Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Independent Review Needed for Weather Disasters and Warning Verification

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As a 35-year national NWS forecaster and researcher in severe and tropical meteorology, I support the bipartisan National Weather Safety Board (NWSB) Act, which would provide an NTSB-like board review of weather disasters. Numerous other meteorologists and I have suggested something akin to this for many years.

While I agree with fellow retired NWS scientist Alan Gerard in his “Substack” column that it doesn’t do enough to evaluate non-weather disasters nor NWS performance, we shouldn’t let the perfect get in the way of the good. The NWSB Act would be a positive step toward learning from weather disasters in a systematic, consistent and accountable way, not the overpoliticized, self-interested, wagon-circling shams that the “NWS Service Assessments” often became.

Improving NWS verification services may need separate legislative action anyway, especially to address one of the most blatant, yet little-discussed, conflicts of interest that exist in all of federal government, and has for decades: verification of weather warnings by the very same offices that issue them (often, even the same forecasters).

This includes rampant use of estimated — as opposed to measured — wind and hail reports, with over 90% of thunderstorm-wind “verification” being estimates and, based on human wind-tunnel experiments, overestimates. [For much more on this, read a formally peer-reviewed, scientific publication that I lead-authored.] It’s a fox-guarding-henhouse verification system rife with opportunities for padding and inflation, regardless of how much actually happens (which is practically unknowable).

As someone who loves the NWS as a 35-year public servant there, and sees it as an extremely valuable service for the taxpayer (at a bit over a penny a person a day), its very integrity and scientific credibility depend on eliminating conflicts of interest, and ensuring optimal service through independent evaluation of both disaster services and warning performance.

One likely finding I already predict, with great confidence, will be that NWS technology and delivery each need vast improvement. Due in part to longstanding short-staffing and failure to encourage and enable true innovation, both NWS’ front-facing forecast suite (including web/app presence) and internal capabilities have become vastly outdated.

To wit, we should have been using four-dimensional, XYZ-plane-rotatable displays of model and radar fields by the time I retired, on touchscreens. That tech has been in the media at least 25 years, gaming industry since the late 1990s, Hollywood even earlier. Three-dimensional storm simulations have been around in research since 1978, on then-massive computers with less capacity than high-end gaming desktops and cloud computing of today, and finescale simulations of tornadoes and their parent supercells with Hollywood-quality graphic output were run a decade ago, on data far denser than modern operational weather models.

Instead, the most advanced severe-weather forecast operation in the world (SPC) still was — and remains — stuck with 30-year-old 2D display systems and having to mouse-click individual points on outlook lines (instead of using a stylus or finger to save time). The only 3D rotatable displays in the NWS are in licensed private-sector radar software (GR2 Analyst)!

We already should have had nationally deployed, phased-array, dual-polarization radar by 2011 when in reality, the old, greasy mechanical dishes (increasingly failure prone) were retrofitted with dual-pol. Both phased array and dual-pol tech, BTW, were in military and lab use before I was born. One is still not in our radars.

As for forecast presentation, technical discussions for other meteorologists still have their place, and should. Yet I agree with those who say we (NWS, of which I am a proud retiree) could do a much better job conveying threats in meaningful, animated, easy to understand ways. Yes, that should include robust app development and aggressive use of modern web capabilities—not handcuffing ourselves to the slowest common denominator of 486 processors and Netscape because somebody, somewhere, might still be using a teletype emulator. Hell, it wasn’t until just a decade ago that we quit using ALL CAPS in everything, like it was still 1967.

It’s baffling that we still have to issue watches with expiration times, instead of rolling them along open-ended with the threats, as we discussed among us (“amoeba watches”) for 20+ years. That predates the oft-tested, never implemented concept of “Threats in Motion” for warnings, which is very similar, and which also is long past technological capability for operationalizing. Funding (or lack thereof) has played a role, but in my experience, bureaucratic intransigence and a CYA culture frightened of innovation was at least as responsible.

Independent review would highlight shortcomings — both technological and situational — not to assign blame, but to spotlight areas for improvement. NWS, and the entire weather enterprise, should welcome true accontability!

Elementary Supercell Delight

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A recent posting of this meme on Facebook brought a flood of fond memories, and in more ways than you may think…


This never was more true than on 3 May 1979, less than three weeks after the Wichita Falls tornado left an indelible mark on my childhood.

During mid-late in the morning, I noticed the sky steadily darkening outside. The constant level of fluorescent light in the room seemed ever brighter as outdoor luminosity dimmed to intensely (and for many, frightening) low levels. It seemed like late twilight at 10:00 a.m., and streetlights came on brilliantly. After several close lightning strikes unleashed essentially instantaneous blasts of thunder over my elementary school, the principal announced we would be staying in the same rooms until the severe weather passed.

My teacher brought the TV in for keeping up with repeated tornado warnings for Dallas County and radar updates from Harold Taft on Channel 5 (KXAS). Never had I seen Harold’s tone so serious, as he urged folks in Dallas to take shelter. Three times we did just that, assuming standard crouched positions against the walls of interior hallways. One such occasion was after I looked out a back (W) window and noticed a narrow, short-lived funnel a few miles to the WSW–later found to have matched the time of an F1 tornado that briefly struck near Stemmons Freeway, just NW of downtown. [Click here for map of area tornadoes that day.]

