"TORNADO EMERGENCY"

[Mike Smith]

But the Manhattan tornado back in June wasn't on the scale of a Greensburg 5-4-07 or a Moore/OKC 5-3-99, which is what seperates it from these two events.

You can't convince me the TE on either of those two events (1) didn't enhance the urgency of the situation to the public and (2) 'mucked up' the system.

The Tornado Emergency as it was applied 5-3-99 and 5-4-07 is genius. What's discredited it as a whole is the abuse it's been getting outside of the Plains areas, usually on nocturnal events that were radar-indicated and threatening a large city. Even in this scenario, without established, continous visual confirmation (not just spotter Joe getting a glimpse one time with lightning he thought was a big tornado), it's abuse of the product IMO.

I realize these were "successes." However, consider that, 9.5 years after the first "tornado emergency" message was issued we are still citing these two events as the successes. There are now 10+ instances (including two the day after Greensburg) where T.E.'s didn't verify.

I have a 90-minute videotape of one of the OKC TV station's coverage of 5-3-99. I have viewed the entire tape multiple times and "tornado emergency" is not mentioned. In fact, the term "tornado warning" is only spoken once on the tape. When you have a radar pinpointing the location of the tornado and a live helicopter or storm chaser shot of the tornado, those have far more credibility than the words "tornado emergency."

When you add that we have no scientific skill in predicting ten minute tornado behavior (change in direction, the tornado lifting, etc.), the number of busts will continue to rise.

I do contend that 'tornado emergency' was unnecessary for Moore and Greensburg. I believe both outcomes would have been the same had the tornado emergency not been issued.

In my view it all comes down to this: What is it you want people to do differently in a tornado emergency versus a regular tornado warning? Assuming you want people to go to the basement (or take similar precautions if they don't have a basement) for a tornado warning, what do they do differently for a tornado emergency? Unless we want a different response, there is no need for the tornado emergency message.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Repeating from a previous post I made in this topic:

"...the tornado emergency serves a purpose beyond warning folks in the path. It alerts first responders that they should be mobilizing a massive rapid recovery effort. A large a violent tornado entering a densely populated center requires greater first responder support than a small tornado affecting only a few homes..."

That being said, I do agree that the TE terminology is being overused in events that do not warrant it.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Yes, Manhattan has been rated EF-4.

Now consider: This EF-4 hit a town of 45,000 in darkness and there were no fatalities. People took shelter and took other actions to protect themselves in spite of the fact no "tornado emergency" was issued. To me, this is verification that "tornado emergency" is not needed.

Mike- the MHK tornado was rated EF-4, but this significant damage was only to a small neighborhood (or block) on the southwest fringe of the city. The tornado weakened rapidly as it moved from this neighborhood, through a small commercial area and then into the heart of the city and over the campus. By the time it impacted any residences after the EF-4 damage, it was 'only' doing EF-1 damage. Also, during the summer months the population of Manhattan is around 20,000, although the houses that sustained the EF-4 damage were likely occupied at the time because they were not exactly within the budget of most college students.

From a post in the NOW thread that evening by Mike U: "This long lived tornado appeared to be in its final stages, per 88D velocity data, as it was going through Manhattan. The core damage track *might* be somewhat narrow, but that's not to say that major, major damage has just occurred through the center of town, including the campus of KSU. I experienced similar anxiety watching this thing on superres GRLevel2 at shortly after 11pm...as I did at 9:50pm 5/4/07."

I feel that a Tornado Emergency would have been justified in this situation even though no lives were lost with just the Tornado Warning. Given the fact that there was a violent tornado moving into a large city, I would have used every tool in my arsenal to make sure people in its path understood the gravity of the situation. There needs to be some type of differentiation sent to the public between a situation where 1) radar detects a t-storm capable of producing a tornado over a field and 2) there is a *verified*, destructive tornado headed towards a densely populated area. As per NWS directives, a Tornado Warning is issued in both cases but (officially) nothing more.

