Warnings based on Rotating Storms vs. Actual Tornado Touchdown

[Drew.Gardonia]

This all came about this past Wed morning, when an EF-0 hit Murfreesboro. I was blasted out of bed by sirens, so I of course went to investigate being the storm chaser that I am, and also in official status as an MTSU Sideline Photographer it's my job to get pics of the storms/damage.

So after I make it back to the apt, I get on my facebook to see one of the most ignorant statuses I've ever seen in my life (the person's name/gender will be excluded to protect their privacy, even much as I would love to really embarrass this ignoramus for their ignorance, I won't.)

"The NWS needs to not give out false warnings of a tornado, just because there is rotation in the clouds, we didn't even have a tornado, yet they're issue warnings and it's ridiculous."

Really now? Yes, we did have a tornado, it was an EF-0, it did touchdown, it was confirmed. (keep in mind this is 20/20 hindsight, because there was no survey to confirm at the time), I'm betting said person feels about as ridiculous as their statement on facebook about now.

http://www.wgnsradio.com/two-tornadoes-straight-line-winds-confirmed-in-rutherford-county/27329/

Apparently this person felt so disrespected by the warnings because said person was woken up out of bed, they felt the need to gripe about it on facebook, and it angered me because we actually did have a tornado here, not rotation in the clouds, not just straight line winds, but we had a confirmed EF-0 tornado on the ground.

I discussed this with said person and here's the feedback I got

"issuing warnings so often off WSR88D decreases awareness, and people ignore the warnings. Most of the storms that the media, and resultingly the NWS, call severe aren't meteorologically defined as severe.

spotters are more reliable than radar when issuing warnings, because people take heed of that. Most people just complain about the warnings now, and they have this false sense of security, leading to more deaths and injuries."

Now I agree to an extent about issuing a tornado warning based on rotation in the clouds, it does desensitize the public in terms of actual imminent danger factor. Too many false warnings, and people start to ignore them.

Unfortunately, this is currently the best system we have. The NWS would be legally liable if they didn't issue a warning based on rotation, and then a tornado did touch down and a bunch of people got hurt or killed. Sadly it's a Catch 22, and until the technology improves to make it better, it's all there is to work with.

Spotters are good for verification, but you can't expect a spotter to always be available to confirm. You also can't rely on the general public to validate a tornado, because some people just get so excited they see what they want to see, rather than what they really did see.

I do not agree in any way shape or form, that warnings based on rotation hurt/kill MORE people. The NWS has an incredible track record of saving lives with warnings over the past 50 years since pre-warning technology became available, and it's definitely come a long way since the 1950's, landmark strides I'd venture to say. But as we know it's NOT GOOD ENOUGH yet.

I was also talking with my dad about this, and he brought up a very valid point because he too is tired of false warnings based on rotation, he just wanted to know where the actual tornado was and what direction it was headed and did it affect him and was he in the path?

"There has to be something that's discernible, or different or telltale within a storm that puts down a tornado as opposed to storm that only shows rotation".

Basically what he was saying is there has to be something that scientists can find that is obviously different, be it a mathematical algorithm, one of the ingredients for tornadoes (shear, instability, helicity values, ehi, etc, something that's being overlooked somewhere, that could plausibly tell meteorologists that this cell will or won't put a tornado down). I know they're pretty unpredictable, but I find it hard to believe that we can now predict severe weather outbreaks 5 - 7 days in advance, but we can't seem to find one telltale signal in these storms to discern between a cell that will only rotate as opposed to one that will actually put down a tornado on the ground. (i realize not EVERYTHING is as cut and dry as I make it sound).

Scientists recently found a code in cancer, that determines that for every so many cigarettes you smoke, x amount of genes in your body will have an error that leads to cancer. Similarly scientists are cracking all kinds of genetic and geoscientific codes in other areas of science, so why wouldn't there be one for meteorology?

The code is out there somewhere, and the scientist(s) that crack it, will be overnight billionaires.

