Stronger NWS wording needed for freezing rain

[Danny Neal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFZMGddENA - You don't even need to be in a winter storm for ICE to become a factor.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZIvPG5Tv2s&feature=related

 

[Penny Lehner]

People do know there is ice on the roads and refuse to drive slower. While a majority of the people will be more cautious, there are always those few who think they know how to drive on ice. I can't tell you how many times we responded to accidents where the driver said "but I had it in 4 wheel drive". I just had it happen this past Saturday night. We had freezing drizzle all evening that had been forecasted. The roads were a mess. I was creeping along at 30 mph, half on the road and half on the gravel shoulder wondering why I don't find a job with normal hours. I came up on a SUV on its lid in the median. I stop, call it in to the local county dispatcher and go check for injuries. It was a local gentelman who has lived in Iowa all his life and was well aware of the hazards. And he stated to me "I don't know how it happened. I had it in 4 wheel drive." I pretty much called him a dumbass and told him 4 wheel drive does nothing on ice. The county sheriff found he was going at least 50 on pure ice when the accident happened.

While I agree there could be stronger wording to get the publics attention on the dangers during freezing rain, you can't fix stupid. There will always be that 10% of the public who thinks they know how to drive better than anyone else on the planet and because of their superb driving skills, they don't need to slow down for bad roads. Like I said, you can't fix (or warn) stupid.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Take a look at some of the wording in other types of warnings:

THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A BASEMENT. GET UNDER A WORKBENCH OR OTHER PIECE OF STURDY FURNITURE. IF NO BASEMENT IS AVAILABLE...SEEK SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING IN AN INTERIOR HALLWAY OR ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO COVER YOUR BODY AND ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS. IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...LIE FLAT IN THE NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS.

NEVER DRIVE CARS THROUGH FLOODED AREAS!! THE WATER MAY BE TOO DEEP TO ALLOW SAFE PASSAGE. MOST DEATHS THAT OCCUR DURING FLOODING ARE
RELATED TO VEHICLES TRYING TO CROSS FLOODED ROADWAYS.

SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS PRODUCE WINDS IN EXCESS OF 60 MPH... DESTRUCTIVE HAIL...DEADLY LIGHTNING AND TORRENTIAL RAIN. FOR YOUR PROTECTION...SEEK SHELTER IN A STRONG BUILDING. STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS AND AVOID USING TELEPHONES...COMPUTERS OR OTHER ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT UNTIL THE STORM HAS PASSED.

Now, look at a typical Freezing Rain Advisory:

A PERIOD OF FREEZING RAIN IS EXPECTED THIS EVENING THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING. ICE ACCUMULATIONS OF UP TO ONE TENTH OF AN INCH WILL BE POSSIBLE...WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS LIKELY ACROSS PORTIONS OF NORTHEAST INDIANA...NORTHWEST OHIO AND SOUTHERN MICHIGAN. ROADWAYS ARE EXPECTED TO BECOME HAZARDOUS IN SOME AREAS...MAKING TRAVEL DIFFICULT. TEMPERATURES WILL WARM ABOVE FREEZING SUNDAY MORNING ENDING ALL ICING. && A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF FREEZING RAIN OR FREEZING DRIZZLE WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS. SLOW DOWN AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.

Why not add something like the following:

THIS IS A POTENTIALLY LIFE-THREATENING SITUATION FOR MOTORISTS. FREEZING RAIN FREQUENTLY CAUSES DEADLY MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS. REMEMBER THAT YOU CANNOT SEE ICE PRODUCED BY FREEZING RAIN - THE ICE WILL APPEAR EXACTLY LIKE WET PAVEMENT. REMEMBER THAT FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES ARE NOT IMMUNE TO LOSING CONTROL ON ICE. POSTPONE TRAVEL OR STAY OFF OF THE ROADS IF AT ALL POSSIBLE UNTIL THE THREAT PASSES. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL, PROCEED SLOWLY AND WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

 

[rdale]

CTA's are a whole 'nother story... The trend is towards removing them from products and concentrating that sort of info on the educational aspect ahead of time. If you have no idea what to do in a tornado, going online and reading the 8th paragraph down won't help you

 

[Patrick Marsh]

I specifically avoided going into CTAs in one of my posts, but since it has come back up, I'll just say this:

• If you don't know what to do when a warning is issued, it's too late. The time to know figure out what to do is well before a warning is issued...
• What do you do when you have two warnings in affect and the CTAs contradict each other? Having a Tornado Warning (CTA: go to basement) and Flash Flood Warning (CTA: seek higher ground) in affect at the same time is common for a slow moving HP supercell...

