Lynchburg - Dodsonville, Ohio EF0 June 4, 2014

Hook echo indicating the rotation of the supercell updraft on June 4, 2014 at 3:41PM EDT

EF3 Tornado May 14, 2014, Cdearville, Warren Co. OH

Cedarville tornado at maximum strength approximately 2150z (5:50 pm EDT).

Photographer unknown.

Cedarville EF3 tornado hook echo. Note this is from the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar TDAY.
The appearance of the hook is attenuated by heavy rain between the radar site northeast of Cedarville
and the hook.First frame 2137z  Last frame 2206z, one-minute time resolution.
Animated gifs behave sporadically at times and if looping stops reload the page.

Above and below same shot different angle from the southwest. Storm movement is to the 

northeast ( into the screen and away from you). Pay attention to the left (west edge of the storm.

Above and below same shot different angle from the south. Storm movement is to the 

northeast (into the screen). Notice the development of the mesocyclone 

on the west edge of the storm.

Above and below same shot different angle from the south. Storm movement is to the 

northeast (into the screen). Note the well developed mesocyclone corresponding 

with the read color on the PPI (Plan Position Indicator or map view).

Little Rock, Arkansas Area EF4 - April 27, 2014 Hook Echo

Hook Echo 7:56 PM EDT - 9:02 PM EDT (6:56 to 8:02 PM CDT or 23:56z 27April to 0102z 28 April)

Track of the supercell on radar. Track #1 was the EF4, the rotation weakened then the storm 

spun up again and the later tornadoes were weak. Courtesy NSSL and NWS, Little Rock.

Weather map from 00z 4.28.2014 (8PM EDT 4.27.2014 EDT). Little rock was in the warm sector with plenty of surface convergence close to the surface low and also plenty of available environmental rotation. Courtesy NWS, Little Rock.

Reality Check: Should The National Weather Service Issue Tornado Warnings for Brief, Weak Funnels Rated as EF0s and EF1s.

The text below is the script from a segment I researched and presented on WXIX-TV, Cincinnati, OH on Tuesday February 25, 2014.

As a TV meteorologist I realize, as do many - if not most - of my colleagues that there is a big problem with the NWS over warning tornadoes.

The national false alarm rate is about 75% and despite that their tornado data, on file with NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, clearly shows this is unnecessary they continue with no sign that this flawed policy will be changed.

In fact research indicates it could be dangerous in the long-term.

The record of the NWS is good for big tornadoes EF3, EF4 and EF5 storms but for the small, weak, brief spin up whirlwinds the record of the NWS is poor if not dangerous.

Here is the text of my report. After that there is additional information not contained in the story. It is in all caps because I cut and pasted it directly from the FOX19 system which is in all caps for the teleprompter.

VO = voice over, reporter is not on screen
GFX = graphics

----- Begin Script -----

THE FALSE ALARM PROBLEM 

[STEVE ON CAM]

TO BE CLEAR THIS REALITY CHECK IS NOT ABOUT HOW WELL NWS WILMINGTON DOES THEIR JOB …

… BUT ABOUT A TORNADO WARNING POLICY THAT TREATS WEAK SPIN UP FUNNELS THE SAME AS MONSTER KILLER TORNADOES. THAT POLICY IS SET AT HIGH LEVELS IN THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BUREAUCRACY …

LET ME SHOW YOU WHY THAT POLICY NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

ON THE HIGH END OF THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE --- BIG TORNADOES ---

[VO BIG TORNADO VIDEO THEN DAMAGE ]

THE EF 3s, 4s AND 5s REQUIRE BIG THUNDERSTORMS WITH STRONG ROTATION. THEY ARE EASY TO SEE ON DOPPLER RADAR AND EASY TO WARN.

THEY ARE THE HEADLINE GRABBERS - THAT CREATE NIGHTMARES LIKE THIS.

THE BIG ONES MAKE UP LESS THAN 6% OF THE TOTAL NUMBER OF TORNADOES.

[STEVE ON CAM]

BUT ALMOST 80% OF ALL TORNADOES END UP ON THE LOW END OF THE ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE RATED AS EF1s AND EF0s.

[VO GFX FULL SCREEN – LEADING EDGE RADAR IMAGES FROM OSGOOD 02.17.2014]
Link to Osgood Radar Images: 

http://stevehorstmeyer.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-ef1-near-osgood-indiana-20feb2014.html

THEY ARE SMALL VORTICES AT THE FONT EDGE OF A THUNDERSTORM … THEY SPIN UP QUICKLY … AND TOUCH DOWN BRIEFLY.