I'd like to hear some more qualified responses to this discussion and maybe this will give someone an idea or whatever, and someone finds out what it is.

 

[Jason Harris]

Here's an article I came across earlier today that suggests a new approach with radar that might help:

Governments in the Dallas-Fort Worth region are nearing a deal that would make it the first urban area to test a new approach to weather forecasting.

Like Twitter's many ground-level dispatches, the system is based on a series of small radar devices that can be scattered around cities and their suburbs, rather than a large beacon that takes a sweeping but imprecise view.

The widespread death and damage inflicted this week by tornadoes throughout the South demonstrated that warnings using current weather technology are limited. Meteorologists and public safety officials said they hoped that the new system could prevent deaths from tornadoes and flash floods.

"Because we have a network of radars, it's like many pairs of eyes," said V. Chandrasekar, deputy director for research for the Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, or CASA.

“We can see things faster than things can change,” said Professor Chandrasekar, an engineer at Colorado State University.

Many tornadoes simply never register on Doppler radar. Those antennas send new images every five minutes, but tornadoes can touch down and dissipate in less time than that, said Edward P. Cravens, the director of emergency management in McClain County, Okla. His rural Tornado Alley district has been the site of a multiyear test of five CASA radars, which send new images every minute.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11120/1143190-84-0.stm?cmpid=news.xml#ixzz1L24PAAQp

or: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/us/30radar.html

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

Andrew Burnett had an EXCELLENT idea over in the 4/27/11 DISC thread that definitely needs further evaluation and testing done by the Government. In fact, it may merit him sending off a proposal to his Senators and Congressman to see about further discovery of such a system.

I've had an idea for over a year now of creating a public activated warning system, that is supplemented by the pros. Basically folks would text Tornado to 911. If enough triggers are sent to the local 911 center a mass texting & social media message is sent out to people in the geographic area(size to be determined)... "Tornado spoted by X number of your neighbors please be aware and seek shelter". The system can be calibrated to the point where false alarms are a rare occurence. Reports can be tracked by the cell the signal came from and a tornado could be triangulated in seconds, then warning messages could be sent out to all users in a certain area of the reports. It would sort of take a life of its own and could almost go on unmonitored. The same system could be used by the NWS. But to work it could only be used in tor warning situations. OTherwise it would become noise to most folks.

Similiar methods are being researched to report accidents and terrorist attacks. like many have said when major class Tornados are on the ground generally the NWS gets the warnings out fast... the problem is getting them to the people. In most towns the warning systems are pretty much a joke, particularly small towns. They are either overused, undermaintained, or run by morans.

 

[Matt Hunt]

I think that's the only way. We'd need a whole lot of very expensive equipment to take real-time measurements from multiple points around and in the storm. That's just not very realistic. Even if scientists figure out the exact ingredients necessary for tornado formation, we'd still need all of that equipment surrounding the storm to verify those ingredients, and it has to be given in REAL-TIME. Just imagine the cost of installing these all over the United States, maybe a few miles apart.

I think the better solution is for people to just not be ignorant, and heed the warnings! That being said, there were plenty of people on Wed that did everything right, and still lost their lives. It's tough to avoid in violent EF4 and EF5 tornadoes. Only solution to that is safe rooms in every house in America.

 

[rdale]

The code is out there somewhere, and the scientist(s) that crack it, will be overnight billionaires.

I disagree. The issue is knowing everything that goes on in the atmosphere. We aren't even close. The original Vortex showed us that even instrumentation every mile wasn't enough -- you literally need instruments under every cell. That's not only financially impossible, but strategically not viable either. There is no magical 88D algorithm that will solve the problem.

Here's an article I came across earlier today that suggests a new approach with radar that might help:

The CASA project has been going on for a few years in Oklahoma. It's a good step up, but it's not an easy system to replicate.

EDIT: Matt posted great stuff during my ST delay A 0% FAR is physically impossible. Do I wish it were less than 70%? Absolutely. However I think there is WAY too little info on social meteorology surveys though to draw any conclusions from response patterns. We need more (and larger) studies - not only about severe weather but the daily forecast as well.