 

[Dan Robinson]

True, but the CTAs routinely influence how the media portrays the warning. TV, radio and online sources (both national and local) often quote or paraphrase the CTAs. I've heard even CNN and TWC do it, sometimes reading the statement word-for-word. If it's coming from 'the' official source, the likelihood of the end user hearing it increases.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

True, but the CTAs routinely influence how the media portrays the warning. TV, radio and online sources (both national and local) often quote or paraphrase the CTAs. I've heard even CNN and TWC do it, sometimes reading the statement word-for-word. If it's coming from 'the' official source, the likelihood of the end user hearing it increases.

You're missing the point. I don't care if the end-user ever does hear the CTA statement. I think they should be removed all together. If an end-user is waiting for someone to tell them what to do, after a warning is issued, then it is too late. CTA statement do not address the needs of everyone who is in that warning. If I'm sitting in a certified "Safe Room" when a tornado warning is issued and a CTA says "seek shelter in a basement", is it better for me to stay put in the Safe Room, or should I follow the advice of the CTA and go to a basement...which might requre me to go outside and across the street to a neighbor since I don't have a basement, but they do. So who then are CTAs geared toward, since it is unfeasible to have a CTA for every need?

You mention that CTAs are geared toward the media, etc to help get the message out. There are a lot more tools at the NWS's disposal now for communicating with EMs and media than CTA statements. NWS chat is one specifically geared toward this need. Plus, I've been in TV stations during severe weather and ice storms. Most local TV mets don't read the CTAs...they have their own graphics, pre-made, that they show viewers. The TV mets don't have time to custom make graphics to every CTA that comes out... (and if an end-user is waiting for the national media to read a CTA to them, then I think there are bigger issues at hand...)

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFZMGddENA - You don't even need to be in a winter storm for ICE to become a factor.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZIvPG5Tv2s&feature=related

I was watching that first one with the audio off and thought: "Man, this really needs the Benny Hill theme!" I turn the speakers on, and lo.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Why not add something like the following:

THIS IS A POTENTIALLY LIFE-THREATENING SITUATION FOR MOTORISTS. FREEZING RAIN FREQUENTLY CAUSES DEADLY MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS. REMEMBER THAT YOU CANNOT SEE ICE PRODUCED BY FREEZING RAIN - THE ICE WILL APPEAR EXACTLY LIKE WET PAVEMENT. REMEMBER THAT FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES ARE NOT IMMUNE TO LOSING CONTROL ON ICE. POSTPONE TRAVEL OR STAY OFF OF THE ROADS IF AT ALL POSSIBLE UNTIL THE THREAT PASSES. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL, PROCEED SLOWLY AND WITH EXTREME CAUTION.

I think this is an extremely good idea. You've recognized a statistical risk that has gone under the radar somehow. I know that some well placed people within the NWS read this list; hopefully your sugestions will be taken on board.

There are other solutions to the icing problem (more money put into road deicing, more money put into car technologies that warn of icing), but the enhanced wording in FRAs costs almost nothing and at least gives people the information they need to make more informed decisions.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Why stop at freezing rain advisories? Melted snow that refreezes does the same thing. Do we need to include this message in ALL winter products now? Where do you draw the line with the CTAs? Even if we add this line to ALL winter weather products, how many people will actually read down that far? (Not to mention, what about people travelling who didn't even know there was a chance of ice / snow? Including this information only works if someone bothers to check that far into the product to see it - chances are people won't bother.

The only way you can address this issue is through the education of end users. The statement above should be a part of a winter weather safety program...not the actual product. The safety program can (and should) be put together by meteorologists (in charge of the science) and communications experts (in charge of making sure the message isn't lost in communication and how to target specific groups). If you want to make sure that people see this information at least once use this information to ask a mandatory question on every state's driving test. The key is education WELL BEFORE an event - not immediately before / during an event.

Education - not CTAs - is the way forward with both the winter weather, convective weather, and hydrogical issues.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Why stop at freezing rain advisories? Melted snow that refreezes does the same thing. Do we need to include this message in ALL winter products now?

Nope, we'd have enough slippery slope covered by putting the language into the FRAs.

Where do you draw the line with the CTAs? Even if we add this line to ALL winter weather products, how many people will actually read down that far?

I would guess that, by far, most people do not get their warnings, watches, and advisories as static text products. They get the advisories from talking heads, EAS radio break-ins, or from scrolling TV text. But your argument smacks of "it isn't 100% effective so why bother!" To take the slippery slope the other way, then why have a weather service? People can stick their head out the window.

The only way you can address this issue is through the education of end users. The statement above should be a part of a winter weather safety program...not the actual product.

