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Experimental tornado warnings sound terrifying
Published: 4/3/2012 5:31 PM
Last Modified: 4/3/2012 5:31 PM


A tornado touches down in Lancaster, Texas south of Dallas on Tuesday, April 3, 2012. Tornadoes tore through the Dallas area Tuesday, peeling roofs off homes, tossing big-rig trucks into the air and leaving flattened tractor trailers strewn along highways and parking lots. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Parrish Velasco)

Things got very hectic in the Dallas metro area this afternoon.

At least three storms were tornado-warned as they went through some very populated areas in the city.

There is incredible video and photos of the storm pouring in, and once they do, I’ll put a collection of them for your pursing tomorrow.

In there meantime, here is this, which appears to be a legitimate screen-grab from WFAA in Dallas. I say appears because I saw it on Twitter, and we know how funny the Internet can be sometimes. What looks like tractor trailers are being tossed around like toys in the tornado. Incredible.



Injury reports seem to be minimal right now, and let’s hope it stays that way.

Had these storms been in Kansas or Missouri, weather radios could have been screaming about “mass devastation.”

Beginning yesterday, National Weather Service offices in those states will be testing the experimental warning system, which will put tornado warnings into three categories: a standard warning, a warning of a “particularly dangerous situation” when a tornado has been spotted on the ground and a “tornado emergency” that could include graphic descriptions of the storm, such as “un-survivable.”

The report advocates for a simple, impact-based, tiered information structure which promotes warning credibility and empowers individuals to quickly make appropriate decisions in the face of adverse conditions.

Here is an example of what one of those warnings could look like for a very clear and present danger, from the NWS:

    "THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION.
    HAZARD...DEADLY TORNADO.
    SOURCE... EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CONFIRMED LARGE AND DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO
    IMPACT... COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS IS LIKELY. MANY WELL-BUILT HOMES AND BUSINESSES WILL BE COMPLETELY SWEPT FROM THEIR FOUNDATIONS. DEBRIS WILL BLOCK MOST ROADWAYS. MASS DEVASTATIONS IS HIGHLY LIKELY, MAKING THE AREA UNRECOGNIZABLE TO SURVIVORS. TORNADO MAY BE UN-SURVIVABLE IF SHELTER IS NOT SOUGHT BELOW GROUND LEVEL."


While it seems to be hyperbole, there are reasons for the change, principal of which was last May’s massive and deadly tornado in Joplin that killed nearly 160 people.

In the NOAA report about the Joplin tornado, the weather service determined that a person’s response to a tornado warning is complex. Factors that include in a person’s response include false calls, time between the warning and event and the people waiting for more information.

Here is a quote from the Joplin report that illustrates that:

    “The vast majority of Joplin residents did not immediately take protective action upon receiving a first indication of risk (usually via the local siren system), regardless of the source of the warning. Most chose to further assess their risk by waiting for, actively seeking, and filtering additional information.
    "The reasons for doing so were quite varied, but largely depended on an individual‘s worldview formed mostly by previous experience with severe weather. Most importantly, the perceived frequency of siren activation in Joplin led the majority of survey participants to become desensitized or complacent to this method of warning. This suggests that initial siren activations in Joplin (and severe weather warnings in general) have lost a degree of credibility for most residents – one of the most valued characteristics for successful risk communication.”


By issuing these new warnings, forecasters hope people will heed the warnings if they have a better idea of what is coming. I know the strongest language will be used only in really and actually dangerous situations, but it seems like to fear factor is turned up a little too high.

What do you think? Would you be more inclined to run for the deepest hole you can find if you heard the warning above? Holla at me on Twitter or in the comments down there.

--Jerry Wofford



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Almanac
View 2012
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
TemperaturePrecipitation
DateHigh TempLow TempTotalMonth to dateHistorical average
1 44° 16° 0 0.00 0.05
2 59° 24° 0 0.00 0.11
3 57° 33° 0 0.00 0.16
4 68° 37° Trace 0.00 0.21
5 69° 29° 0 0.00 0.26
6 66° 33° 0 0.00 0.32
7 59° 38° 0.05 0.05 0.38
8 51° 34° 0 0.05 0.44
9 44° 36° 0.01 0.06 0.51
10 62° 37° 0.07 0.13 0.57
11 54° 28° 0 0.13 0.64
12 44° 30° 0.25 0.38 0.70
13 55° 40° 0.01 0.39 0.76
14 ° ° 0.83
15 ° ° 0.89
16 ° ° 0.95
17 ° ° 1.02
18 ° ° 1.09
19 ° ° 1.16
20 ° ° 1.23
21 ° ° 1.31
22 ° ° 1.38
23 ° ° 1.46
24 ° ° 1.53
25 ° ° 1.61
26 ° ° 1.69
27 ° ° 1.77
28 ° ° 1.85

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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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