 

[Greg Blumberg]

Andrew has a good idea, but the major problem is false alarms by people who don't know how to correctly identify a tornado. You would have to properly educate everyone about how to correctly identify a tornado.

The difficulty for discovering a "code" for tornadoes encounters the problem of scale. Tornado development is so small from what we regularly observe. Granted we could put more instrumentation sites, but money is an issue. The problem is that our observations tell us that there is no single way tornadoes form. I'm almost positive that the codes that scientists have discovered have exceptions. If there were no exceptions to these codes, then I'm thinking it would be much easier to diagnose these things.

 

[Rob H]

From 1950-2010, there were 5855 deaths from tornadoes. This is also approximately the number of people that have been killed from coconuts falling on their heads in the same time span (130/year). If you are caught unaware by a storm in the year 2011, you are being deliberately ignorant of things going on around you. At some point there are diminishing returns, and throwing money at the problem isn't going to help for this small percentage of people. $50,000 for a neighborhood doppler unit? I've heard of neighbors getting in fist fights over leaves blowing into their yard and having to pay for a new streetlight.

There isn't a code out there, because it's not a discrete, closed system - weather is a fantastic mix of dynamic and fluid processes that even the brightest scientists cannot wrap their heads around. There's plenty of work being done on detection algorithms and assessing near storm environments to aid in issuing better warnings, though.

Please note that I said 'unaware', as this is a conversation about emergency warning systems. The people this week that received warning, took shelter, and still died are a different matter completely.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

I disagree. The issue is knowing everything that goes on in the atmosphere. We aren't even close. The original Vortex showed us that even instrumentation every mile wasn't enough -- you literally need instruments under every cell. That's not only financially impossible, but strategically not viable either. There is no magical 88D algorithm that will solve the problem.

there is no algorithm that we know of YET. everything in this world is made up of math, and numbers, there is a code, it just hasn't been discovered yet and it may not make sense to us yet. and we may never find it, but I believe that you thinking there is no code, is just your opinion, as my belief that there is a code is my opinion.

Andrew has a good idea, but the major problem is false alarms by people who don't know how to correctly identify a tornado. You would have to properly educate everyone about how to correctly identify a tornado.

The difficulty for discovering a "code" for tornadoes encounters the problem of scale. Tornado development is so small from what we regularly observe. Granted we could put more instrumentation sites, but money is an issue. The problem is that our observations tell us that there is no single way tornadoes form. I'm almost positive that the codes that scientists have discovered have exceptions. If there were no exceptions to these codes, then I'm thinking it would be much easier to diagnose these things.

maybe as technology evolves, those codes and exceptions will become better understood. Afterall, everyone thought the Wright Brothers were crazy when they set out to make an airplane fly, now we use their concept to get all over the globe and into outer space.

From 1950-2010, there were 5855 deaths from tornadoes. This is also approximately the number of people that have been killed from coconuts falling on their heads in the same time span (130/year). If you are caught unaware by a storm in the year 2011, you are being deliberately ignorant of things going on around you. At some point there are diminishing returns, and throwing money at the problem isn't going to help for this small percentage of people. $50,000 for a neighborhood doppler unit? I've heard of neighbors getting in fist fights over leaves blowing into their yard and having to pay for a new streetlight.

There isn't a code out there, because it's not a discrete, closed system - weather is a fantastic mix of dynamic and fluid processes that even the brightest scientists cannot wrap their heads around. There's plenty of work being done on detection algorithms and assessing near storm environments to aid in issuing better warnings, though.

Please note that I said 'unaware', as this is a conversation about emergency warning systems. The people this week that received warning, took shelter, and still died are a different matter completely.

that's your opinon Robert, and you're entitled to it, but I definitely think as technology evolves, we'll begin to discover more and more about how these form, where they will form, and how to better warn the public. I'm not saying we'll able to identify how strong one would be, how long it will be on the ground or how much damage it might or might not do, but i do believe one day we'll be able to differentiate between rotation in a storm and a storm that will put down a tornado.

with what we've seen in technology advancements over the past 110 years, I dont think ANYTHING can ever be discounted.