First, one can easily do both; they're not mutually exclusive. Second, the FRA text product would be mostly free. "Educational outreach" would not be free. And, to be honest, I can't remember the last time governmental PSA campaigns were ever deemed terribly effective. Most people still think you should dive under the nearest highway overpass in a tornado warning. I'd hazard the only reason most people know to go to a basement is because the weatherman on TV tells them to. I mean, really, when was the last time a guy was going to drive through a flash flood, but then remembered "Oh, yeah! The National Weather Service Flash Flood Awareness Week Pamphlet says not to do that!" You don't need a bunch of degreed nerds farting around on a government committee for five years to figure out that adding a free line of safety text about a specific threat to an advisory that will be read out over the public airwaves on all channels every time that threat comes around is a good idea.

The safety program can (and should) be put together by meteorologists (in charge of the science) and communications experts (in charge of making sure the message isn't lost in communication and how to target specific groups). If you want to make sure that people see this information at least once use this information to ask a mandatory question on every state's driving test. The key is education WELL BEFORE an event - not immediately before / during an event.

Again, potentially good ideas, though it does not exclude the possibility of attaching wording to the FRAs, too. I'm not sure why there is such resistance to the idea; it's not like an extra sentence or two of text is going to cost anything or hurt anyone. Maybe make your HDTV go into SDTV mode for an additional 5 seconds, but that's about it.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Melted snow that refreezes does the same thing.

No. The accident/death rates during freezing rain in progress are higher than any other type of road ice situation, including snow. There have only been a handful of fatalities due to road ice from water runoff, and none that I have seen so far this winter from 'flash freezing' (freezing of residual rainwater). It's falling and freezing liquid precip (freezing drizzle and freezing rain) that account for as much as half of the current 267 deaths this winter.

I'm looking at severe thunderstorm warnings and trying to figure out what the difference is. There are currently thousands of SVR warnings issued every year. How many deaths are there from severe thunderstorms? There aren't that many freezing rain advisories by comparison, which would account for 90% of the time that a stronger warning for road ice should be issued. It just doesn't happen that often (unless you're in the snow belt states).

 

[rdale]

I would guess that, by far, most people do not get their warnings, watches, and advisories as static text products. They get the advisories from talking heads, EAS radio break-ins, or from scrolling TV text. But your argument smacks of "it isn't 100% effective so why bother!"

It's 0% effective - that's the problem. As you noted - NOBODY gets the fifth paragraph of even a tornado warning. So they sure aren't going to get it from the WSW.

To take the slippery slope the other way, then why have a weather service? People can stick their head out the window.

Huh? What slope did you slip on to say something like that?

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Nope, we'd have enough slippery slope covered by putting the language into the FRAs.

I'm not sure that I agree with this. What about freezing fog - that causes ice buildup? Just this week both the Norman, Tulsa, and Little Rock WFOs issued Winter Weather Advisories for freezing rain / sleet. I guess people under these advisories don't need to be warned about ice since they didn't have a freezing rain advisory...

I would guess that, by far, most people do not get their warnings, watches, and advisories as static text products. They get the advisories from talking heads, EAS radio break-ins, or from scrolling TV text. But your argument smacks of "it isn't 100% effective so why bother!" To take the slippery slope the other way, then why have a weather service? People can stick their head out the window.

My argument smacks of, "Get rid of CTAs all together", regardless of if someone thinks they are 100% affective - not the "it isn't 100% effective so why bother". I can say this because it is fundamentally impossible to put enough CTAs in a product to cover every possibility so 100% effectiveness is out of the question. Furthermore, I know of several instances where following the prescribed CTA actually put people in harms way...not taking them out of it.

I love the "slippery slope" argument, but this one just doesn't apply. At no point did I say issuing advisories / warnings is unnecessary. I said that telling people what to do is unnecessary. Giving people information is great, I'm all for that. Telling people what to do is a different story.

First, one can easily do both; they're not mutually exclusive.

I don't recall saying that they were mutually exclusive. I do recall saying that I don't see adding extra text doing anything.

Second, the FRA text product would be mostly free. "Educational outreach" would not be free. And, to be honest, I can't remember the last time governmental PSA campaigns were ever deemed terribly effective. Most people still think you should dive under the nearest highway overpass in a tornado warning.

I'm not aware of a concerted program dedicated to reversing this wrong.

I'd hazard the only reason most people know to go to a basement is because the weatherman on TV tells them to.

Further proof that CTAs aren't necessary.

I mean, really, when was the last time a guy was going to drive through a flash flood, but then remembered "Oh, yeah! The National Weather Service Flash Flood Awareness Week Pamphlet says not to do that!"

