AtticaFanatica

Also, I'd suggest reading Wurman et al. (2007), in which the authors use realistic models of violent tornadoes and previous fatality information to estimate worse case scenarios in populated areas. It's a reasonable attempt at an admittedly complex hypothetical scenario, but it shows just how bad tornadoes in urban areas potentially could be. It's just not a pretty situation.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-88-1-31

Ok,but you were agreeing with a post saying that people are just failing to accept that life sucks and crap happens. That's why I asked-- because by having service assessments in the first place, the organization is taking a position that there are improvements to be made to the service, and that we don't just have to accept that this tragedy should have happened in the way that it did.

You can engage me directly, it's simpler, I don't bite.

Obviously, there are things that can be improved upon in relaying information. However, given the state of that information, current implemented radar technology, where the tornado formed, how strong it was, and where it struck, I don't believe there are many more lives that could have been saved. I realize this will never be a popular opinion because people always want someone to blame. In this case, the drive to do so is not surprising, but the evidence used to do so is inadequate.

The inability for humans to accept that, sometimes, life sucks and **** happens is at play more in this case than any other I can remember.

Wow - just Read Mike Smith's new book about the Joplin, MO tornado. A damninnnnnnnnngggggg assessment against the Springfield, MO NWS. I don't think it could have been any more stinging than what is written in that book. Ouch.

For what?

Blindly saying everyone has a choice is not accurate. Some folks have medical conditions and physical limitations that will automatically make that person ineligible for military service.

I think we all get what he meant.

I never like it when the veteran subject comes up because it is a very sensitive subject. How can anyone argue against someone who has put their life on the line for their country? I have friends who have died in the military (one a good friend who died at age of 20) in Iraq. What I dislike is this often devolves into a veteran vs. non-veteran discussion, something it was never meant to be. Veterans performed a special purpose very few can ever claim, but I do believe the job should go to the best qualified. Is a Ph.D the most qualified? An experienced and trained meteorologist? A veteran? The hiring process is far from perfect, and it never will be, but I hope non-vets will consider the sacrifice of vets, and I hope vets will consider the sacrifice of long-term students/graduate students who have advanced meteorology to where it is today (compare it to 50 years ago). Life is unfair for everyone and there isn't much we can do but try the best we can.

Yes.

i'm sorry, but someone who has veterans status sure stands out in my book, over someone who spent their life in academia where their biggest worry was some research paper, or launching a weather balloon

I agree with you but there are probably better and more effective ways to state your cause than minimizing others.

well, i have been keeping an eye on this topic...truthfully, this thread brings up one of my biggest concerns since i'm thinking about putting in the effort and money to finish up my met degree...is it worth it? what happens if i take out more loans (i already have a BS ) and put in the time to go back to school, but then can't find crap for work? or not end up doing anything with my degree? (that would make two degrees i'm not doing anything with)

i wrestle with that reality, a lot...

In most M.S. programs, you're given a tuition waiver and a stipend, so it shouldn't further your student debt.

Valid point. But width does seem to have at least some record keeping value considering you cant search for "widest tornado" without Hallum Nebraska showing up in the results.

Yes, width information is kept in Storm Data, for example. However, as with wind speed estimations, I think the error bars on the width estimations likely preclude deriving anything of value from them on an individual basis.

And that it was the widest EF5 in US history. Not sure about that one, I thought OKC May 9th 1999 was wider but Tornado Tony might know.

It's pretty much impossible to gauge how wide individual tornadoes are using just visual and damage indicators. I wouldn't put much, if any, weight to declarations of this or that tornado being the widest.

The current tornado rating procedure, the Enhanced Fujita intensity scale, lacks adequate indicators for estimating the intensity of tornadoes such as the one in Joplin.

Well yeah.

I would think so. The number of buildings that can withstand 210 mph winds is likely pretty small, so the likelihood of them actually getting hit is tiny. So even if the winds were that high, there is no way of being able to prove it

Exactly

If there's no structure/DI deemed strong enough to withstand winds >210 mph, then that's all they can estimate. It's an inherent limitation to the rating process and why the wind estimates, particularly in EF-5 tornadoes, tell one very little.

I think you're right, but how else can we compare historic events? Or are you saying we can't?

Not with an accuracy level I'd feel comfortable with, no.

EF scale ratings have error bars large enough, let alone any actual wind value estimates. I would have little to no confidence in the validity of a comparison between two tornadoes based on the wind estimates that result from a damage-based tornado survey.

Not to my knowledge. And I don't see that normal statement in your sig so maybe I'm off, but your statement was part of why I made my comment. You're clearly extremely intelligent etc., I just found it offputting.

You found what I said off-puting? Ok, well I meant every word of it. Regardless, I haven't made a forecast in a decade. I'm about as far away from the NWS as anybody. That doesn't change that the AccuWeather statement is completely absurd.

I don't quite understand what you mean by my sig. I don't think I've ever had a sig.

Edit: Ok, I see what you meant, the "my opinions are mine alone blah blah blah..." But yeah, I don't work for the NWS and never will.

I find the back and forth between NWS types and AccuWx kind of amusing. It's almost like grade school. Again, I'd back the NWS 9+ out of 10 times but sometimes things just get too emotionally driven and people don't even actually look at things which are worth addressing as they are blinded by the other stuff. I have no doubt that there are assessments going on within the gov as to what went wrong this spring.