 

[rdale]

Drew - I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's clear you have a little bit to go before fully understanding the atmosphere. Whether or not there is a "code" doesn't matter. We don't have the instrumentation to know where the conditions that make up the "code" exist.

This has nothing to do with the Wright Brothers.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Money is probably the biggest reason many of these ideas will never be discovered or implemented. Even if the scientists involved with the VORTEX and other tornadogenesis investigation projects managed to fully capture the entire life cycle of a tornado in the entire range of scales from the corner flow region to the mesoscale environment of the parent storm, the only way to turn that knowledge into prediction would be to keep the density of observing stations it would take to accomplish such a feat in place all over the country so that when the features that were discovered from these case studies are replicated in future severe weather events, then an accurate prediction on whether or not a rotating storm will produce a tornado can be made. Since that will never happen in our lifetimes, you can save your breath right there. It just won't happen. Also, as Rob said, the CASA idea is nothing new, and its nationwide implementation has already been considered here. It would not be easy or cheap, but it would be cool.

 

[Jason Bolt]

How close are we going to get to zero fatalities? I don't think we will ever have this perfected. No matter the technology or warning times we will still have fatalities. I mean, someone above posted statistics showing more fatalities from coconuts than tornadoes. Eventually, people will need to actually pay attention to the weather and heed warnings. For some victims, they are just unlucky, unfortunate, whatever. Their death may be unavoidable no matter the warning. For some, personal responsibility will need to kick in at some point. I'm reminded of Katrina and how everything was the government's fault. There was "no warning" then either depending on who was interviewed. I think when it comes to warnings, at least in situations like this, we are there. People can take heed or not. In outbreaks like this our improvements would be in construction and the like.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

Drew - I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it's clear you have a little bit to go before fully understanding the atmosphere. Whether or not there is a "code" doesn't matter. We don't have the instrumentation to know where the conditions that make up the "code" exist.

This has nothing to do with the Wright Brothers.

I didn't say it had anything to do with the Wright Brothers, I used that as an example that everyone said Flight would never happen, that it was IMPOSSIBLE, but yet it DID Happen. and we may have the instrumentation, we may just not know it yet. And yes I agree, I don't fully understand the atmosphere like you or others more qualified do and I have a long ways to go.

Money is probably the biggest reason many of these ideas will never be discovered or implemented. Even if the scientists involved with the VORTEX and other tornadogenesis investigation projects managed to fully capture the entire life cycle of a tornado in the entire range of scales from the corner flow region to the mesoscale environment of the parent storm, the only way to turn that knowledge into prediction would be to keep the density of observing stations it would take to accomplish such a feat in place all over the country so that when the features that were discovered from these case studies are replicated in future severe weather events, then an accurate prediction on whether or not a rotating storm will produce a tornado can be made. Since that will never happen in our lifetimes, you can save your breath right there. It just won't happen. Also, as Rob said, the CASA idea is nothing new, and its nationwide implementation has already been considered here. It would not be easy or cheap, but it would be cool.

I wouldn't say it NEVER would happen, but maybe the probability of it happen are pretty low. NEVER say NEVER my friend I'm gonna read up on the link you provided, thanks.

 

[John Robinson]

The idea of the public texting "tornado" and a mass message going out based on such texts has serious drawbacks. As one poster has already noted, people would have to know what a tornado looks like. Let me give you a real-world example of what happened a few years back.

A local TV station was showing a wall cloud live as it moved across the Little Rock area, passing just south of downtown. We were watching the broadcast in the weather office. The TV met was saying it was a "textbook example of a wall cloud." He was absolutely right. But, as we watched this wall cloud live, seeing that there was absolutely no funnel cloud or tornado associated with it, we took two dozen phone calls telling us there was a tornado occurring in the middle of Little Rock. One call that I took even said the tornado was right at a major shopping mall. So, here we had a situation where two dozen people were 100% wrong.