Honestly, we have no clue. No one goes out and finds the people who did the right thing, because they didn't become another fatality statistic. We have no idea how affective the Turn Around, Don't Drown campaign is. I can say that I do know a lot of people who aren't weather savvy who know the saying... Just because someone doesn't take the proper course of action, doesn't mean they didn't know what the proper thing to do.

You don't need a bunch of degreed nerds farting around on a government committee for five years to figure out that adding a free line of safety text about a specific threat to an advisory that will be read out over the public airwaves on all channels every time that threat comes around is a good idea.

The "degreed nerds" you refer to as "farting around" are the ones who are trained to do these tasks. However, I'll stipulate that 5 years of government committee work won't do the job. That's where non-profits, weather programs, etc can do things much faster than the government.

Also, who is going to read this proposed line on the airwaves? The last TV meteorologist I talked to said get rid of the CTAs. He wants to know what the warning is, when it expires, and what the threat is. He doesn't read CTAs. Plus, I can't remember the last time a long fuse product (which winter weather products are) was read on air...

Again, potentially good ideas, though it does not exclude the possibility of attaching wording to the FRAs, too. I'm not sure why there is such resistance to the idea; it's not like an extra sentence or two of text is going to cost anything or hurt anyone. Maybe make your HDTV go into SDTV mode for an additional 5 seconds, but that's about it.

Because if there is a need to do this then there is an underlying issue that needs to be addressed. We can add all the extra text that people want to all the extra products, but then next winter/tornado/hurricane/etc people will want to add more text for things that come up between now and then. If people don't understand that when freezing rain is forecast that roads will potentially be icy, we need to address the issue of why they don't equate the two. Below is text from several current and recent Freezing Rain Advisories and Ice Storm Warnings. If this text doesn't adequately convey the threat, then adding the line people keep referencing isn't going to add any value.

A FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF FREEZING RAIN OR FREEZING
DRIZZLE WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. SLOW DOWN AND USE CAUTION WHILE
DRIVING. BRIDGES AND OVERPASSES WILL BE THE FIRST PLACES THAT ICY SPOTS
WILL DEVELOP

[FONT=lucida sans typewriter, lucida console, courier]
[/FONT]

AN ICE STORM WARNING MEANS A SIGNIFICANT...AND POSSIBLY
DAMAGING...AMOUNT OF FREEZING RAIN IS EXPECTED. ICE ACCUMULATIONS
WILL LIKELY LEAD TO SNAPPED TREE LIMBS AND POWER OUTAGES. IN
ADDITION...TRAVEL ON UNTREATED ROADS WILL BE DANGEROUS OR
IMPOSSIBLE. STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO OR YOUR FAVORITE
SOURCE OF WEATHER INFORMATION FOR THE LATEST UPDATES. ADDITIONAL
DETAILS CAN ALSO BE FOUND AT...WEATHER.GOV/STATECOLLEGE.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

No. The accident/death rates during freezing rain in progress are higher than any other type of road ice situation, including snow. There have only been a handful of fatalities due to road ice from water runoff, and none that I have seen so far this winter from 'flash freezing' (freezing of residual rainwater). It's falling and freezing liquid precip (freezing drizzle and freezing rain) that account for as much as half of the current 267 deaths this winter.

You can take my quote out of context all you want. However, the fact remains that frozen water is frozen water. I don't make a distinction as to how it got there. If you only put the text in freezing rain advisories then you are implicitly saying that freezing rain causes ice on roadways and that snow cannot. (I'm not even going into the fact that a lot of times snowflakes melt on initial contact and eventually freeze.)

Here's an analogy. Significant opposition to the original Bill of Rights to the constitution was not the result of people not wanting these rights. It was grounded in that if we specifically grant these rights, then that is all the rights we have. Tying that back to this situation, if you specifically state that freezing rain causes icy roads and dangerous driving conditions, then you imply that other types of winter weather do not.

I'm looking at severe thunderstorm warnings and trying to figure out what the difference is. There are currently thousands of SVR warnings issued every year. How many deaths are there from severe thunderstorms? There aren't that many freezing rain advisories by comparison, which would account for 90% of the time that a stronger warning for road ice should be issued. It just doesn't happen that often (unless you're in the snow belt states).

If you were to take all the hazards from a severe thunderstorm (including flash flooding and other effects from rain, such as hydroplaning) then severe thunderstorms would kill more people than freezing rain. Problem is, most of these deaths are recorded as traffic fatalities, not weather related fatalities.

Also, I've seen it mentioned several times that the "snow-belt" is most at risk for "freezing" precipitation. This is simply not true. Freezing rain climatologies actually favor the southern plains and the eastern side of the Appalachians...not the "snow-belt".