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The Accuracy Of Severe Weather Warnings In Meteorology

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Meteorology, when compared to other sciences like Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, is a relatively new area of study. Most advancement in meteorological technology has occurred within about the last hundred years, and because of its relatively recent development, there has not been an adequate amount of research in the subject. The science has advanced enough to now issue weather watches and warnings, including severe thunderstorm, tornado, flood, and other types. However, in the past these severe weather warnings have been highly inaccurate and unreliable, and most tornado warnings in previous years have allowed for almost no time to get to safety. Tornadoes are some of the most dangerous natural disasters to occur, and it is crucial that …show more content…

In 1986, according to Brotzge and Donner, “the tornado warning lead time was approximately five minutes” (1715). Because of the slower communication speeds at the time, a five-minute lead gave the public nearly no time to react to the warning (Howard). A large improvement began in the late 1980s to increase lead times. Completed in 1993, an upgraded WSR-88D Doppler radar was implemented, which, according to Brian Clark Howard on National Geographic, was “a new radar system that could see both the rain and the wind inside the storms.” This upgrade almost doubled the previous warning lead time (Howard). Improving still, by 2004, the average lead time for tornado warnings was 13 minutes (Brotzge and Donner 1715). While this is a drastic improvement from the five-minute lead time of the 1980s, 13 minutes may still not be enough time. An individual, for instance, does not need much time to get to safety, but large buildings holding many people need more time to follow emergency evacuation plans. For example, “a hospital might need to call in staff to help move patients or ready emergency rooms” …show more content…

Why are so many people still caught in these severe storms? One issue is the development of false alarms. A false alarm, as defined in the Bulletin of the National Meteorological Society, is “an event … forecast to occur [that] did not,” and these false alarms have created a problem that, unfortunately, does not have a simple solution. In 2003, the false-alarm rate (FAR) was 0.76, meaning that only one in every four tornado warnings was associated with an actual tornado (“Can Close Calls Help” 1529). Paul et al also confirm that the reported FAR in 2004 depicted that “a tornado does not occur within the warned area ‘nearly three out of four times’,” and while fluctuating over time, the FAR remains close to this same rate (111). While taking a “better safe than sorry” approach, forecasters have inadvertently created a problem with “over-warning” severe storms, which causes people to be more likely to ignore tornado warnings that have a low probability of producing a tornado (Paul et al. 111). A specific example of false alarms creating larger-scale problems is the famous EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri in May 2011. According to Paul et al, the “EF-5 multiple-vortex tornado” extended to “nearly a mile in width after touching down … [and] generated at least a six-mile-long path” across the city of Joplin (108). This tornado destroyed thousands of homes,

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