they are much lower still. Even within the path of a violent tornado, the "violent" category (EF4/5) damage is usually confined to suction vorticies within the tornado.

That said, it's not a bad idea to plan ahead especially if you don't have a basement or access to a storm shelter. Not necessarily by evacuating, but by anticipating some way to ensure you and your family have access to such a shelter before the tornado warning goes out.

 

[John Olexa]

The church I am a member of is right at the end of my street, a little 5 house street. Because I occasionally teach Jr church & keep up the maintenance on the bus I have a key. I can just snatch up my dog and drive the 30 seconds to the church. The fellowship hall is 3/4 underground with no windows. Only once in the 10 years I've lived here have I seriously thought about doing it but didn't need to.

 

[MClarkson]

I've moved our aircraft out of high risks when I used to work for an airline. Sometimes moderate risks with extra hail threat got the same treatment (hail really hurts planes). Pretty rare overall, happening maybe a couple instances per year. During the super tuesday outbreak we had one plane with half a crew so it couldn't be moved sitting unused in Nashville, directly under the gun of a monster hook echo/velocity couplet. I called up the captain and asked him what his hotel was made of (steel frame clearly at 15 stories tall, oh thats good). Fortunately the tornado lifted and spared downtown Nashville and my flight crew, but sadly it did kill about 25 others in the outskirts of the city. Probably the most nervous moment I ever had forecasting.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

We don't have a storm shelter in our home (yet) but will use this method on PDS days much like El Reno last year until we do. So if the target area is say Central Oklahoma and it's a moderate PDS kind of day I will instruct my wife to take the kids and spend the day either at my parents house 120 miles away, or pick a direction and find something to do there that day. That is of course if it is feasible and the size of the risk area is not a gigantic area, like the high risk of April 14, 2012.

 

[Skip Talbot]

To be blunt, taking shelter is for suckers that don't know better. As a chaser with the means to do so, you should probably be evacuating. Clearing the path is almost always going to be safer than sheltering. This is bad advice for residents since they don't know how to evacuate and could just as easily wind up driving directly into the tornado (El Reno) or creating massive traffic jams (El Reno).

We evacuated on 4/14/12 after the chase and well after dark. Our hotel in Junction City, KS was in the path of a tornado warned supercell. We grabbed a few things, left our room, and drove a couple miles south. One of the guests saw us pulling out and recognized us as storm chasers. "You going out!?! BAD ASS!!!" he shouted to us. He didn't realize we were just evacuating instead of chasing.

 

[Bob Schafer]

I've had this conversation with people. Years ago I saw a statistic, but now I forget what exactly the number is. Anyway, I believe the statistic is that any given location... right in the heart of The Alley... has a likelihood of being struck by a significant tornado once every 1000 years. It was either that or 10,000 years. Just about anyone so inclined could probably do the math. What is the average total annual path sizes of all sig tornadoes vs. the size of Tornado Alley?

 

[Jeff Duda]

To be blunt, taking shelter is for suckers that don't know better. As a chaser with the means to do so, you should probably be evacuating. Clearing the path is almost always going to be safer than sheltering. This is bad advice for residents since they don't know how to evacuate and could just as easily wind up driving directly into the tornado (El Reno) or creating massive traffic jams (El Reno).

For a single person or family, I would tend to agree that not getting hit at all is better than risking your life by staying home in shelter and getting hit. Couple of thoughts, though:

-What happens when EVERYONE in a neighborhood, town, or small city decides to do this a day or two in advance (or the morning or afternoon of)? It might resemble something of a hurricane evacuation. That would probably cause more stress and damage than an actual tornado would. Bill Reid, the former director of the NHC came to the National Weather Center a few weeks ago and talked casually to a group of faculty and students about his life stories. He lives in the Houston area. I recall him mentioning a story about the evacuation of one of the major hurricanes from 2005. He said something about more people dying while trying to evacuate than dying due to the actual hurricane.