Has the NWS responded at all regarding the tornado stuff?

For instance, AccuWeather's WeatherData Services accurately sent out a tornado warning for one of our SkyGuard clients in the Joplin area before the devastating twisters hit the ground at 5:16 p.m. on May 22, which protected both people and property.

During the Joplin, Mo. event, emergency sirens sounded 20 minutes before the twister landed. However, many people were still caught off guard. This was likely in part due to the high proportion of precautionary alarms given by the National Weather Service in the past. The Tornado Warning false alarm rate for the Springfield, Mo. NWS office, for example, was 76 percent from 2008 through May 22. If you look at 2010 through May 22, the rate was 85 percent. In addition, according to a recent survey on AccuWeather.com's Facebook page, 90 percent of our fans who voted thought they only needed less than 10 minutes to get to safety when a tornado is approaching.

While the National Weather Service warnings are a boon to the public at large, they are not suited to the requirements of specific businesses. False alarms are not only inconvenient to the public, they can also be serious issues for businesses.

"To a hospital, a false alarm takes the focus off patient care and forces medically difficult sheltering," said Mike Smith, Senior Vice President/Chief Innovation Executive of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions. "To an automotive plant, a rapid unplanned shutdown prompted by a false alarm, for example, can ruin automobiles being painted, at considerable cost."

Classless money grab combined with fairytale science. Sounds about right.

An honest--question, what are the chances V2 would have secured its funding (or the amount of funding it eventually achieved) if it did not include "increased warning times" and "lived saved" in proposals?

I am certainly not in the know about that stuff, but my guess is that those chances would have been very low.

edit: from the V2 SPO, upon reading it again, I think its contents regarding the project's rationale are fair and reasonable:

Intellectual merit. VORTEX2 is designed to improve our understanding of tornadogenesis, which ultimately will better allow us to assess the likelihood of tornadoes in supercell thunderstorms and possibly even tornado intensity, longevity, and cyclic behavior. Moreover, VORTEX2 is expected to improve vastly our understanding of the range of tornado structures and the relationships between tornado structure and characteristics of the parent thunderstorm.

Broader impacts. VORTEX2 is expected to lead to further improvements in tornado warning skill. It is believed that storm-scale numerical weather prediction must play a prominent role in the initiative to improve short-term forecasts of severe weather; multi-sensor and multi-scale VORTEX2 datasets will serve as a testbed for numerical storm-scale prediction experiments. VORTEX2 will better our understanding of the relationships between tornadoes, their parent convection, and the larger-scale environment. Better insight into these relationships is essential if reliable long-term predictions are to be made of changes in the frequency and geographical distribution of tornadoes due to climate change. Quantification of the actual temporal and spatial distribution of winds impacting structures will enable better engineering standards to be developed. Lastly, VORTEX2 includes an innovative educational component in which students will participate in a series of scientific seminars presented in the field by the many participating severe storm expert PIs.

But in dealing with the media it was always "save lives/property/warning lead times" sound bites and that's it; the document above provides a more nuanced and, I think, honest assessment of the project's goals.

Agreed, but this is not a surprise. I think most people would see that. We are driven mostly by curiosity. Its great to try and save lives...and that is a big plus with severe storm research....but in the end, its kind of a fake line. Tornadoes are cool, quite interesting, and relatively little is known about them, so people study them. But potentially saving lives is a nice addition to that field.

I will potentially save lives by forecasting a snowstorm more accurately and trying to advance the techniques of forecasting them, but I was interested in the field because I love the power of snowstorms and like heavy snow rates.

Yes, anything I discover in my research is not likely to increase warning times. I'd like to think so and it's possible, but I'm driven more by discovery than applicability and I'd guess that most in the field (research field anyway) are like that. Doesn't make for a good sound bite or funding rationale to politicians though.

I'd guess most chasers are the same way. It's nice that they can say that, through Spotter Net and other media, they can inform local offices of tornadoes, but that's not why most of them are out there.

You are a lot more noble than I am to humanity. I went into meteorology (and stuck with it) because I love snowflakes piling up at a rapid pace.

Yeah, I mean that I'm more driven by intellectual curiosity of my research topics than by money. I do think the whole "improve warnings/saving lives" mantra that was repeated continually during V2 had elements of disingenuousness to it.

no I do; but the people who are arguing against me are also saying the exact same stuff ("it's not all about the money" or "if you have drive you can be successful", etc), over and over again. It works both ways:)

We'll get through this.

Your points don't anger anyone, I think they have some merit, but you just say the exact same thing over and over again every time someone posts something that you don't agree with, and you don't seem to realize it.

well you can't live off of 35K a year and support a family.

Engineering... Engineering... Engineering...

Everything else is pretty much toilet paper degree unless you get a masters.

Graduated last year in engineering making 60K a year straight outta the gate

Cool

Possibly...I am considering possibly going into the realm of ocean-atmosphere interaction and am looking at some oceanography programs. I can definitely see how climate change could be applied to this topic though. Are the opportunities more numerous in this area? Your response would seem to imply it.

Most definitely, yes.