Another case that we have seen many, many times over the years: If a significant tornado does strike a particular town, there is a very high likelihood that we will get false reports of funnel clouds or tornadoes from that town for approximately two years thereafter. These reports are all well-meaning, it's just that people simply do not know what they are looking at.

 

[Todd Renshaw]

Would a satellite-based system work? (Maybe not with present technology, but in the future?) Blanketing the US with enough radar at the ground would be cost prohibitive. Why not come at the problem from above? I'm guessing you'd need several redundant satellites so you could monitor hot spots from different angles. (A storm directly below a satellite isn't going to give doppler data, but coming at it from an indirect angle or two could work.)

Problems that would need to be overcome: 1) Beam can't spread like current radar so resolution is tighter over much greater distance. Needs to work more like a laser with a coherent beam. 2) Would take a lot of computing power to triangulate the data from different satellites and get realtime 3D models of what's happening at all levels of multiple severe storms. 3) Satellites would need to do a quick overview of the country and then focus in on hot spots, sweeping the beam over notable storms. (Perhaps traditional satellite could act as a guide for sweeping the beam in areas where more detail is warranted. Or maybe interference from lightning could guide where attention is focused.)

I'm optimistic that technology and our understanding will get better. Whether my satellite idea is feasible or not, someday we'll figure out a better way to monitor these storms.

 

[rdale]

Satellites are not able to determine tornadoes by any stretch. There are some signals that can be found in storms which imply a tornado possibly, but nothing that can be relied upon.

 

[Todd Renshaw]

Satellites are not able to determine tornadoes by any stretch. There are some signals that can be found in storms which imply a tornado possibly, but nothing that can be relied upon.

Of course. But I was (mostly) speaking of future radar technology. Or at least cutting-edge technology that has not been implemented in this way before.

 

[Stan Rose]

* These are my personal opinions and in no way reflect the position of the National Weather Service or NOAA *

I understand this problem very well. One change which will help, and one in which the NWS is heading though not quite there (as evidenced by the warning sirens blowing in Chadron NE twice the other day when the outflow dominant sup was miles and miles away...) is to tighten up the warnings. More frequent updates with a smaller geographical area warned. that will lesson the sense of security for those in the 'box'. Another, which i see as the near future, is that the curse of too many chasers has at least led to the good of nearly ubiquitous live feeds and reports. For the 'big' days, its almost a gaurantee that there will be multiple chasers on a storm (and for the low risk or outside-the-box days, the warning forecaster can be more cautious, but still be conservative). I issued warnings for the Campo May 31 storm last year while i watched the storm develop live in real time. I could see on the internet what could not be seen by radar. No need to guess or determine the trustworthiness of being there. Maybe not as good as being there in person--but its getting close!

 

[Robert S. Thompson]

I believe the NWS was using "tornado emergencies" when the long track tornadoes were on the ground in AL. So maybe "tornado warning" when Doppler indicated or suggested by the public, and "tornado emergency" when confirmed by trained spotters.

Also, at least in my area, smarter sirens would help. We've had a bunch of polygon tornado warnings this season or rural parts of my county (where they have few/no sirens) yet they were sounding for the entire county including the main cities. But that takes money, and the county doesn't have any.

RST

 

[Dave Kaplow]

It seems to me there is one thing well within the realm of possibility that we could attempt to do to improve the situation, and that is to make the TVS algorithm more discriminating. I realize this has almost certainly been looked at already by greater minds than mine, but surely there must be something out there that could be added to the algorithm to help cull the false alarms. Supposing someone did want to take a crack at this, they would need a database of historic WSR-88D data containing many examples of both tornadic and non-tornadic TVS-triggering storms, along with detailed records of the actual mesoscale environment of each cell at the time of the TVS. What I’m imagining here is an effort similar to the Netflix Prize, where the database would be made available to anyone who wanted to take a shot at it. There could be a prize or series of prizes for those who manage to make genuine improvements to the TVS algorithm. Granted, the meteorological community probably couldn‘t come up with a million dollars like Netflix did, but still, I think the crowd-sourcing concept is worth a look. The TVS could definitely stand some improvement, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen obviously non-tornadic cells get T-warned by OKX on the basis of (presumably) nothing more than a transient TVS popping up. A little more discrimination in the TVS algorithm would go a long way toward reducing the false alarm rate.