-The science has not progressed to the point where specific tornado tracks can be forecast even hours beforehand. How many people who paid attention to the events of May 31st, 2013 knew a tornado was going to form a few miles southwest of El Reno, take a crescent shaped path for about 10 miles, then die on I-40 AND also know that a tornado would not form north of El Reno and move east into NW OKC (or form anywhere else nearby)? No one knew. If someone says they did, I call bulls--t - it was a lucky guess. You can't possibly know a day ahead of time or the morning of exactly what area you should steer clear of. You may not even need to leave, e.g., even if a tornadic storm develops but moves to your south by 10 miles.

-The actual area impacted by severe weather is a tiny fraction of the outlook areas highlighted by SPC on severe weather days. Today's (3/28) 1630Z day 1 outlook, for example, covers 213,000 sq mi. and 26.5 million people. First of all, some people might have to drive a long way. For example, if I lived in Shreveport, which direction should I go to evacuate? How much gas/food/lodging money would this cost me? Also, suppose a severe weather event that would verify just a slight risk actually happened today. What proportion of that 213,000 sq mil. would actually be within a wind, hail, or tornado swath? My guess would be we're gonna need scientific notation and large negative exponents to describe the percentage (something around [1e-4]% or so?). All that money and time lost from people not going to work or not getting work done. All the missed school days for all those kids. I don't think it would be good for society in general. What about a moderate or high risk? That percentage still isn't going to be very high...maybe 0.001% now instead of 0.0001%.

 

[Shawn Schuman]

For a single person or family, I would tend to agree that not getting hit at all is better than risking your life by staying home in shelter and getting hit. Couple of thoughts, though:

-What happens when EVERYONE in a neighborhood, town, or small city decides to do this a day or two in advance (or the morning or afternoon of)? It might resemble something of a hurricane evacuation. That would probably cause more stress and damage than an actual tornado would. Bill Reid, the former director of the NHC came to the National Weather Center a few weeks ago and talked casually to a group of faculty and students about his life stories. He lives in the Houston area. I recall him mentioning a story about the evacuation of one of the major hurricanes from 2005. He said something about more people dying while trying to evacuate than dying due to the actual hurricane.

-The science has not progressed to the point where specific tornado tracks can be forecast even hours beforehand. How many people who paid attention to the events of May 31st, 2013 knew a tornado was going to form a few miles southwest of El Reno, take a crescent shaped path for about 10 miles, then die on I-40 AND also know that a tornado would not form north of El Reno and move east into NW OKC (or form anywhere else nearby)? No one knew. If someone says they did, I call bulls--t - it was a lucky guess. You can't possibly know a day ahead of time or the morning of exactly what area you should steer clear of. You may not even need to leave, e.g., even if a tornadic storm develops but moves to your south by 10 miles.

-The actual area impacted by severe weather is a tiny fraction of the outlook areas highlighted by SPC on severe weather days. Today's (3/28) 1630Z day 1 outlook, for example, covers 213,000 sq mi. and 26.5 million people. First of all, some people might have to drive a long way. For example, if I lived in Shreveport, which direction should I go to evacuate? How much gas/food/lodging money would this cost me? Also, suppose a severe weather event that would verify just a slight risk actually happened today. What proportion of that 213,000 sq mil. would actually be within a wind, hail, or tornado swath? My guess would be we're gonna need scientific notation and large negative exponents to describe the percentage (something around [1e-4]% or so?). All that money and time lost from people not going to work or not getting work done. All the missed school days for all those kids. I don't think it would be good for society in general. What about a moderate or high risk? That percentage still isn't going to be very high...maybe 0.001% now instead of 0.0001%.

That was Hurricane Rita. Something like 110 people died during evacuations, either because of traffic accidents or the combination of excessive heat and gridlocked traffic. The hurricane itself wasn't nearly as severe as expected (though it was Cat. 5 at one point), and I think it only caused < 10 deaths.

