SN Reports had 15 min lead time 3/8/10

[Mark Sefried]

Usually I don't like to criticize the NWS when it comes for issuing warnings, however yesterday in Western OK there were spotter network reports of a funnel along with livecam video feed of the funnel 15 minutes before a tornado warning was issued. When the tornado warning was issued the tornado that eventually hit Hammon was already on the ground. Granted it was a low topped situation and there was barely any rotation noted on radar, however there were spotter reports well in advance before touchdown. I know that things can get very chaotic at times and perhaps the NWS was not paying attention to the SN reports or maybe they were having problems with the SN feed?

 

[rdale]

SN reports are instantly sent into the NWSChat rooms that every office has access to (and really really SHOULD be using) and every office has the ability to overlay SN reports on their GR2AE software in realtime.

 

[Tyler Allison]

It also shows up in their AWIPS display for those offices using eSpotter

 

[Scott Olson]

I agree, it did seem to take a while for the tornado warning despite ample amount of ground truth. Perhaps there is a technical reason for this?

 

[Skip Talbot]

It looked to me as if someone wasn't paying attention. The funnel was reported at 5:19 via Spotter Network, and Kory even got onto NWS Chat to alert OUN and put a link in there to the live feed showing the funnel. At 5:25 another report came in that the tornado was in progress. The warning was finally issued at 5:29. I'm not sure why the warning didn't go out at 5:19 or 5:20, since there were people waving their arms and pointing at live pictures of it developing. Perhaps their guard was down given the lack of probabilistic outlook and watch?

 

[Adam Lucio]

I already got into a heated argument over this on facebook. All I will say here is days like yesterday are an excellent example as to why a stream should be considered as valuable information. Sometimes the storms look like crap on radar and there is no better way to know what is going on then to see it happening live. I don't think it should be too hard for the NWS to pull up 1 or 2 streams on any of the 100 monitors they have in their office.

 

[rdale]

Most NWS offices (well, all good ones) monitor stream services -- usually alerted to by the media mets on the chatroom.

 

[Benjamin Rock]

It's a great way to start off the season ain't it? A slight risk was issued. That in itself was a red flag to sit in front of the computer screens and watch the storm.slight risk and a late warning... Hmmm.. I armchaired the event and was like "Where is the Warning????" I couldn't believe it when I saw it. The tornado, a beautiful one at that, on the ground and no warnings.. unbelievable.. i took a cloaser look at the radar and the couplet was staring me right in the face. i saw it, my wife saw it and several other people saw it. Granted, the rotation wasn't spectacular, but like Adam said, there were live feeds all over the storm. This is the radar just as the warning went out.

 

[Brandon Jenkins]

I have to agree with Skip. With radar structure lacking and such a low probability it seems someone was just asleep at the wheel. One could easily note how organized the storm was by watching any of the live streams situated around the storm (from different angles no less). Luckily there was still time to get a warning on the storm with decent lead time before it reached Hammon. Lesson learned for someone.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Most NWS offices (well, all good ones) monitor stream services -- usually alerted to by the media mets on the chatroom.

One would think, but I was rudely told on fb that the warning mets need "official" data and reports and don't always have time to monitor streams. I asked how the hell do you get more official than LIVE video.

 

[rdale]

Interesting... Was the FB poster from the NWS? I suppose if TOR's were flying left and right then they'd have a hard time tracking each feed - but on a quiet evening with people sending you a link to a feed with a tornado on it, they'd take the time to click it.

 

[Jesse Risley]

I obviously can't speak for what was or wasn't going on at the OUN NWS FO yesterday afternoon, but I discussed the issue of live streams with a NWS FO met from LOT several weeks ago.

He had no idea any of these streams even existed, and he told me that Internet access and staffing issues would likely prevent someone at their office from being able to monitor these live feeds during actual severe weather events. That may or may not be a congruous issue at other offices, but it likely depends most closely on staffing situations.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Interesting... Was the FB poster from the NWS? I suppose if TOR's were flying left and right then they'd have a hard time tracking each feed - but on a quiet evening with people sending you a link to a feed with a tornado on it, they'd take the time to click it.

Im not sure but I quote from his post:

"
If the chasers who own the camera that everybody was watching called it in or put in a SpotterNetwork report I'll gladly retract the ad hominem remark. I just don't want the warning mets taking the blame because they were not monitoring unofficial data sources/streams."

 

[rdale]

he told me that Internet access and staffing issues would likely prevent someone at their office from being able to monitor these live feeds during actual severe weather events.

I don't think it's expected that they stream every chaser feeding on the planet - but look at Skip's comment:

"The funnel was reported at 5:19 via Spotter Network, and Kory even got onto NWS Chat to alert OUN and put a link in there to the live feed showing the funnel"

So SN certainly popped up the report on their screen, then someone posted the info again along with the link in NWSChat (I confirmed that is in the archives.) I struggle to believe that whatever they were doing for that 15 minutes between ground truth and issuing the warning - was a better choice than clicking the link and seeing the tornado live.

If the chasers who own the camera that everybody was watching called it in or put in a SpotterNetwork report

It's there... http://www.spotternetwork.org/quality.php

 

[Kiel Ortega]

I'll let everyone know that there were a number of things going on that led to the appearance that "no one was paying attention." Yes, they--OUN--were paying attention. I do want to address a misconception: just because someone has a video of a tornado and the person filming has their location marked, it doesn't mean a warning can be accurately issued. I will note that the one SN tornado report I saw had an inaccurate distance the reporter was from the tornado. There were several reflectivity blobs (for lack of a better term for what you could see from KFDR) and due to noisy velocity data it was really tough to determine which one had the tornado.