I'm Jay Farlow. W9LW is my amateur (ham) radio call sign. I've been a ham since 1973. I've been a volunteer storm spotter for the National Weather Service SKYWARN program since the 1970s. I've also been a volunteer EMT and firefighter and member of a disaster medical assistance team. I advise the leadership team of Associated Churches Active in Disaster, a ministry of Associate Churches of Fort Wayne and Allen County. Learn more about w9lw at www.qrz.com/db/w9lw.
Yellow area: Slight risk of severe weather between 8 a.m. EDT Sat. and 8 a.m. EDT Sun.
All of Indiana and Ohio have a slight risk of severe weather between 8 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 26 and 8 a.m. EDT Sunday, according to the “Day 3 Convective Outlook” that the National Weather Service (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued at 3:29 a.m. EDT today. The slight risk area also includes part of southern Lower Michigan, which means all 37 counties covered by the northern Indiana NWS office are included.
The entire slight risk area has a 15 percent probability of severe weather within 25 miles of a point. Severe weather is defined as one or more of the following: tornado, damaging straight-line thunderstorm winds of 58 mph or more, or hail of inch in diameter or larger.
Forecasters expect scattered clusters of storms to form by Saturday evening along a front that should be draped from the lower Great Lakes region across parts of the central plains. They expect large hail to be the greatest threat during the late afternoon and evening Saturday. There will also be a potential for one or more swaths of damaging straight-line winds into Saturday night. Forecasters warn that as Saturday approaches, future outlooks might include higher probabilities of severe weather.
Anyone in the slight risk area who plans outdoor activities Saturday afternoon and/or evening should also plan to have a way to be notified of any weather watches or warnings that might be issued. SKYWARN storm spotters should prepare their vehicles and equipment for possible activation Saturday.
The SPC will issue its next outlook for Saturday with its first “Day 2 Convective Outlook” tomorrow. It’s due out by 2 a.m.
Probability of damaging straight-line thunderstorm winds or wind gusts of 50 knots (58 mph) or higher within 25 miles of a point. Yellow area: 15 percent. Brown: 5 percent (below slight risk criteria). No color overlay: Less than 5 percent. Highlighted counties: County warning area of NWS northern Indiana office. Source: SPC “Day 1 Convective Outlook,” 8:58 a.m. EDT.
Northwestern and part of west-central Indiana has a slight risk of severe weather between 9 a.m. EDT today and 8 a.m. EDT tomorrow, according to an updated “Day 1 Convective Outlook” that the National Weather Service (NWS) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) issued at 8:58 a.m. EDT. The slight risk includes part of southwestern Lower Michigan and most of IMO SKYWARN quadrants three and four but none of quadrants one or two.
As you can see on the map at right, however, northeastern Indiana, including Indiana counties of IMO SKYWARN quadrant two, have a 5 percent probability of damaging straight-line thunderstorm winds or wind gusts of 50 knots (58 mph) or higher within 25 miles of a point. That’s below “slight risk” criteria but makes it worthwhile to keep an eye on updated convective outlooks.
SPC plans to issue its next, updated “Day 1 Convective Outlook” by 12:30 p.m. EDT.
I’ve wondered for a while whether tornado sirens (or, as emergency managers often call them, “outdoor warning sirens”) have become so ingrained in our culture over the past several decades that people instinctively treat them as our most important (if not our only) method to receive warning of impending weather danger.
Tornado damage in Smithfield, NY (NWS photo)
Lately, I’ve seen evidence that this is unfortunately the case. It would be unfortunate, because such sirens were never intended to provide warning to people who are indoors and because many, many communities (including the Indiana community in which I live) don’t have enough warning sirens to assure that every person in the community can hear them, even when outdoors.
Why do I think our culture nonetheless puts too much stock in tornado sirens? Here’s one case in point: CBS Evening News reporter Vinita Nair did a report July 9 about a rare New York State tornado that killed four people in the town of Smithfield. In part of her report, Nair said, “Smithfield doesn’t even have tornado sirens.” What prompted that line in her report? I submit that its inclusion indicates how widely-held is the belief that tornado sirens are a primary way to receiving warning of impending danger.
Here’s more evidence to consider. At the 11th International Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) Conference in University Park, Pennsylvania, last May, seven authors presented “Tweeting and Tornadoes,” an academic paper that examines the content of geo-located Twitter messages (tweets) sent on the microblog social network during the Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 20, 2013. Among other findings, the authors noted that the volume of tweets spiked significantly when tornado sirens became audible to Twitter users (see the graph below).