From 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., we experienced some part of three separate HP supercells, with 5 tornado warnings for Dallas County, along with multiple episodes of both green sky outside and golfball-sized hail. It seemed as if distant sirens wailed all day long, when they could be heard above the din of the storms. Three tornadoes from two of those supercells struck parts of the city of Dallas. This disrupted lunch and class schedules.

At one particular point, there was deep darkness outside, hail banging on the windows, ear-splitting and window-rattling CGs every 5-10 seconds, girls crying, boys nervous…and me ecstatic, seated right by the windows with a big, contented smile on my face. This was a splendid school day indeed–no schoolwork got done, and there was little else to do but watch the storm and follow the sheltering herd when told. This was way too much fun for a storm-loving kid!

To top it off, a CG struck a pecan tree nearly overhead as I was running home through the N rim of the last storm (in violation of orders to stay at school past the final bell). Dazed, wet, ears sore, but otherwise intact, I got back up and proceeded home, not realizing yet that two nearby dogs had been killed. Good riddance too–they were ill-tempered Dobermans who had jumped their fence and come after me on a few occasions. Problem solved.

To me, at that time, the fact I also could have been killed was immaterial since, well…I still was alive. My mom didn’t appreciate that line of reasoning, however, and neither did the teacher who had noticed that I was missing from the last sardine-stack of sheltering pupils.

Yes, the TV in the classroom was a favorite setting, especially on one wondrously menacing weather day in May.

Diane Sawyer Lies to America

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Last night’s tornado event across Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee was thoroughly warned by all the local NWS offices involved. It was contained in the preceding day’s national severe-weather outlooks from SPC, and in tornado watches too.

The news of casualties from the tornadoes is terrible; but those deaths did not happen due to an absence of warnings!

Now, via this link to James Spann’s Facebook page, watch Diane Sawyer tell a baldfaced whopper to the entire nationwide viewing audience.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150546942749936

“No warning”? ABSOLUTELY WRONG! I resent such misrepresentations and join James in calling them out.

Even if some lazy ignoramus behind the scenes wrote the script for her, she–of all people–should know better than to regurgitate it, facts unchecked! That violates the fundamental core tenet that every journalism student learns in high school and college.

This has to stop. And Diane Sawyer needs to perform an on-air retraction of her false claim.

James Spann, for those who don’t know, is a highly respected TV meteorologist in Birmingham (at an ABC station, no less!), whose courage I hugely admire for publicly calling attention to it. Folks, James was on the air all night last night, tirelessly and continually delivering the warnings and updates of all kinds to his viewing audience, and doing so with clarity and purpose. I saw this for myself, real-time, as part of a regimen to remain situationally aware as the outbreak was unfolding (and as I was analyzing and forecasting the event in the short term).

For the sad truth of the casualties that did happen, the other side to the truth is that the NWS and outlets like James’ saved many more lives last night. Then here comes Diane Sawyer, blurting out a gross falsehood and, in doing so, denigrating the hard work and dedication of the entire Integrated Warning System (including national and local forecasters, spotters, and conscientious, hard-working media members such as James). He has every right to be upset; and I am also.

The sort of “hit without warning” stupidity, in on-air reporting of tornado events, is nothing new. It has been going on for many, many years. When you hear such statements, challenge them. “It hit without warning” almost never is true anymore for strong and violent tornadoes. It is possible that a killer tornado can hit “without warning”? Yes. Rarely, it can and does happen. But it didn’t happen last night.

Those tornadoes were warned and warned well. If the victims didn’t get the warning, it wasn’t because there was no warning! It is up to everyone to make sure he/she can receive warnings when they are issued–whether by having a weather radio, an automated alert system via phone alarm or app, or tuning in to their own local version of James Spann who is providing the life-saving information–to make sure sturdy shelter is accessible in seconds when a watch is out, and to make sure elderly and infirm loved ones are not left vulnerable. And don’t depend on outdoor sirens; they’re for outdoor use, and often sound far away from the threat.

I’m glad that James called attention to this, and am glad to join him in doing so–because maybe, just maybe, this is the event that finally motivates on-air TV personalities and reporters who are not meteorologists to get their facts straight with regard to whether the tornadoes had warnings.

[EDIT] That wasn’t the only bogus information ABC News propagated either. According to this entry in the FEMA BLOG: “This evening, ABC mistakenly reported that individuals can sign up for weather alerts through FEMA. We’ve seen a lot of interest from the public following that report and we wanted to correct that point: FEMA does not send out alerts as this is a local responsibility. ”

Wow. As James said, don’t let facts get in the way of a good story…

[EDIT 2 Days later] Something good came of all this–largely thanks to James Spann and his multimedia followers, I suspect. I found out secondhand, through a friend who watched, that Diane Sawyer did do another story noting the goodness of the warnings. James also got some airtime in the story. While not a retraction, per se, that should suffice to set the record straight. Next time, Dianne, don’t go blurting unsubstantiated and potentially libelous (to the forecasters) rubbish to begin with!