Category: weather

This was Wednesday’s severe weather forecast Tuesday afternoon:

And here’s is today’s today …

… with the possibility of tornadoes …

… other high winds …

… and hail:

Here is Thursday’s severe weather forecast as of Tuesday …

… and updated today:

I did this when we were supposed to get a severe weather outbreak last month. Said severe weather did not occur, at least around here. So let’s see today if the weather types, taxpayer-paid or not, get this one right.

The sudden onset of almost summer-like weather earlier this week (and this weekend), along with the weather that produced 63 tornadoes to the south but snow here March 2, and this being National Severe Weather Preparedness Week bring this item to mind, from meteorologist Mike Smith:

Starting April 1, in the geographic areas served by the National Weather Service offices in Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka, Kansas City, Springfield (MO), and St. Louis there will be multi-tiered severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings.

The changes which I will describe below spring from the high death toll from U.S. tornadoes in general, and the Joplin tornado in particular, in 2011.

The Joplin tornado May 22, 2011, an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado damage, killed 160, injured more than 990, and caused an estimated $2.2 billion in damage.

To review for non-weather-geek readers:  A tornado warning (three of which were issued for the Ripon area in 2011, a personal record since Dane County in 1984, the year of the killer Barneveld tornado) is issued when a tornado or funnel cloud is sighted by trained tornado spotters, a tornado is indicated by weather radar, or weather radar detects a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado (or STCOPATs as I call them).

To expand upon that, the Weather Service in a few Kansas and Missouri offices will be able to issue two augmented warnings:

• A Particularly Dangerous Situation tornado warning. (Similar to a PDS Tornado Watch, issued when “long-lived, strong and violent tornadoes are possible,” such as EF4 or EF5 tornadoes.  There is also a PDS Severe Thunderstorm Watch (for winds around 90 mph or 1.5-inch hail) and Flash Flood Watch, but they have never been issued in this state.)
• A Tornado Emergency, which is now issued for large tornadoes heading toward populated areas. Twelve Tornado Emergencies were issued during the March 2 outbreak.

What’s the problem here? Says Smith, author of the fascinating Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather:

Unfortunately, they are going to allow a sentence to be added to severe thunderstorm warnings that states, “A tornado is possible.” What do you or a school principal do with that? Go halfway down the basement stairs?

Given the political pressure the National Weather Service seems to be under at the moment, I forecast that many severe thunderstorm warnings will contain that unfortunate sentence and the “overwarning” problem, which we know causes complacency, will get measurably worse. …

The first problem is that the science does not exist to do this! We have no skill at short-term tornado strength forecasting. None.

Second, who is going to be able to keep straight whether a “tornado emergency” is better or worse than a “particularly dangerous situation”?

Third, even if #1 and #2 were not issues, what do you want the public to do differently?! Since we meteorologists want everyone to take shelter during a tornado warning, the two “tornado warnings on steroids” are superfluous. …

This isn’t just my opinion. Dr. Laura Myers, a social scientist at Mississippi State University, wrote yesterday,

My conclusion: It would seem that more detail and more warning levels would help, but I think it just leads to confusion and [warning] fatigue.

When a tornado is bearing down, people need to act and act quickly. Having to think through warning types is counterproductive.

Two comments explain both the Weather Service’s rationale, and why they may be wrong:

I suspect that the experiment in question is driven by a conviction that lack of an enhanced warning or tornado emergency message was a reason, or perhaps THE reason, so many died in Joplin, therefore, an ironclad policy on issuing tornado emergencies will prevent that from ever happening again. If that is so, it would be a classic case of “not seeing the forest for the trees.”

If warning fatigue and lack of visibility of the actual tornado were primary contributing factors to the Joplin death toll, then all the super duper enhanced warning language in the world probably wouldn’t have made much difference.

Yeah, but …

No, it’s exactly the opposite. … The reason most people didn’t react to the warning until it was too late was because they have had two dozen tornado warnings in the past 3 years, and none resulted in a tornado.

And to expand:

The general consensus of the public at large is that most warnings are for some place else. The town where I live has had approximately 10 tornado warning over the last 6 years, out of those 10 only 2 were of any threat to my house. By threat I mean the my town was in the path of the storm. Now all of the warnings were valid for the areas issued. However only 20% even included my area. There are places within my county where over the past 6 years that no warnings were valid, but they were warned just the same. The invalid warning messages being sent are desensitizing the warning message.

