Some offices not following the NWS directives for TOR's!

[rdale]

Anyone else notice that some NWS offices have NO idea how to time a TOR warning?

DTX issued one for nearly an hour for a storm moving into the western part of a county, headed east at 40, and the county is only 20 miles wide. Cancelled early.

- Rob

 

[Kevin Scharfenberg]

The only tornado warnings I've seen from GRB so far tonight have had valid times of 37, 29, 44, 31, 52, and 34 minutes, respectively. They have not yet issued a TOR valid for 69 minutes tonight, from any source I have at least. The 37-minute warning was cancelled 19 minutes early and the 52-minute warning was cancelled 13 minutes early for one of its two counties, both of which seem pretty routine. All of the other warnings so far have been allowed to expire on schedule. DTX's 53-minute TOR was cancelled 13 minutes early, again not all that unusual.

 

[rdale]

WFUS53 KGRB 240214
TORGRB
WIC009-087-240315-


BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
908 PM CDT WED JUN 23 2004

Issued at 908, across the wire at 914 (strange delay) and valid to 1015p so 67 minutes in my math. And the storm left the county by 925p

DTX wasn't cancelled til :40 into the warning but the storm had cleared the county at :31 into the warning...

I understand the need to pad things - but again if a storm is moving at 40 and the county is 20 wide it'd take a LOT to still be in that county an hour later. ESPECIALLY for storms that only briefly showed TOR characteristics on radar. The DTX one was halfway into the next county when the warning was originally set to expire.

- Rob

 

[Jason_Politte]

Originally posted by rdale
WFUS53 KGRB 240214
TORGRB
WIC009-087-240315-


BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
908 PM CDT WED JUN 23 2004

Issued at 908, across the wire at 914 (strange delay) and valid to 1015p so 67 minutes in my math. And the storm left the county by 925p

Is this the warning you're referring to:

http://kamala.cod.edu/svr/0406240214.KGRB.wfus53.html

008
WFUS53 KGRB 240214
TORGRB
WIC009-087-240315-

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREEN BAY WI
908 PM CDT WED JUN 23 2004


THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREEN BAY HAS ISSUED A


* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
BROWN COUNTY IN WISCONSIN
OUTAGAMIE COUNTY IN WISCONSIN


* UNTIL 1000 PM CDT


* AT 908 PM CDT...LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTED TWO POSSIBLE
TORNADOES IN OUTAGAMIE COUNTY. ONE STORM WAS PRODUCING A TORNADO
NEAR KAUKAUNA NEAR THE INTERSECTION OF I47 AND HIGHWAY 55 OVER
SOUTHERN OUTGAMIE COUNTY. A SECOND TORNADO WAS REPORTED TO BE
DEVELOPING NEAR NICHOLS OVER NORTHERN OUTAGAMIE COUNTY. THE STORMS
WERE MOVIN EAST AT 40 MPH.


* ONE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
SEYMOUR AROUND 915 PM...
ONEIDA AROUND 930 PM...
AND THE SECOND TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
WRIGHTSTOWN NEAR 920 PM CDT...

MOVE TO A BASEMENT OR SMALL INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF YOUR
BUILDING.


LAT...LON 4457 8856 4429 8834 4428 8801 4460 8805


$$
TH

I, like Kevin, never found any warnings issued at 9:08 that lasted until 10:15.

Jason

 

[mikegeukes]

I believe Rob is referring to the time in the header:
where it reads 240214, 0214 which is 914 pm CDT
to 240315, 0315 is 1015 pm CDT,
compare to the 908 pm CDT to 1000 pm CDT in the text.

008
WFUS53 KGRB 240214
TORGRB
WIC009-087-240315-

908 PM CDT WED JUN 23 2004

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREEN BAY HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
BROWN COUNTY IN WISCONSIN
OUTAGAMIE COUNTY IN WISCONSIN

* UNTIL 1000 PM CDT

Mike

 

[Kevin Scharfenberg]

Yep, looks like someone changed the valid time in the text without changing it in the UGC coding. Sounds like a mistake, not a CLUELESS person.

 

[rdale]

Okay - I'll give the benefit of the doubt... Why issue a 45 minute warning (using the text and not the code) for a storm that will leave the county in 11 minutes?

 

[mikedeason]

I'd agree with Kevin; just a mistake. The thing you guys have got to consider is the workload demand on GRB at the time and how well they were staffed for this event. These could have an impact on the quality of products issued and would certainly increase the chances of a mistake if the balance of resources weren't there.

Heck, even Six Sigma allows for an occasional mistake!