 

[rdale]

The database (L2) and the software (CODE) have been freely available for a long time.

http://www.weather.gov/code88d/

I would be shocked if any professional meteorologist issued a warning or interrupted TV just because of a TVS. The algorithms are 'look at me' flags, not 'issue a warning for me' flag. Anyone using radar alone to issue a warning needs to be taken off the front lines and retrained in the first place...

 

[Dave Kaplow]

The database (L2) and the software (CODE) have been freely available for a long time.

http://www.weather.gov/code88d/

I would be shocked if any professional meteorologist issued a warning or interrupted TV just because of a TVS. The algorithms are 'look at me' flags, not 'issue a warning for me' flag. Anyone using radar alone to issue a warning needs to be taken off the front lines and retrained in the first place...

Yeah, I know that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory… I think that in practice, however, especially in areas that are outside the traditional tornado alley(s) and that have very high population density, it’s possible that the TVS sometimes gets a little more respect than it perhaps deserves. But of course I don’t know what’s actually behind any given warning, I guess I’m just assuming the TVS sometimes plays a big role. That’s interesting that the database is already available, but I guess I should have anticipated that. Now all we need is for someone to put up a million dollars!

 

[Jake Orosi]

I find it humorous that people are complaining when tornado warnings are issued for storms that are "simply rotating"; considering that a rotating storm is the best indicator that the initial stages of tornado formation are in progress.

Perhaps it's just as simple as keeping the tornado warnings for storms where radar actually shows a debris ball, or trained spotters have reported a tornado, and just t-storm warning a storm that's just rotating or shows a TVS. Let's face it, a rotating storm will probably be creating some kind of severe weather. The only problem is, as lackadaisical as people are becoming when it comes to reacting to a tornado warning, the apathy in response to a "severe thunderstorm warning" is already pretty much complete. I don't think I know a single non-meteorologically-inclined person who thinks a severe thunderstorm warning indicates or even suggests any kind of danger. The NWS may as well call it a "sorta scary storm alert".

 

[rdale]

keeping the tornado warnings for storms where radar actually shows a debris ball, or trained spotters have reported a tornado, and just t-storm warning a storm that's just rotating or shows a TVS.

First off - "debris ball" is WAY overused. Until you are looking with dual-pole, you can't be sure that it's debris.

But the problem with your theory is that 1) areas with low spotter coverage would never get tornado warnings 2) many tornadoes are short lived, as in 10 minutes or less. Considering it would take a minimum of 3-5 minutes to get a report in and the warning sent back out, by the time you're sending it the damage is pretty much done.

 

[twarner]

2) many tornadoes are short lived, as in 10 minutes or less. Considering it would take a minimum of 3-5 minutes to get a report in and the warning sent back out, by the time you're sending it the damage is pretty much done.

The timing here illistrates a limitation of the NWS radar. Potentially by the time they see the possible "tornado signature" and issue a warning the event may be over due to the scan times. Why doesn't the NWS change the software code to scan more frequently and get quicker updates? Or at least have a mode to switch to when you have a situation where more frequent updates would be useful? Is it a data infrastructure issue?

 

[rdale]

Why doesn't the NWS change the software code to scan more frequently and get quicker updates?

Because then you lose the volume scanning ability. The dome can only swing so fast. PAR will help but that's at least a decade away.

Or at least have a mode to switch to when you have a situation where more frequent updates would be useful?

AVSET will help in some of those cases, but again you can't do fast and volume. Either slow with a full volume scan, or fast with just the first tilt. Which is why many TV stations put their live radar online so the NWS can use them in conjunction.