There are many competent Sociological, and Psychological studies on warnings, and experts in the field who could help in this matter. Almost all would state that a focused, accurate, and direct warning will work better than a complex, wordy, inaccurate, and irrelevant one. This does not take a PhD in Sociology to understand, as it is a common daily occurrence.

The people in Joplin were in their cars, away from home and out and about because the warnings had become meaningless. If you read the response from the victims, almost all to a person stated that they would not take cover till they saw the storm. Why was that? They had been trained to do so by sitting in their shelters for a storm that was 20 mi to the NE moving away from them. They wasted time sheltering from a storm that was no threat to them. So at that fateful day they did not heed the warnings, used the past training as given by the system, and many died because of it. Also, this was an extremely violent storm, one difficult to survive even with the best of shelters.

That last sentence is the meteorological equivalent of the law-school phrase that good cases make bad law. EF5 tornadoes have wind speeds beyond 200 mph. (Wisconsin has had three — in Colfax June 4, 1958, with 20 killed; in Barneveld June 7, 1984, with seven killed; and in Oakfield July 18, 1996, with none killed. Five other Wisconsin tornadoes before the Fujita scale was created, including the New Richmond tornado of 1899 that killed 117, are estimated to have been  EF5s as well.)

My contention for a few years has been that the STCOPAT warnings are not helpful because they lead to more tornado warnings without actual tornadoes, which lead to ignored tornado warnings. A tornado did actually occur during the third tornado warning last year, which was issued while we were at the Ripon library. My wife, who went through the same tornado spotter training as I did, was driving into Ripon at the time, and didn’t see anything that looked like a tornado at the same time a tornado was causing damage to a farm outside Ripon. The 2010 tornado season started east of Green Lake, and before that in June 2004 a tornado sucked a couple out of their basement near Markesan, killing the man and severely injuring the woman. And that’s been it in 13 years of living in Ripon, which has certainly had more than five tornado warnings in that time.

Wisconsin doesn’t have as many tornadoes as the main parts of Tornado Alley, but we have enough that cause enough damage to make improving how the National Weather Service warns about tornadoes important. If terminology can be improved, that should save lives and prevent injuries. But accuracy is more important. And the Weather Service still issues too many warnings for tornadoes that don’t occur (at least as far as those in the warned area consider) that makes expanding the number of tornado warnings seem like change instead of  proress.

Today’s weather notwithstanding, let’s hope AccuWeather doesn’t live up to its prediction:

The AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team is predicting another brutally cold and snowy winter for a large part of the country, thanks in large part to La Niña… yet again.

La Niña, a phenomenon that occurs when sea surface temperatures across the equatorial central and eastern Pacific are below normal, is what made last year’s winter so awful for the Midwest and Northeast. Monster blizzards virtually shut down the cities of New York and Chicago. Last winter was one of New York City’s snowiest on record.

La Niñas often produce a volatile weather pattern for the Midwest and Northeast during winter due to the influence they have on the jet stream. …

The way the jet stream is expected to be positioned during this winter’s La Niña will tend to drive storms through the Midwest and Great Lakes. Last year, the jet stream steered storms farther east along the Northeast coast, hammering the Interstate 95 corridor.

Therefore, instead of New York City enduring the worst of winter this year, it will likely be Chicago.

The division of The Weather Channel that handles long-range forecasting has similarly sad news:

WSI (Weather Services International) expects the upcoming period (December-February) to average colder than normal across most of the northern and western US, with above-normal temperatures confined to the and south-central and southeastern states. The WSI seasonal outlooks now reference a standard 30-year normal (1981-2010).

“So far, November has been fairly mild across the major energy demand centers of the US. While no short-term change to this pattern is expected, we do foresee a trend towards colder temperatures across much of the northern US, including the Midwest and Northeast, in December,” said WSI Chief Meteorologist Dr. Todd Crawford. “The winter pattern will be dominated by the current La Nina event, which favors below-normal temperatures across the northern US and above-normal temperatures across most of the South. … For the December-February aggregate period, we still feel that slightly below-normal temperatures will occur north of a Denver-Philadelphia line and across all of the western US. …”

What about the weather forecasters paid for by our tax dollars? The next maps are the National Weather Service’s predictions for, in order, temperature (blue is below-normal and orange is above-normal) and precipitation (green is above-normal and brown is below-normal) for December …

… December through February …

… and January through March:

Aren’t you happy that meteorologists have come together to decide that our winter is going to suck once again? Of course, given that there’s a large snow pile across the street, which has been there since earlier this month, we shouldn’t be surprised. One wonders what the hell was in the minds of our ancestors who thought it was a great idea to come to a part of the country whose winters feature temperatures cold enough to kill you and snowfalls deep enough to kill you during snow removal or from crashes caused by said snowfalls.