 

[Mike Smith]

Chad,

With all due respect, you are misinformed about the MHK tornado affecting only a small area of the city. I did a damage survey the very next morning and the tornado made its way across more than 3/4ths of the width of the city, including the KSU campus where F-2 damage occurred. There was also F-4 damage in a larger area than your photo indicated with more than one business leveled. See, for example, www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/top/events/june112008/PICT0125.JPG .

The summer session at KSU was in progress and when I walked through the campus, it was filled with students that had been in the tornado's path the previous night.

The tornado warning was both effective and sufficient. It was combined with wailing sirens and excellent media coverage including Channel 49 in Topeka televising the tornado's movement across Manhattan from a live camera located on top of a campus building (the camera was eventually a victim of the storm).

Keep in mind the tornado struck at 11pm -- well after most people have retired for the night. But, the watch and TV radar kept people paying attention and ready for the warning when it was issued later.

Based on the extensive research I have done (for my book manuscript), this is exactly the type of tornado that would have caused dozens, if not hundreds, of fatalities 70 years ago. I stand by my conviction that the tornado emergency as a 'higher' form of warning is not needed and has the potential to backfire.

New Topic

To our friends and colleagues in the NWS and social sciences: While writing this it occurred to me there was no formal NWS 'service evaluation' or other study (at least to my knowledge) of this case. Perhaps there should have been.

We often study the situations where there is a (relatively) large loss of life such as "Super Tuesday." That is appropriate. But, in this case, there were zero lives lost in a tornado that had the potential to kill many. Perhaps one or two of these types of situations is worth studying as well.

I believe it is important to study our successes (so we can build on them) as well as when things don't go as well as we might hope.

Mike

 

[Danny Neal]

The tornado warning was both effective and sufficient. It was combined with wailing sirens and excellent media coverage including Channel 49 in Topeka televising the tornado's movement across Manhattan from a live camera located on top of a campus building (the camera was eventually a victim of the storm).

That was a great video, definitely shows the complex nature of the situation. Even the on air-mets were confused as to what they were actually seeing until the obvious occurred. For a while I thought that they were based out of Manhattan and that their TV station was about to be blindsided but I did a quick google search and was thankfully mistaken.

Sirens also did a wonderful job it seems. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvCYEImUbGA

Keep in mind the tornado struck at 11pm -- well after most people have retired for the night. But, the watch and TV radar kept people paying attention and ready for the warning when it was issued later.

Based on the extensive research I have done (for my book manuscript), this is exactly the type of tornado that would have caused dozens, if not hundreds, of fatalities 70 years ago. I stand by my conviction that the tornado emergency as a 'higher' form of warning is not needed and has the potential to backfire.

I agree with you. Narrow path or not, at least 10% of the KSU population had to still be on campus. I am sure more than a few of them were aware of the warning. Whose not to say 70 years ago, that anyone in the area would have comprehended the situation. Without radar and technology, virtually no one will know what lurks in the dark.

As an aside, I would probably enjoy reading that manuscript as well. Keep up the good work.

New Topic

To our friends and colleagues in the NWS and social sciences: While writing this it occurred to me there was no formal NWS 'service evaluation' or other study (at least to my knowledge) of this case. Perhaps there should have been.

We often study the situations where there is a (relatively) large loss of life such as "Super Tuesday." That is appropriate. But, in this case, there were zero lives lost in a tornado that had the potential to kill many. Perhaps one or two of these types of situations is worth studying as well.

I believe it is important to study our successes (so we can build on them) as well as when things don't go as well as we might hope.

So are you suggesting a report/analysis about what could have happened? Or about what went right? I don't disagree with your point, I just want to know what direction you are taking this.

From what I can tell you are suggesting case studies on what the NWS did right to sort of pave the way and show that the warning system does indeed work when people listen.

 

[Mike Smith]

Yes, Danny, I am suggesting that the next time things go "as right" as they did in Manhattan (probably too late to do the study now), a formal study should be done. In order to have had zero deaths, a lot of things had to go right.

For example, on Super Tuesday (for which there is a service evaluation forthcoming) there were 23 fatalities after 10pm (some deaths occurred earlier in the evening than Manhattan) caused by an EF-3 tornado (as opposed to EF-4 in Manhattan). Why such a big difference given that there were quality warnings for both?