Anyhow, I agree with your points, although I don't think anyone's arguing for large-scale evacuations. It may make a lot of sense for individual people to evacuate in specific circumstances, but most of the time you're better off just hunkering down and taking standard precautions.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I think it would be better to have a plan of action that involves going to a pre-determined local shelter, whether that is a friend's house with a basement or a large well-constructed building in a town. I think driving out of the area is overkill and impractical.

During an outbreak, a chaser (who for some reason isn't chasing) or someone who knows how to look up a radar image on their phone should be able to get themselves out of the path of a supercell with ease, as long as you're not sitting at home and waiting until the last minute to leave when the storm is a couple of miles away. The exception would be with QLCS or line-embedded tornado threats like we can get here in the Midwest, especially those that come through overnight. You can usually avoid those with some more advanced knowledge of radar (how to pull up velocity data to identify circulations).

If you have any chase experience, during an outbreak it's safer to be chasing than to not be. Even during a nighttime QLCS event, I'd feel better being mobile with my radar than sitting at home. When you're chasing, you have a higher situational awareness than anyone else in the risk area.

 

[JamesCaruso]

If you have any chase experience, during an outbreak it's safer to be chasing than to not be. Even during a nighttime QLCS event, I'd feel better being mobile with my radar than sitting at home. When you're chasing, you have a higher situational awareness than anyone else in the risk area.

Well said, Dan. That is exactly what I try to explain to my family when they express concern about my Plains chase vacations. Better to be hunting the bear, than to be hunted by the bear while sitting helplessly in your tent...

 

[rdale]

When you're chasing, you have a higher situational awareness than anyone else in the risk area.

I get where you're going - but I think that's maybe a step too far (especially at night). Sitting in an office/home with multiple sources for information is probably better SA than trying to drive, monitor L3 radar, and watch the storm in between flashes

 

[Jeff House]

That's a great question for Storm Track. Where else is the knowledge base? Agree with Skip that a chaser could/should evacuate. If you can find a safe zone with something fun, make it a family day. Behind the dry line or cold front is the best method if the said boundary is clear. Warm fronts are trickier. Also, get to know your downstairs neighbor. I did in Wichita. Definitely recommend coming to Storm Track for storm avoidance as much as chasing.

Also agree with Jeff Duda. Public is much safer sheltering in place thanks to the law of numbers. EF4-5 tornadoes are about 2% of all tornadoes. Even within an EF5 only small suction vorticy structures create the most catastrophic damage. Odds of dying in traffic are much higher, than sheltering even above ground. Just know the room and why that room ahead of time. Number of walls between the room and outside is important. If a tie between a closet and bathroom, piping in the bathroom may tilt the odds in favor of the bath. Also read safety rules on NWS Norman site; they have stuff I did not think of like using a child carseat for additional baby and toddler protection. If you pre-position the awkward mattress in that room (maybe when the watch is issued) along with other items odds are very good of walking out of even the worst tornado.

Finally I'd invest in a storm shelter. While it is nice to make a bath or closet a safe room during construction, after construction garage shelters are surprisingly affordable. Then you can shelter at home with confidence. Helps resale too. I'm not sure it adds value like a shiny new kitchen, but it might get the home sold faster at a given price. If you count saving 2-3 mortgage payments, maybe the shelter does pay for itself. But you can't put a price on piece of mind when the sirens blow at 3am.

 

[Karen St John]

That's a great question for Storm Track. Where else is the knowledge base? Agree with Skip that a chaser could/should evacuate. If you can find a safe zone with something fun, make it a family day. Behind the dry line or cold front is the best method if the said boundary is clear. Warm fronts are trickier. Also, get to know your downstairs neighbor. I did in Wichita. Definitely recommend coming to Storm Track for storm avoidance as much as chasing.

Also agree with Jeff Duda. Public is much safer sheltering in place thanks to the law of numbers. EF4-5 tornadoes are about 2% of all tornadoes. Even within an EF5 only small suction vorticy structures create the most catastrophic damage. Odds of dying in traffic are much higher, than sheltering even above ground. Just know the room and why that room ahead of time. Number of walls between the room and outside is important. If a tie between a closet and bathroom, piping in the bathroom may tilt the odds in favor of the bath. Also read safety rules on NWS Norman site; they have stuff I did not think of like using a child carseat for additional baby and toddler protection. If you pre-position the awkward mattress in that room (maybe when the watch is issued) along with other items odds are very good of walking out of even the worst tornado.