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center just posted these, shall we say, interesting looking maps for today:

The first map shows a 15 percent probability for the component parts of severe weather, high winds (50 knots, or 55 mph) and hail of 1 inch or larger. The second map shows a 5 percent probability for tornadoes, which doesn’t seem like much, but in meteorology (and in math, duh), 5 percent is more than zero.

For what it’s worth, AccuWeather thinks the threat will be slightly south of here:

But the Weather Channel thinks the entire state is at risk for severe weather today:

We’ll see who’s right. We may also find out how the hosts of French foreign exchange students explain to their guests why they have to go to the basement. (To answer the question in the headline, one online translator says it’s “avertissement de tornade,” which looks more like an advertisement for a tornado or an advisory for a tornado than a warning about a tornado.)

First, a photo from a friend of my wife, shot in Cullman, Ala.:

Next, the video that must be seen to be believed:

This shows the number of tornado watches that were in effect at 5:44 p.m. Central time Wednesday:

I followed the storm coverage from Birmingham and then Atlanta online Wednesday. As I tweeted, there were colors on the weather radar that I had never seen before, indicating the intensity of some of the storms.

With final death tolls still to be determined, this is being reported as the second deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history, passing up the April 1974 “Super Outbreak” (commemorated in the documentary “The Day of the Killer Tornadoes“), and exceeded only by the Tri-State Tornado (which probably was a series of tornadoes) March 18, 1925,  among modern-measured tornado outbreaks.

The Meteorological Musings blog has a succinct explanation that may explain why so many people died Wednesday:

Here is some of what I believe is true, pending formal investigation.

• This was a historic event. It appears (not sure yet) to be the worst tornado outbreak, in terms of number of F-4 and F-5 tornadoes (the upper 2% in damage potential) since April 3, 1974. It also appears similar to the “Enigma Outbreak” (same geographic area) of February, 1884. The latter is estimated to have killed as many as 1,200.
• When dealing with F-4 and F-5 tornadoes, there is no assurance of survival. For example, in Greensburg, KS in 2007, eight of the 9 people killed (out of the 1,500 in the tornado’s path) were in shelter, including basements. The South has relatively few basements and many tens of thousands were in the path of these tornadoes. The bathtub offers reasonable protection for the far more common F-1 to F-3 tornadoes. It offers little protection during F-4 and F-5 tornadoes where everything is swept away.
• Earlier tornadoes knocked out the communications infrastructure. This is a problem I have not previously encountered. It was first reported by a Birmingham TV station today. There are reports that because of the multiplicity of tornadoes, the power had been lost in the first wave of storms and so TV, internet, etc., were not available when the second wave occurred. These people likely did not get the warning. We do not yet know how widespread this problem was.
• Mobile homes. We talked about this less than two weeks ago. I was in Charlotte a week ago today and was told by insurance industry people that the tie-down laws are not enforced (no requirement for inspection upon occupancy). I have seen video of mobile homes that were not tied down and were without wind skirting. They also told me few mobile home parks had shelters. If true, this is a deadly combination. In the April 15-16, 2011 tornadoes from Mississippi to North Carolina, 86% of the deaths were in mobile homes.

The “communications infrastructure” referred to in his third bullet point may have included, based on reports of last week, National Weather Service radio. A morning wave of severe weather not only knocked out power, but may have knocked down towers. This is critical given that weather radio gets out the warnings before media, since the warning is given by computer then automatically broadcast.

There are two additional potential factors; one is a fact, the other is conjecture. The 1974 outbreak was in a country that had less than 200 million people in it. Last week’s outbreak was in a country that has more than 300 million people, and the South has grown faster than most other parts of the country. All other things being equal, if areas are more dense people, the possibility for higher casualties increases.

From all indications, the warnings did in fact get out. (As they did during our tornadoes of early April.) Improved weather radar technology (in the 1974 outbreak, “weather radar” was World War II-surplus aviation radar) meant storms are easier to track, and their severity is more apparent. (And it certainly was apparent Wednesday night.)

