Tornado warnings spark backlash
As forecasters across the country try to warn the public about perilous weather events, their message sometimes gets blown away by another powerful force: human nature.
Complaints and complacency have been the reactions engendered at times by a mounting number of tornado warnings as a large swath of the U.S. is battered by one twister after another.
Tuesday represented the 12th consecutive day that at least eight tornadoes were reported to the National Weather Service, covering the usual Southwest and Midwest hot spots but stretching as far east as New York and New Jersey.
A rash of tornadoes cut a path of destruction from eastern Indiana through central Ohio on Monday, leaving thousands without power and doing much of their damage around Dayton, Ohio.
But as the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, many area residents were more concerned with developments in “The Bachelorette” reality show and lashed out via social media when Dayton TV station Fox 45 cut away to a weather update. Meteorologist Jamie Simpson said on air their reaction was “pathetic.” This is not an isolated incident. At the same time Tiger Woods was making his thrilling charge to victory on the final day of last month’s Masters golf tournament, dangerous storms pounded parts of the Southeast, and the CBS affiliate in Atlanta interrupted the broadcast for a weather update. Meteorologist Ella Dorsey said she received death threats as a result.
“We see this time and time again,” said Victor Gensini, an assistant professor in the Department of Geographic and Atmospheric Sciences at Northern Illinois University.
“When they break into programming, they’re getting chastised for doing that, yet they’re trying to save the lives of people a couple of counties away from them. These warnings are extremely important and help save lives.”
Gensini emphasized that tornado warnings are different from forecasts and are only issued when the phenomenon has been spotted by a storm chaser or detected by Doppler radar.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, delivers outlooks for severe weather up to eight days in advance. That information is taken in by the 122 National Weather Service offices throughout the country – including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Guam – and forecasters at the individual locations combine it with satellite images and radar readings before determining when and where to issue weather warnings.
Those alerts are distributed to broadcast meteorologists and the public, which may receive them via their cellphones. That’s not the case for the majority, though.
“Even in the modern era of cellphones, most people still receive their weather warnings through broadcast media, especially local broadcasters,” said Kim Klockow-McClain, research scientist with the University of Oklahoma’s Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies
“But the disadvantage of broadcast media is that it is widespread over a large area ... so you can have a part of it that’s affected and a large part of it that’s not directly impacted.”