I recently read Storm Chaser and respected tornado scientist Dr. Chuck Doswell’s latest essay titled – “An Incident Leading to an Implication of Unfullfilled Promises,” which as Chuck’s essays usually do made me do a lot of thinking. The gist of the essay refers to the fact that on June 12th, 2009 at 10:23 PM CDT a tornado formed in the “heart of meteorology” (Norman, Oklahoma) and it ended about 10:38 PM.
The National Weather Service Office in Norman issued the Tornado Warning at 10:24 PM – well within enough time to warn that majority of the public to the impending threat. However, the tornado sirens within the City of Norman didn’t activate until 10:40 PM, 2 minutes after the tornado threat was over. So what or who failed?
That happens all the time. Doswell touched on this and so will I – during my time storm chasing I have often come across towns that have actived their tornado siren systems, sometimes in advance of an approaching tornado threat and quite a few times when there isn’t any real threat at all to that specific community.
But this is 2009, as Doswell also points out in his essay the meteorological community was in the middle of a very expensive ($11.9 million) project when this tornado happened, that project is called Vortex-2 and it’s slated to continue into 2010. For the entire month of May there was a heavy PR campaign focused on Vortex-2, about how the project would allow tornado scientist to gain tons of new meteorological information about tornadoes to create better warning systems and so on.
But, after the Norman tornado event on June 12th, 2009 – you really have to ask yourself, “Do we really need more advanced knowledge of supercells and/or tornadoes, if for the purpose of a better warning system?”
It could be debated that if warning meteorologist at OUN knew that the storm near Norman was going to produce a tornado 10-minutes ahead of time, that they could have issued a warning then and gave the emergency management people in the City of Norman that 10-minutes to alert the public with the tornado sirens.
Or, it could be debated that we’re putting the cart before the horse. That we possibly already have technology that is “good enough” to detect tornadoes and in fact its so good that its completely worthless if it takes 10-minutes to start alerting the public once the tornado warning is issued.
Now, before the Emergency Management community starts jumping on me with “You’re just a storm chaser, what do you know about what we do…” (which I can already hear), let me show you this:
Brian's EMI Certificates
Granted, I’m not an expert in Emergency Management and I don’t claim to be one. And, I’m not picking on CEM, I just don’t want CEM picking on me for merely stating the way I feel about this issue. I’ve done my volunteer duty in Oklahoma and in Florida, and I’ve been to EMI both in Maryland and online, I understand your challenges and I feel your pain. But, someone failed on June 12th, 2009 in Norman and it my opinion it wasn’t the National Weather Service or any of the NOAA offices in Norman.
That being said, I also believe that perhaps we should be putting money where it’s needed most. Does the NOAA really need millions of dollars for “tornado research” when they can push out a tornado warning in mere seconds after a tornado forms, and often minutes before – or, would it perhaps be more wise to spend that kind of money creating better dissemenation tools to get those warnings out to the public in a quicker and more efficient manner?
I personally (my opinion only) don’t want to see tornado warnings being issued 30-minutes before a “possible tornado”. I really don’t want to see a 20, or 15-minute warning before a tornado forms. This is an old debate, but I think a 5 to 10-minute warning is about right. The problem is that people take shelter and after 10-minutes of “nothing” they can get a false impression that it was another “false alarm” and just as soon as they leave their shelter, disaster can strike.
But a 10-minute warning, or even a “1-minute” warning should work, as long as it gets from the NWS to the Public immediately. We’re always going to be after better technology, more knowledge, faster computers, etc… But from what I have seen, and based on my experiences – the technology and knowledge that we have at the present day is already faster than the ability to effectively warn.
Perhaps before millions of “tornado research” dollars are spent we should get the horse in front of the cart first. Otherwise, the purpose defeats itself.
Futher reading -
Essay by Storm Chaser Dr. Chuck Doswell: http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/Warning_performance.html
SPC’s Roger Edwards reflects on the June 12, 2009 tornado: http://stormeyes.org/wp/2009/06/thoughts-on-the-norman-tornado-of-12-june-2009/
Norman resident Benjamin Vassmer’s video of the tornado:
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