via Mike Smith
Despite ever better meteorological technology and more rudimentary scientific knowledge of hurricanes, we are seeing a serious setback in an important government program: the warning program. tornadoes of the National Weather Service.
Tornadoes have been a taboo to life in the United States since pre-colonial times. At the end of 19lame pants Last century, the Signal Corps attempted to create a tornado forecasting service. Despite some signs of progress, it was closed because of tornado forecasts that were supposed to “cause panic.” It is said that more people will die from panic caused by forecasts than from tornadoes.
In the 1950s, the Weather Bureau – the predecessor to today’s National Weather Service – was drawn, mainly by external events, into the work of tornado forecasting and warning. The Bureau has had considerable success in forecasting, but largely due to the lack of the right tools, it has been less successful with tornado warnings (the short-term “hide now!” message).
That has changed with better trained storm trackers and trackers, combined with the National Weather Service’s NEXRAD – a national network of Doppler radars installed in the 1990s. Those radars and the months-long intense classroom training required for every meteorologist to operate, led to unprecedented tornado warning success.
Research by Dr Kevin Simmons demonstrates that a “prep time” of 13 to 15 minutes (the length of time from when a tornado warning is issued until a tornado arrives) is ideal. From 2005 to 2011, the National Weather Service’s tornado warnings lasted an average of 13.3 minutes, and tornadoes were detected 73.3% of the time. At the same time, the radars are being “dual-polarized” to allow the detection of tornado debris for better tracking. In addition, the new generation of GOES weather satellites, the first satellites that can sense the speed of lightning (which is sometimes useful in determining in advance which thunderstorms will become severe or tornadoes) is operating. motion. All of this will lead to new levels of tornado warning accuracy.
They did not. Tornado warning quality is deteriorating at an alarming rate!
I’ve been following this for decades. I wrote a piece for washington articles in May 2021, documented this trend.
By then, the tornado warning decline is going well.
How have things changed since 2020? We do not know. NWS tornado warning accuracy statistics have been made public. Now, they are behind a login and password.
Before going any further, allow me to state: some tornadoes are not “precautionable”. This could be due to their brevity, technological issues, or our inadequate knowledge of tornado science. This is not the focus of my concern.
The tragic truth is that the Weather Service is missing powerful tornadoes that are clearly visible on radar and, in some cases, even after they are reported by trackers and ground trackers. reliable.
The National Weather Service and local emergency management agency issued a warning about the May 22, 2011 Joplin tornado that killed 161 people – by far the worst death toll in an era. tornado warning. I researched and wrote a book about it: [link]
At first, it seemed like Joplin was an isolated event. Now, tornado warning misses are coming at a fast pace. And, the NWS is missing tornadoes across the country, from New Jersey to Colorado and from Texas to Florida. Here are just some of the poorly warned tornadoes:
2021
2022
2023
- Florida [link]
- Virginia [link]
- Texas (Dallas): [link]
- Texas (fatal, Laguna Heights) [link]
- Texas (fatal, Perryton) [link]
- Texas (fatal, Matador) [link]
- Colorado [link]
Remember: this list represents only some about the obvious tornado misses over the past ten years. I can give more to anyone who wants to see them.
I’m willing to admit that I don’t know all the reasons for the alarming downward trend in tornado warning quality – spreading like cancer across the National Weather Service.
My educational assumptions:
- Retirement of student meteorologists in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, who were not only trained in how to use NEXRAD but also learned how to issue tornado warnings from early radar readings such as sound the hook and thunderstorm move to the right. That experience is irreplaceable.
- The four-week classroom radar and storm warning training for National Weather Service meteorologists has been discontinued. Two retired NWS meteorologists, both claiming confidentiality, recently told me that radar training is not enough in some cases.
- Also, playing a role is a misguided attempt to eliminate false alarms without the necessary science to do so. The NWS tornado false alarm actually dropped 2%. But that comes at the expense of providing quality alerts when a tornado actually exists. The “probability of detection” (a warning given before a tornado hits) has been reduced by 24%!
In the past, the National Weather Service often performed “service reviews” to assess the quality of service they provided during specific disasters. These people are staffed by NWS, NOAA and related agency staff. As you suspect, they rarely find fatal bugs. Federal agencies investigating themselves are far less than ideal. Tornado-related service reviews have been less frequent in recent years as any kind of in-depth review would force the NWS to acknowledge these issues.
In my opinion, the only way to fix the tornado warning program and related problems is to create an independent National Disaster Assessment Board (NDRB) modeled on the National Transportation Safety Board. (NTSB) was extremely successful. The meteorological part of the NDRB mission will be:
- Investigate major weather forecasts and warning failures. In addition to tornadoes, for example, it will include events like the flash flood in Tennessee on August 23, 2021.
- The board will recommend improvements.
- The NDRB will also undertake the daily validation of the National Weather Service’s storm warnings and forecasts.
The National Disaster Assessment Committee will study disaster response not only from the NWS but also research FEMA, the Red Cross, state and local emergency management, and other entities involved in a disaster. specifically.
Keeping the status quo is guaranteed to ensure more lives are lost unnecessarily and more major disasters like Joplin occur.