What might we learn from such a study?

For one thing, we would get 'baseline' data on what goes right on a large scale, something I don't think we have done before. For example, I often hear experts criticize the use of tornado sirens while surveys seem to indicate ordinary citizens like them and rely on them. What large-scale role did sirens play in the Manhattan late night tornado? Since we didn't study, we don't know. We might learn that sirens are more effective than we suspect.

It is impossible to know that we might learn -- which is the point of doing a study.

 

[Danny Neal]

Any idea on how it would be done? Just a standard questionnaire? We know sirens were working based on the video I posted above. Since it was 11 PM, were NWR on? Or did people stay up to the news? (For the Manhattan case) I think this a great idea for the meteorological field as a whole. People always see so much negativity and of course you can never prevent property damage...... but why not pound your chest when you did every thing right and people listened and survived.

 

[Mike Smith]

I'm not a sociologist or in any way trained in that area. However, I will try to forward this idea to some people who are to get their thoughts.

Anyone on this board qualified to opine on this idea?

Mike

 

[JF Massicotte]

Repeating from a previous post I made in this topic:

"...the tornado emergency serves a purpose beyond warning folks in the path. It alerts first responders that they should be mobilizing a massive rapid recovery effort. A large a violent tornado entering a densely populated center requires greater first responder support than a small tornado affecting only a few homes..."

That being said, I do agree that the TE terminology is being overused in events that do not warrant it.

Totally agree here, TE are for EMs so they can mobilize more ressources. When TE is issued, it tells them they probably won't have to work with only a few damaged homes but with an extensive damage path with multiple injuries. When they receive such an information they can already call for backups from other counties instead of waiting to see how bad it was. Since these backups will take longer to get there saving 10 or 20 minutes will make a huge difference.

 

[rdale]

But that would only be the case if all (or even most) TE's resulted in major disasters. The ratio of "disaster to false alarm" however is falling, as many TE's are being issued for non-significant events, some (Atlanta) don't even have a tornado with them...

 

[JF Massicotte]

I agree that TE is overused, especially in those cases where NOTHING did give any serious tip about a real significant tornado going on. There is major improvement to be done about TE issuance no doubt about that and anyway I don't believe such a statement should be issued for general public; tornado warning with the right wording will do the job just fine in this case.

 

[Adam Lucio]

I mentioned in the other thread that I think the TE should be issued AFTER the event happens. As was the case in Nappanee on 10-18-07. The EF-3 had already done significant damage to the city, noone was killed but in the moments right afterwards that fact is unknown to anybody. Emergency crews came flying in one after another that night [as we sat there on the side of the road with a tire missing...talk about a sick feeling in ones stomach.] IN this case the TE was justified.

Critics will say issuing a TE after the event is too late...and perhaps it might be in some cases where you may have a trapped vicitim who needs to be rescued within an hour...but I think crying wolf does more damage than it does good.

You cant please everybody unfortunately. The whole "better safe than sorry" is an easy way for the agency to protect itself from criticism if they were not to issue a warning and a major disaster happened.

 

[JF Massicotte]

I see how a TE could be issued after the facts but the sooner the better, if you know it's gonna happen then do it...

 

[Josh Boustead]

This is an interesting debate. Especially for a person such as myself that sits in that seat where that decision has to be made from time to time, and also for someone that was working at the office in Topeka the night of the Manhattan tornado. Although not stated in writing, it is pretty much the policy of our office that wording such as "tornado emergency" will not be used. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that a tornado warning from the weather service is just about the most "get attention" product we can issue. We want people to act on that warning and take the appropriate action to keep themselves safe. Isn't every tornado an emergency? We had an event in our warning area back in 1978 which a weak tornado struck a fairy boat called the Whippoorwill. The tornado killed 16 people as it capsized. Now that would have never been an event we would have used the wording "tornado emergency" for in hindsight because by Kansas standards it was a small tornado. The potential pitfall in the tornado emergency is that people are going to start waiting for the tornado emergency before acting. If there is such a strong tornado to warrant this type of verbiage, I hope they took shelter from the initial warning. In addition, as a forecaster, I really want to give the same service to the rural people of Republic County Kansas, if there is a large tornado heading for a farm in that county, shouldn't I issue a "tornado emergency" for those folks.