One wonders, though, about, for lack of a better term, “warning fatigue.” Despite the fact that the Weather Service predicted our early April tornado outbreak several days in advance, there remains skepticism up here about storm warnings because everyone can remember at least one time when the Weather Service got it wrong. As noted here before, to the usual tornado-warning criteria of a radar signature or an actual sighting has been added what I call a “STCOPAT” — Severe Thunderstorm Capable of Producing a Tornado. (Such as the STCOPAT that sent us into our basement without a tornado actually occurring.) The South gets more tornadoes than here, so I can’t say if the South gets “warning fatigue,” but one wonders how many people were skeptical about the warnings until the weird-colored skies and the dreaded freight train sound, and by then it’s probably too late.

Another reason I like Meteorological Musings is because the blogger is correctly skeptical about another popularly attributed cause for last week’s severe weather: global warming — oops, anthropogenic climate change or whatever it’s being called these days. He quotes from (more accurately, tears apart) a New York Times story:

The Times’ article begins with this statement:

The cruelty of this particular April, in the number of tornadoes recorded, is without equal in the United States.

This may or may not be true. The statement is at least premature. The NWS Storm Prediction Center March 8th changed its methodology which allows more reports of tornadoes and other severe storms to be logged (see first note here). We don’t know yet whether this is a record April.

Tornadoes in particular, researchers say, straddle the line between the known and the profoundly unknowable.

“There’s a large crapshoot aspect,” said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

It is correct that we do not fully understand the physics of tornadogenesis but we understand the conditions under which large tornadoes (like Wednesday’s) form so we can forecast them and issue warnings for them with high accuracy. If you don’t believe it, just scroll back through the forecasts of the last three weeks on this blog or, for Wednesday’s storms go here or here for just two examples. It is hardly a “crapshoot.” …

The next paragraphs are, I suspect, the real motivation for this article:

When technology can predict oncoming storm tracks and conditions with greater certainty than ever, and scientists assert with growing unanimity a human impact on climate, what is a natural act of God and what is more correctly the province of humans themselves? Where is the place of psychic shelter in an age when the lines between fate and human action are blurred?

The prevalence of hurricanes, droughts and floods has been linked in many climate models to the impact of a warming planet. Such a connection is more tentative when it comes to twisters.

Ah, ‘climate change.’ The article goes on to discuss the Times‘ linking of these tornadoes to climate change. This linkage can be easily refuted.

This is a graph of world temperatures complied by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (global warming advocates). I have placed arrows pointing to the temperatures in 1884 (the “Enigma Outbreak” which killed as many as 1,200 in the South), the 1936 Tupelo/Gainesville tornadoes (which killed 800+), the “Superoutbreak” of tornadoes in 1974, and Wednesday’s. Note that these tornado outbreaks — which killed even more people — all occurred with cooler atmospheric temperatures. It is absurd to link Wednesday’s tornadoes to current world temperatures!

The article goes on to babble,

If scientists cannot be sure — or trusted, as doubters of climate change might say — then where should an ordinary person on the ground turn for solace or strength in the raging maw of a storm?

Can’t be “trusted”? As an atmospheric scientist, I resent this. Meteorologists have worked tirelessly over the last month to provide excellent forecasts and warnings of these storms that have been credited with having hundreds of lives.

Few publications can go off the rails like the Times when they want to find an excuse to write about ‘climate change.’ It would be nice if, occasionally, they got their facts right. 

But for the mainstream news media, which has thrown skepticism about the main cause and, more importantly, answers to global climate change that predates man and the Industrial Age (two words: Better adapt), facts get in the way of their story line.

That is the mainstream media’s excuse. There is no excuse for this:

ThinkProgress: Storm victims kind of had it coming, didn’t they?

Unlike James Wolcott, the writer doesn’t actually root for bad weather, he’s simply using the tragedy in the South to proselytize for his belief system.

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

Translation: ‘You know, it’s really awful what happened down there and all, but if you don’t believe in global warming, Gaia will end you.’

Thankfully, there is some pushback against this view from those in a position to know about such things, but I’m sure that opinion will be dismissed as heresy by the true believers.  There’s a bloody shirt to wave, after all.  Mankind must atone for its sins.

Meteorological Musings also passes on information about how to help the tornado victims. Somehow, I doubt ThinkProgress fans (one of whom’s address is at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.) will contribute.

For the record, the first tornado of 2011 was 20 days before the first tornado of 2010 … and before the start of Tornado and Severe Weather Awareness Week.

Not a bad lightning shot for a point-and-shoot. (Though there was little thunder in Ripon, there was continuous in-cloud lightning and rumbling to the north and northwest.) The bottom of the photo is the top of our house, so Jannan took this looking west.

Jannan’s camera does video!

Meanwhile,  to the north, Erica Dakins got these Stormageddon photos of lightning and downdrafts from Neenah: