[BC] Tornado warnings

[Kevin Webb]

Kent,

You are correct for being confused and this is a problem I see that's gotten
worse.  Potential does not equal tornado.  When I used to do weather on TV
we did *not* report a tornado warning until one was sighted by a reliable
contact (police, known weather spotter, etc.).  But that was in the 80's.
We were a bit advanced because we actually -had- weather radar.  That's
showing my age. 

Now they run a tornado warning if they see the conditions are correct on
Doppler radar and *not* necessarily an actual tornado.  Yes you can see the
classic "hook" or comma signature of wind shear that's *likely* to turn into
a tornado but that doesn't mean it IS a tornado.  

I'd like to see someone do a study of when they run tornado warnings based
solely on the radar signature vs. one that's actually touched down.  I'll
bet they'll see that it is less than 1 out of 10 times that signature turns
into anything at all.  This is way too close to crying wolf and the result
is the public turns a blind eye and doesn't take the warning seriously.
Plus how many more injuries and deaths have occurred because of the "cry
wolf" syndrome of late??


Kevin Webb
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Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:16:51 -0400
From: "Kent Winrich" <kwinrich at gmail.com>
Subject: [BC] Tornado warnings
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
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	<615f119e0608312016y4bef1571pf5505646a8ec97a6 at mail.gmail.com>
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During the Ernesto thingy here in North Carolina, the NWS kept sending out
tornado WARNINGS, but then said that the potential was there for a tornado.
Correct me if I am wrong but that sounds like a tornado WATCH.  Not once did
they say there was one on the ground.  In the Midwest when we got a tornado
warning, we knew we had one on the ground.  Paint me confused.  Do the
different NWS office have different standards?

Signed,

Your soggy engineer....