Finally I'd invest in a storm shelter. While it is nice to make a bath or closet a safe room during construction, after construction garage shelters are surprisingly affordable. Then you can shelter at home with confidence. Helps resale too. I'm not sure it adds value like a shiny new kitchen, but it might get the home sold faster at a given price. If you count saving 2-3 mortgage payments, maybe the shelter does pay for itself. But you can't put a price on piece of mind when the sirens blow at 3am.

Makes having BOTH a shelter and an evac option sound like the right way to go. Speaking for myself, if I am awoken by my weather radio at three am, I am likely not going to be lucid enough (I sleep very deeply) to do anything but make a beeline for shelter. Driving at that time of night *I* might kill someone by accident. Seriously.

But during the day...get outta Dodge (or into it, since I have one of their vans now...)

 

[Scott Taylor]

I think it would be better to have a plan of action that involves going to a pre-determined local shelter, whether that is a friend's house with a basement or a large well-constructed building in a town. I think driving out of the area is overkill and impractical.

Agreed. This is what we do when it looks like tornadic weather may be bearing down on our home town AND my subdivision. My family is usually with or near me (otherwise I'm chasing it)... so when necessary I'll take us a few miles away to my place of business, which has a parking garage with various levels, some under ground. We've had to do this a couple of times over recent years.

 

[Paul Knightley]

It's all about the risk you're prepared to take. Yes, the average chance of a house being hit is very low, but of course, there is a proportional increase on a day when severe weather is likely. Then again, is the risk to your life from a tornado on a high risk day higher or lower than the average risk to your life when you get in a car and drive?

Well, an extremely crude (and very likely, not a particularly comparable) stat analysis suggests that, on average, ~88 people are killed by tornadoes per year in the USA, and around ~35,000 are killed in car wrecks.

With a population (2012) of ~313 million, the tornado risk is 1 in 3556816, whilst the car risk is 1 in 8942. So it could be crudely argued that it's approx 400 times more likely that you'll die in the drive away from your house than by a tornado.

Now I realise this is ridiculously simplistic and there is clearly a much more complex set of factors at play - this is merely to illustrate the point that driving away ahead of a tornado outbreak may be a false economy. However, as Skip says above, those with some knowledge might be able to something in the relative short-term when storms are approaching, you know that the roads are clear and you're pretty confident that you're not going to wind up in a more serious situation. A big part of it probably depends on what you have available as shelter at home - if you have an underground, well-engineered room, or indeed a solid interior room, you may well be best staying. Indeed, the idea of having to be 'below ground' as a violent tornado moves over an area is clearly not true for everyone, otherwise death tolls from such tornadoes would be much higher. Being inside must still be a better bet, all considered, than being caught in a car if the flee is last minute - of course, I imagine chasers would not leave it until the last minute.

 

[MClarkson]

With a population (2012) of ~313 million, the tornado risk is 1 in 3556816, whilst the car risk is 1 in 8942. So it could be crudely argued that it's approx 400 times more likely that you'll die in the drive away from your house than by a tornado.

In specific situations you can refine those stats quite a bit. Lets say it requires 500 round trip miles to evacuate in a day ahead mode, and the average American drives 15k miles per year, making this 1/30th of the yearly risk or about 1 in 300,000 (1/10k*1/30) chance of dieing in a car crash. And you are evacuating from a high risk that is probably going to kill about 10 people in a metro area of about a million, for 1 in 100,000 chance of dieing in the tornado. So in the upper end regions of tornado threats, it might make sense to evacuate even from a ~day ahead forecast. Although it is close. Obviously once you get to the mesoscale time frame and have a big hook echo just upstream from you and you know what you are doing, the odds swing massively in favor of evacing.