THEY ARE HARD TO SEE ON RADAR AND THEY ARE THE SOURCE OF THE MAJORITY OF THE FALSE ALARMS.

[VO VIDEO FROM OSGOOD INDIANA THURSDAY 2.20.2014]

THIS  DAMAGE FROM NEAR OSGOOD, INDIANA LAST THURSDAY IS WHAT AN EF1 OR ZERO PRODUCES  – MOSTLY MINOR AND NOT WIDESPREAD.

[STEVE ON CAM]

IN FACT GOING BACK TO 1950, IN WHAT IS NOW NWS WILMINGTON’S COUNTY WARNING AREA

[VO GFX FULL]

NO DEATHS HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY  LEVEL ZERO TORNADOES AND ONLY ONE DEATH HAS BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO A LEVEL 1.

THAT’S IN MORE THAN 63 YEARS.

THOSE STATISTICS MEAN THAT TORNADO WARNINGS FOR EF0 AND EF1 TORNADOES ARE NOT SAVING LIVES BECAUSE A FUNNEL OF THAT STRENGTH IS JUST NOT THAT DEADLY.

[VO GFX FULL SCREEN ADD ON LINES BASED ON INITIAL ISSUANCE]

AND ...  DURING THE DOPPLER RADAR ERA - SINCE 1995 – THE WILMINGTON NWS OFFICE HAS ISSUED 542 TORNADO WARNINGS.

BASED ON A NATIONAL FALSE ALARN RATE OF 75% -

 MORE THAN 400 OF THOSE WERE FALSE ALARMS

BOB RYAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY WROTE,

[VO FULL SCREEN GFX]

 “ There are small whirls ….  and the real McCoy tornadoes. We all have a role in effectively communicating the real danger, beyond just yelling TORNADO WARNING…”

[STEVE ON CAM]

THE FALSE ALARM RATE IS A GLARING RED FLAG POINTING TO A POTENTIALLY DEADLY PROBLEM.

 [VO GFX]

IN THEIR PEER REVIEWED STUDY, “FALSE ALARMS, TORNADO WARNINGS AND TORNADO CASUALTIES” PUBLISHED IN 2009 KEVIN SIMMONS AND DANIEL SUTTER WROTE,

"We have found strong evidence that a higher local, recent FAR [FALSE ALARM RATIO] significantly increases tornado fatalities and injuries ..."

ACCORDING TO THE RESEARCH OF SIMMONS AND SUTTER  -  IF THE NWS DOES NOT FIX THE FALSE ALARM PROBLEM .....

WE MAY SEE DEATHS AND INJURIES INCREASE.

MANY METEOROLOGISTS FEEL IT IS TIME TO FIX THE FALSE ALARM PROBLEM.

THAT’S REALITY CHECK.

Copyright 2014 WXIX. All rights reserved.

----- END SCRIPT ----- 

Sources:

Tornado Data: NOAA Storm Prediction Center: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/gis/svrgis/

Tornado Warning Data:  Iowa Environmental Mesonet: http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles:

False Alarms, Tornado Warnings, and Tornado Casualties

Kevin M. Simmons, Daniel Sutter

Weather, Climate, and Society

Volume 1, Issue 1 (October 2009) pp. 38-53

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2009WCAS1005.1

Tornado Warnings, Lead Times, and Tornado Casualties: An Empirical Investigation

Kevin M. Simmons, Daniel Sutter

Weather and Forecasting

Volume 23, Issue 2 (April 2008) pp. 246-258

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007WAF2006027.1

Bob Ryan Quote: Storm Watch 7 Weather Blog

http://www.wjla.com/blogs/weather/2012/06/tornado-false-alarms-and-decision-15772.html

Copyright 2014 WXIX. All rights reserved.

 
ADDITIONAL DATA, NOT USED IN THE STORY FOR PERSPECTIVE

Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana Lightning Deaths 1959 - 2012 Source: NOAA

OH   146

KY     95

IN      90

Total 331 (5.61 Deaths Per Year or 56 deaths in a decade)

Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana F/EF Zero and 1 Tornado Deaths 1959 - 2012

OH   1

KY   4

IN    7

Total 13 (.24 deaths per year or 2.4 deaths in a decade)

.006 deaths per F/EF 0/1 tornado (6 deaths per 1000 F/EF 1 and 0 tornadoes)

YOU ARE 25.5 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE FROM A LIGHTNING STRIKE THAN 

AND EF 0 OR EF1 TORNADO.