In regards to the emergency management community, except for when we call to request spotters, there isn't a lot of short term disaster planning due to such a short time span of the event. They usually only have a matter of minutes before it starts to impact the region. It has been my experience that this community reacts more to our urgency when we are on the phone to them than in the wording of the warning.

Finally, we as forecasters in the office during an event have really no idea of how strong the tornado is until we survey the damage the next day. Research indicates that the strength of the mesocyclone (which is all we can see with the 88-D) has limited correlation to the strength of the tornado. Now of course one could argue that is biased by tornadoes that were strong, but didn't hit anything which is true, but on the night of the Manhattan, KS tornado, our strongest circulation from that storm was up in Jackson County KS near Soldier, KS where the strongest damage we could find was F2. In fact, the Chapman circulation was also stronger than the Manhattan circulation. When the science catches up maybe the "tornado emergency" could be something of the future, but with the current false alarm ratio that is higher than the current tornado warning false alarm ratio, it does not appear to be the time for it. Maybe in the future with probabilistic warnings this will help if that comes about.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Chad,

With all due respect, you are misinformed about the MHK tornado affecting only a small area of the city. I did a damage survey the very next morning and the tornado made its way across more than 3/4ths of the width of the city, including the KSU campus where F-2 damage occurred. There was also F-4 damage in a larger area than your photo indicated with more than one business leveled. See, for example, www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/top/events/june112008/PICT0125.JPG .

The summer session at KSU was in progress and when I walked through the campus, it was filled with students that had been in the tornado's path the previous night.

The tornado warning was both effective and sufficient. It was combined with wailing sirens and excellent media coverage including Channel 49 in Topeka televising the tornado's movement across Manhattan from a live camera located on top of a campus building (the camera was eventually a victim of the storm).

Keep in mind the tornado struck at 11pm -- well after most people have retired for the night. But, the watch and TV radar kept people paying attention and ready for the warning when it was issued later.

Based on the extensive research I have done (for my book manuscript), this is exactly the type of tornado that would have caused dozens, if not hundreds, of fatalities 70 years ago. I stand by my conviction that the tornado emergency as a 'higher' form of warning is not needed and has the potential to backfire.

Thanks for the reply, Mike. My point is that stating an EF-4 tornado went through a town of 45,000, while technically correct, is quite misleading. As you can see from my attempt at a damage map below, the significant damage (EF3+) affected a very small portion of the city. It should be noted that I made no attempt to demarcate EF2-0 damage due to lack of data. Thankfully, the buildings that sustained the EF-4 damage were very well built houses with basements. Had the tornado tracked a quarter-mile south, the EF-3 damage would have been directly over a large trailer park. The image you posted, I believe, is of what was previously an 84 lumber warehouse whose damage was rated EF-3, just like the Little Apple car dealership to its immediate south.

This is a topic that is near and dear to me for the fact that if the significant damage was extended another 2000 feet, I would possibly be without two of my close friends today. Their house is the red marker in the image below and as you can see was 1/4 mile downwind of the destroyed warehouse you posted. Luckily, I was following the radar that night and was able to get a hold of them and tell them to get in the basement shortly before the tornado hit. They were playing pool at the time, oblivious to the weather, and could not hear the sirens over their music.

Hi-res image: http://i44.tinypic.com/2mc8321.jpg
Cropped: http://i44.tinypic.com/u8vwm.jpg

Radar image from 10:56pm showing delta-v signature just west of where the EF-4 damage occurred (yellow marker):

Hi-res cropped radar and velocity, delta-v signature evident, friends' house is red marker: http://i43.tinypic.com/jsoi0n.jpg


**Not too long ago I remember reading about the possibility that Tornado Emergency could become an official NWS directive. Anyone have an update on this?