Figure from Blanford, et. al., “Tweeting and Tornadoes”: Temporal distribution of tweets with at least one keyword (gray bars) (e.g., ‘storm’, ‘weather’, ‘take/ing cover’, ‘shelter’, ‘pray’, ‘emergency’, ‘red cross’, ‘help’ and ‘devast’, ‘destruct’, and ‘donat’ in relation to tweets containing the keyword ‘tornado’ (blue area) or ‘siren’ (black line) and how these related to the tornado event (red bar). Tweets were summarized for each hour.
The authors write, “Sirens in Moore were sounded six times with the initial siren occurring shortly after the first NWS tornado warning was sent (14:41hr) with the final warning at 15:20hr (Kuligowski et al., 2013). The first mention of sirens also begins at 14:41hr (N=22 tweets in 4 minutes) with tweets such as ‘Sirens going off now!! Take cover…be safe!’, ‘Sirens sirens sirens. Becoming so real’, and ‘If u hear a tornado siren, uve got 6-8 minutes…’”
The tweet that included the words “becoming so real” particularly got my attention. It almost seems as if the writer of that tweet did not begin to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, until she heard sirens. And it came from a person who was obviously connected to the Internet (either via computer or smartphone) and therefore had at her disposal official tweets from NWS and other information sources to enhance situational awareness before sirens sounded.
If, in fact, sirens have become so ingrained in our culture that we need them for motivation when severe weather threatens, I consider that a dangerous trait. Too many of us will never hear a siren, even if a tornado is about to destroy the home we’re in. Even a person who lives close to a siren will likely never hear it just before a non-tornadic severe thunderstorm drops a tree on his house and kills him (because many, if not most, communities don’t sound tornado sirens for severe thunderstorms without imminent tornado threats).
How do we remove tornado sirens from their strongly held homes deep in our collective psyche? Perhaps we can’t. But it sure wouldn’t hurt if trusted news sources and public officials continue to share information with their audiences and constituents about the shortcomings of tornado warning sirens, the necessity of having alternative means of receiving warnings and the importance of reacting immediately and appropriately to those warnings, regardless of whether a tornado siren is audible. Likewise, if you’re reading this blog, chances are good that you’re the severe weather expert in your family, circle of friends, church, etc. You can help to, by spreading the word in your community.
The sound of a tornado siren is so motivating and our response to the sound is so emotional, that the Indianapolis Colts NFL football team uses that sound to rile up the fans during home games at Lucas Oil Stadium. We might never change the emotion associated with that sound. But perhaps we can help protect our communities by doing what we can to build up the importance of other warning methods.
If we’re successful, perhaps someday, the sound of a weather alert radio’s alarm will prompt a tweet like, “Weather radio sounding off. This is becoming so real.”
What do you think? Add your comments to this post (there’s a link right under the title).
Yep, its certainly unseasonably cool today. And you’ll probably here some folks attribute the cool weather to the Polar Vortex. As WANE TV’s Greg Shoup explains in his blog, we should take any such comments, even from “meteorologists,” with a grain of salt:
This typical July-like pattern will over the course of a few days be replaced by a ‘lobe’ from that ‘vortex’ or circulation that is referred to as the Polar Vortex. This concept is often misunderstood, especially in the national media as it is referred to simply as The Polar Vortex. This is scientifically inaccurate as the vortex or circulation itself moves very little. It has a semi permanent position near the Arctic Circle. That location does not vary and the vortex is never moving into a different location. However, sometimes we see a piece, chunk or scientifically called a ‘lobe’ break off this vortex and make its way to our region. This is not a common feature during the summer months so it is certainly very unusual.
Almost all of Indiana and all but northeastern Ohio continue to have a slight risk of severe weather between 12:30 p.m. EDT today and 8 a.m. EDT tomorrow, according to an updated “Day 1 Convective Outlook” the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center issued (early) at 10:46 a.m. EDT.
The primary threat remains damaging straight-line thunderstorm winds of 58 mph or stronger.
A cold/stationary front can be seen draping across the Midwest in this weather map issued at 8 a.m. EDT by the National Weather Service. That front is forecast to move across Indiana this afternoon and evening, possibly triggering severe storms along and ahead of itself.
There’s still some uncertainty about severe weather in northeastern Indiana today, but the best chances for severe storms across the Fort Wayne area are between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. EDT, according to a meteorologist at the northern Indiana National Weather Service (NWS) office.
As of 9 a.m. EDT, almost all of Indiana has a slight risk of severe weather, according to a convective outlook from the NWS Storm Prediction Center. Storms could form along and ahead of a sharp cold front that is forecast to move through the area later today.
The SPC will update its outlook for the day by 12:30 p.m. EDT.
