A couple of days ago the NWS came out with their assessment of the Joplin tornado that struck on May 22nd. The purpose of the report is to evaluate and improve the information stream and the quality of information that comes out of the local offices...essentially it's a self review of what went wrong...what couple be improved upon, what went right and, in these newer reports how people reacted to the information given to them. It's a 30+ page report that is available here if you want to read it in it's entirety

Here is the press release issued by NOAA....

Joplin tornado offers important lessons for disaster preparedness

New report offers way forward to reduce deaths during dangerous tornadoes

Today, NOAA’s National Weather Service released its final assessment report on the May 22 tornado that struck Joplin, Mo. The report identifies best practices and makes recommendations to help save more lives during future violent tornadoes. Most importantly, the assessment emphasizes that people must be prepared to take immediate action when a warning is issued.

“The tornado that struck Joplin offers important lessons about disaster preparedness,” said National Weather Service Director, Jack Hayes, Ph.D. “Tragically, despite advance tornado outlooks, watches and warnings, 159 people died and more than 1,000 were injured. At NOAA we will do all we can – working with our partners throughout the weather enterprise and emergency management – to reduce the impact of similar disasters.”

Within days of the tragedy, Hayes sent an assessment team to Joplin to examine warning and forecast services provided to the community, warning communications, community preparedness and the public’s response to tornado warnings.

The team determined that a number of factors contributed to the high death toll. Through interviews with more than 100 Joplin residents, the team found that societal response to warnings is highly complex and involves a number of factors, such as risk perception, overall credibility of warnings and warning communications.

The report includes a number of key recommendations:

·         Improve warning communications to convey a sense of urgency for extreme events. This will compel people to take immediate life-saving action;

·         Collaborate with partners who communicate weather warnings to develop GPS-based warning communications, including the use of text messaging, smart phone apps, mobile communications technologies, in addition to upgrades to the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio;

·         Collaborate more throughout the weather enterprise to ensure that weather warning messages sent via television, radio, NOAA Weather Radio, local warning systems such as sirens – are consistent to reduce confusion and stress the seriousness of the threat; and

·         Continue to increase community preparedness.

Hayes directed National Weather Service staff to move forward to implement the recommendations as soon as possible. The high death toll from the tornado was also catalyst for the August 17 launch of “Weather-Ready Nation”. Building a Weather-Ready Nation will require the efforts of the entire weather enterprise - the National Weather Service, the private weather industry, emergency managers, partners and academia - to provide better information to the public so that they can make better decisions to save lives and livelihoods.

 

This was the single deadliest tornado in U.S. history since modern record-keeping began in 1950. Rated EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, this mile-wide tornado was the largest and most powerful type, and it traveled 22 miles on the ground.

 

NOAA's National Weather Service is the primary source of weather data, forecasts and warnings for the United States and its territories. NOAA’s National Weather Service operates the most advanced weather and flood warning and forecast system in the world, helping to protect lives and property and enhance the national economy. Visit us online at weather.gov and on Facebook.

 

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook , Twitter and our other social media channels.

end release...

One of the many key findings that the report illustrated is that the folks in Joplin have started to ignore the sirens, and since for them, the sirens have been providing a first indicator of danger, this is troubling. Over the years there have been sooooo many warnings issued, whether it is a tornado warning or even severe t/storms warnings that people now ignore them by and large. In Joplin, they set off the sirens in non-tornadic situations if the winds of a t/storm were potentially 75MPH or higher...so in addition to the tornado warnings triggering the sirens now they go off down there for severe t/storm warnings with 75 MPH winds.

Also of note in the report was the nationwide average of 76% false alarms for tornado warnings...in other words ONLY 24% of tornado warnings are verified with an actual tornado. That's not very good, and it shows several things, one of which is the difficulty, even with our modern equipment, of detecting actual tornado formation...we can, in many cases see the conditions leading up to it, we can identify a rotating cell, but we still have a tough time picking out the individual tornados themselves before they form. This startling statistic is also tough for the NWS. In many cases a warning is issued and even though there may be a tornado on the ground with the storm, if nobody sees it and nothing is reported, it goes down as a miss. So the warning was perfectly executed but since nobody sees anything, perhaps at night or in some rural area...again it's a miss and contributes to the false alarm stats.

The Springfield office is known within media circles for the tendency to issue many warnings. There have been times our local office here will be tracking a severe t/storm with no history of tornado formation...and as soon as it crosses into the Springfield jurisdiction, a tornado warning is issued. I've witnessed this many times myself. Their office also had a 85% false alarm ration from 2010-5/22/2011. So between all the false alarms, admittedly a number that is inflated somewhat because of a lack of reports of tornados, and the sirens going off for higher end severe t/storm warnings...people their have siren fatigue especially when those sirens go off for the first time in an event.

Now this isn't the only reason for the large death count. Unfortunately, when you have an EF4-5 tornado ripping through a major community, there is very little people in the direct path can do. Even if you execute a perfect response and get to your safe place, sometimes still it is not enough.

Another key finding is that it we can only sample the lowest levels of a storm every 5 minutes or so with our current doppler radar set-up/programming. There is now thoughts that we need to see how we can break free from those constraints. For Joplin, the storm went from producing funnel clouds to producing a massive EF5 tornado within minutes...it was a VERY tornado storm to warn people about because this happened all on the doorstep of the city.

The NWS had the warnings in place though well before the tornado hit...and that was critical for the community and no doubt saved many lives...now the trick is how to communicate that information coherently and quickly so that people can take the proper action.

Joe