Frick

Hello. I'm resident in the Joplin area and I wanted to share a few thoughts I have. I am not a weather expert, and I have only been learning about weather in SWMO and the area the last few years. I started learning because as I was able to see weather broadcasts and warnings on TV, I really wanted to zoom in on the area closer to where I lived. Weathermen/women can't always do that when there are multiple storms affecting thousands of people across an area like we seem to have in the area. Therefore I started reading about weather on forums such as this. Thanks everyone for the information in this thread. Before that I bought GR2Analyst and picked up multiple radios to listen to spotters. I watched the SPC forecasts and tried to stay updated. Joplin Tornado - I live on the north side of Joplin. I knew there was potential for major storms west of the area. My son wanted to play put-put golf that day. I told him sorry, we are staying close to home due to potentially bad weather. I watched storms approach from KS and OK. One cell looked like it had circulation and I think they did have sirens go off in Carl Junction or in the NW area of Joplin, This was the same time or right after the first sirens went off in Joplin. Then BOOM I was watching radar updates and I could not believe what I saw. Looking outside south towards the tornado all I could see what dark skies, lots of rain, and wind all around. I was a few miles north of the tornado. I posted my experiences on another weather forum thread (let me know if I can mention it here) Here are a few things I want to share and get thoughts on... - Siren fatigue - I am not sure what to do about this. I have experienced this Spring, just a few weeks ago May 20th I believe, when the sirens go off now some towns have cops that drive around and use a different toned siren on their cars to warn everyone as well. I heard city tornado sirens are to warn people outside and are not meant for everyone to hear inside, I don't know if that is true. However now we have sirens and cop cars driving around with sirens on. The May 20th incident there was a large area with a tornado warning. It looked to me like the circulation and tornado was down by Seneca and there was not anything close to Joplin. On the TV the weather woman said they are getting a lot of calls asking why the sirens keep going off. She said while the area is in a tornado warning, the sirens will turn on for period of time, then turn off. After 10 minutes they run on again and repeat. This will continue until the area is no longer in a tornado warning. Now I am not sure how many tornado warnings there are, but I can see why people have said they are turned on all the time. - Small tornadoes - Another thing I have experienced myself is a wall of storms moving across the area. A thunderstorm warning is issued, sometimes with hail confirmation. These storms happen quite often. They don't look like anything unusual. Then a small EF0 or EF1 tornado spins off it and causes damage. Sometimes the sirens turn on after this occurs as the tornado is not spotted until damage has occurred. When you combine this with the item above, you have overly amount of warnings for potential large tornadoes and potentially no warnings for small tornadoes. Again I have no idea what to do except let our experts keep studying and try to learn how to predict better. I can see how people living outside major tornado areas would think it seems silly people that live in tornado valley and other high risk areas are not informed more. The truth is you just never know even today when a tornado is going to hit. The only thing we seem to know is if a potentially large tornado COULD hit. - Hills & Trees - Growing up in the midwest plains north of here it was different. When we had storms we could look out across fields and see them coming. We could see funnel clouds, etc. There are many places in the Ozarks where it really is hard to see anything coming, except when it is right on you. There is a reason many storm chasers don't like to go over to Missouri/Arkansas, it's hard to see the tornadoes unless you are farther north. We rely on spotters to confirm tornadoes or rely on radar. I think sometimes "radar indicates..." warnings are also so numerous people don't take them seriously. - Weather Outlooks - When people look in the newspaper, online, or on TV, the weather reports state thunderstorms possible, or strong thunderstorms possible. Is this enough information? Shouldn't the experts agree to some kind of scale and rating system? I realize then people will just say well the sirens are going off but the news said it was a low threat. However if SPC has your area in a high risk for tornadoes or some of the other rating systems out there, shouldn't we have some scale to report along side the thunderstorms? I knew the weekend of the Joplin tornado it was not a good day to be outside, but did a majority of people know this? I don't think the general public knew then or knows today the same potential risk that people in the weather community know and talk about. On weather forums we are surrounded by people looking at data and making predictions. Then there are people like me that read this and tell our friends. There are a lot of people outside these circles of communication that don't know the escalated risk. - Local Folks - I don't know if it goes back to the mining days, when people from all over with different ethnic groups had to work together, rely on each other to make sure they were safe, that has rooted a fellowship with people in the area. Many people are very nice, and they help each other out. This was shown during the disaster. However I could see that when I moved here before then and it is one of the reason I like it in this area. The people are great.The surrounding communities and then farther away from all over, people were there to help. The local folks will never forget this. Thank you. Finally I have to say, that storm warnings scare the crap out of me now. I used to watch in awe of the weather growing up. I was scared but also never felt I was not safe. Even with looking at our warning system and potential changes, the truth is if you are in a monster storm you could die. It was posted here that reports are a majority of the people that were deceased from the Joplin tornado were in their homes probably taking cover. Having that knowledge, experiencing damage in different tornadoes, and not knowing if a warning is going to be a tornado or if some high winds are going to spin one off and I will not get a warning, makes for an unsettling feeling. When I watch the radar during the Spring and I look at Oklahoma, I don't think I could take living there. I can barely see myself staying here. Even if it's one in 200 million chance.