So I ask the question, "Should the NWS issue tornado warnings for EF 0 and EF 1 tornadoes?

Why not just cover the small, brief, insignificant whirlwind with verbage in a severe thunderstorm warning, instead of all the chaos they create each time there is a bit of rotation in a thunderstorm?

The EF1 Near Osgood, Indiana, 20Feb2014

The EF1 tornado that touched down about 10:14 PM EST Thursday  20Feb2014 was a classic leading edge funnel.

Wide view of KIND NEXRAD Doppler Radar 

lowest elevation (0.51° tilt) reflectivity 03:12:00z (10:12 PM EST) Thursday 

20Feb 2014.There is no easily discernible sign here or in the close 

up of a tornado. It touched down 2 minutes after this.

Close up view of the top image.

The tornado touched down about half way between the napoleon and Osgood dots.

KIND radial velocity at 10:12 PM EST 20Feb2014.

The small bright green spot indicates air rushing towards the Indianapolis

 radar. Immediately southwest the color is red indicating air flowing 

away from the KIND radar.

Close up of the image above.

Tornado signature high-lighted.

Rotation indicated by the radial velocity display.

And The Winner Is ...

Bill Nye, The Science Guy (left) and Creation Museum founder Ken Ham at their debate 02.04.2014.

... Everyone. 

As a scientist I had my favorite going into this debate and in a few paragraphs I will make my case for a winner based on content.

But first I would like to look at this debate another way. 

To me it is clear that we all won on this one because Bill Nye and Ken Ham treated each other with respect. They did not resort to name calling, innuendo or sophomoric humor that lowers the bar and diverts attention from the debate itself.

Both debaters delivered their message and stayed on point, Ham as a true believer and Nye as a dedicated scientist. In the end we got a clear picture of the thought processes which lead both Ham and Nye to the passionate defenses of their sides of the argument.

Two thumbs up for the audience too.  Watching the web video stream and based on the accounts of reporters who were there the audience did what audiences were supposed to do - observe.

In this day and age of screaming radio talk show hosts, world views that would fit on a bumper sticker and utter disrespect of anyone who does not think as you do this debate was a refreshing break.

Now On To the Substance of the Debate

I will not feign neutrality here. I am a scientist, not because I am a TV meteorologist but because I think like a scientist.

I use the scientific method in problem solving, I have seen how it works, how it self corrects and how it got humans to the moon with much less computer power than my iPhone.

I do not believe in the scientific method. I have observed it in action and the evidence is ample and conclusive - the scientific method works!

A scientist observes, organizes those observations into data, analyzes the data, develops a hypothesis and then subjects the work to the unrelenting criticism of her peers.

Science is always a work in progress. Sometimes new work throws the hypothesis out the window and other times the hypothesis is merely tweaked.

Eventually the evidence is so overwhelmingly supportive of the hypothesis that it is elevated to a theory, and that is where much of the difficulty between the brainiacs of science and the remainder of the world begins.

The public will quip, "After all evolution is only a theory." A scientist at the same time says "... yes it is a THEORY."

To the scientist a theory is almost as sure as it gets. A theory may need to be tweaked in the future but a theory is just about a done deal. The only thing more sure is a Universal Law. 

The Law of Universal Gravitation is an example.  

No one in the universe can tell you what gravity is but we know how it works so well that when an astronomer using a powerful telescope sees a barely visible far-distant star wobble, the astronomer can predict that the star is orbited by a planet.

For example the most distant known exoplanet is OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb. It is near the center of the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 21,500 +/- 3,300 light years from Earth. OGLE stands for the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment.

Artist's depiction of the exoplanet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb. Courtesy NASA

When an astronomer is viewing this exoplanet she is seeing it as the planet was about 21,500 years ago. It took light, travelling at 186,000 miles per second, that long to get here.

We also know the planet is about 5.5 times the mass of Earth, takes about 10 Earth years to orbit its sun (star OGLE-2005-BLG-390L)  and would fit in our solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. 

Because the output of its sun is less than the output of our sun we know a planet orbiting that far out is unlikely to support life.

The point is that we cannot see the planet and even if we could we would be looking into the distant past. Yet the scientific method allows us to make predictions because we know the laws that govern the universe. Those laws apply everywhere in the universe past, present and future.