Regards,

Mike

 

[rdale]

I wouldn't post this if it was an isolated event... Many times TOR's (especially dop-only) are issued for MUCH longer than the storm will be in the county even if it is dropping a hose. Since most dop-only TORs are false, wouldn't it be a better idea to make those shorter events and reissue if conditions warrant 30 minutes later?

 

[mikedeason]

I wouldn't disagree Rob, but the problem may be originating from further up the chain than the local offices. Or, to be fair, it could be a classic case of CYA from the MIC and WCM on down.

Has there been any recent independent publications on FAR/POD/CSI statistics recently? That would shed a lot of light on what may be happening in these instances.

Mike or Evan, if you're lurking, give us some OTR insight and opinions on this.

Regards,

Mike

 

[rdale]

Again I'm not picking on GRB as an office as they are FAR from the only office to do it - this was just what I noticed when searching last night... A 45 minute warning was issued for a storm that was going to leave the county in 15 minutes -- nobody has yet to give a scientific reason for the 30-minute additional timeframe. My bigger concern is the one hour TOR's issued for doppler-only indications... It's MUCH easier to issue a 30-min and reissue in a half-hour if the storm still looks nasty but no spotter reports, versus cancelling one 30 minutes in and instead sitting for an hour on a storm with spotters reporting no tornado.

- Rob

 

[Jason_Politte]

Again I'm not picking on GRB as an office as they are FAR from the only office to do it - this was just what I noticed when searching last night... A 45 minute warning was issued for a storm that was going to leave the county in 15 minutes -- nobody has yet to give a scientific reason for the 30-minute additional timeframe. My bigger concern is the one hour TOR's issued for doppler-only indications... It's MUCH easier to issue a 30-min and reissue in a half-hour if the storm still looks nasty but no spotter reports, versus cancelling one 30 minutes in and instead sitting for an hour on a storm with spotters reporting no tornado.

Considering that nobody who has responded to this thread is currently assigned to GRB nor were any of us in the office during the events in question, why not e-mail the WCM these questions? It's hard to piece together the whole story from just a few snippets of information. Why not get it straight from the horse's mouth?

The WCM's name is Jeff Last. Here's his page at GRB:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/wcm.html

Here's his e-mail address:
[email protected]

Jason

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Storms don't always maintain a consistent heading and speed, as the writer of Warn-Gen might testify. Storms that intensify will often slow down as they root in the boundary layer, or make hard right turns and pummel nice cars with gorilla hail. 8)

So if you think a storm is going to intensify, or even has the potential to do so in your county, you might issue a warning with some wide temporal boundaries, much like SPC issues watches that comfortably cover areas from initiation through the temporal and spatial lifespan of any storms they expect, and with some room to spare. I don't see this as a mistake--it's good sense.

 

[rdale]

That was a supercell embedded in a squall line - there was no chance it was going to stop and change directions after sustaining 40+mph speeds for 1-2 hours.

Again this is NOT confined to any one office. GRB happened to have the warning I posted primarily because they screwed up the UGC code so it appeared worse than it was. But it's happening more and more often and others in this thread have covered the fact that it's a CYA vs scientific.

- Rob

 

[Mike Umscheid]

I will not speak for other NWS offices, however I can speak for myself as a NWS radar meteorologist... As many of you may know, all NWS tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings are generated graphically.

In theory, the text product should not be touched unless additional information, ie. the inclusion of a spotter report, etc.. are inserted. Warngen, however, is far from perfect, and there are many times when the SVR, TOR, whatever needs to be edited. I find it strange that the expiration time was changed... because if you change the expiration time, you MUST change the UGC coding on the top (and soon to be VTEC coding)... it is a NO-NO (in our office at least) to edit UGC coding!! If there's an error in expiration or counties, we re-gen it with warngen.

Anyhoo... warning duration philosophy is never easy, and the warning forecaster will usually error on the side of "longer warning" vs. "shorter", at least that's why I do. It is very simple in warngen to gauge the duration of the warning if one has the storm motion correct... simple linear extrapolation, which warngen shows graphically. Of course, storm forward motion is never always constant.

It takes experience, obviously, as a radar meteorologist when issuing sound warnings. I can't imagine they've had a ton of svrwx in wisconsin so far this season... and with new builds always occuring with AWIPS, etc.. sometimes Warngen templates get messed up, etc.

On another SVR & TOR note... the DDC office no longer gives pathcast TIMES... only the pathcast towns or the proverbial "rural portion of X county". ;-) I love the desolate high plains!

Mike U in DDC