In a heady, mind-blowing kind of way this example summarizes Bill Nye's major argument. We make observations, apply the laws of physics that govern the universe and can predict the existance of a planet that will likely never be seen by human eyes.

We apply one scientific method and one set of laws that extend far into the past, because now is the past at the far edge of our ability to observe.

While scientists observe and analyse persons of faith believe. Faith requires no proof and a case can be made that a person who seeks proof cannot be a person of faith.

To me the first weakness of Ken Ham's argument is that he is debating at all.  Mr. Ham has a deep, profound belief that defines his journey through life. In a faith-based world view it is enough to say, "This is what I believe."  Period. Proof belongs in a world view based on observation.

Ken Ham's biggest problem with his approach is that so many of his points require special circumstances. Historical science vs. observational science is the prime example. You did not see it so you cannot prove it, Ham contends.

An accident investigator called to the scene did not see the fatal car crash. But when she observes skid marks crossing the double yellow line ending in two mangled vehicles she concludes which vehicle is at fault.  Evidence, the skid marks, allows the investigator to see into the past and envision the sequence of events. 

The trained accident investigator does not invoke a special circumstance explaining that the double yellow line moved because the laws that govern those things were different in the past.

In the end this is not like debating whether the 1927 New York Yankees were better than the 1975 Cincinnati Reds. Both teams played the same game and played by the same basic rules and individual and team statistics can be invoked as evidence to support an argument.

The science vs. faith debate is like debating whether the Seattle Sea Hawks are a better football team than Manchester United. The name of the game is the same but the rules are not comparable.

In the end Nye and Ham summed it up best. When asked what could change his mind and move him to the other side of the argument about the age of Earth Ham said nothing could. For Nye all you have to do is show him the evidence.

Faith vs. Science. In my view science won this one.

January 2014 vs. January 1977 in Cincinnati - A Clear "Winner"

Those of us who have been around a while longer then the average American love to tell stories of the brutal winters that visited Cincinnati in 1976-1977 and the following winter of 1977-1978.

I swore I would not do it, that is tell stories about the hardships of my younger days and how soft the younger generations have become. My dad did it and I rolled my eyes and shrugged it off as another fish story. No, I would never do it.

The moral of this story is never say never. So here we go.

It is important to remember that it has been about 20 years since we have had a very cold January in Cincinnati.

January 1994 was a nondescript month  until an arctic air mass arrived on the 14th.  By the morning of the 18th the temperature was -20°F (-28.8°C) and the next day the low temperature was tied for the second coldest ever at -24°F (-31.1°C).

January 1994 had cold episodes,  87 hours that month were 0°F or colder and there was a streak during the arctic outbreak of 48 consecutive hours zero or colder (18th Midnight - 20th 11PM).

The arctic air went its way and by the 23rd the low was 32°F (0°C).
The graph shows a typical January interrupted by a brief, but impressive record-setting arctic outbreak.

What we have to remember is that this is the coldest air in Cincinnati during the life of anyone 20 years of age or younger. So January 2014 is the yardstick (oops, meter stick) by which they measure winter severity.

With ice slabs floating down the Ohio River everyone wanted to know if the river would freeze solid from shore to shore again. But it was not to be because when it comes to temperature 2014 was a minor league month compared to January 1977, the coldest month ever in Cincinnati.

Here is a great source of photos of the frozen Ohio:

FROZEN OHIO RIVER PHOTOS


The next graph shows the hourly temperatures for both January 2014 and 1977 and following that is a graph of the difference, January 1977 was colder than January 2014 when the bars are below zero.

In short there is no comparison. January 1977 is the coldest month in Cincinnati weather history and january 2014 is way down the list.

Here are some numbers that will convince you. Notice only 2 hours the entire month of January 1977 were warmer than freezing.

HOURS 0° OR COLDER	NUMBER	% OF MONTH
1977	138	18.5
2014	67	9.0
HOURS > 32°
1977	2	0.3
2014	261	35.1
AVERAGE OF HOURLY TEMPS
1977	12.8
2014	23.5
CONSECUTIVE HOURS <= 0°
1977	71	9.5
2014	27	3.6
CONSECUTIVE HOURS <= 32°
1977	615	82.7
	126	16.9
2014	50	6.7
	84	11.3
	110	14.8
	107	14.4
	21	2.8
	89	12.0