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May 24 Plains/MW Severe Threat


Helicity

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pretty big day. im sure i wont have fans for saying it but seemed more or less in line (at least tornado numberwise) with other larger plains outbreaks even with the unheard of percentages from spc etc. yeah it is still being counted. perhaps given some extra 2011 love in the leadup...

No, I think you're completely right. The number of supercells producing large and/or strong tornadoes over a concentrated region was very impressive... impressive as just about any Plains event I can think of for years, actually. But as Jim mentioned, storm mode and storm interactions became an issue within an hour or two of each cell's initiation. Who knows what might have happened had the trough been a bit more neutral-tilt yesterday afternoon, as many models had suggested in the 2-3 day range.

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No, I think you're completely right. The number of supercells producing large and/or strong tornadoes over a concentrated region was very impressive... impressive as just about any Plains event I can think of for years, actually. But as Jim mentioned, storm mode and storm interactions became an issue within an hour or two of each cell's initiation. Who knows what might have happened had the trough been a bit more neutral-tilt yesterday afternoon, as many models had suggested in the 2-3 day range.

I'm not trying to downplay it at all, which I'm sure would be expected by some given my bust of a two weeks out there (I may be the only person not to see a tornado this year)... There was just some hyperventilating in the leadup IMO.

It could be that we were one small shift away from a much more disastrous situation--and as you note, it did really start off big. Had that continued into the evening in OK and the stuff in TX produced a bit better this might not even be a discussion to have.

My "weather job" is heavily tied to communicating to the public, so I tend to look at things in that light. I just think in many situations over recent years the hysteria has grown to a level that is not helpful in many cases. Shoot, we had 400 people in this thread with 6 pages of OMG as a tornado was ripping up a field with a few houses here and there. That's a pretty common occurrence whether or not yesterday was as a whole.

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I'm not trying to downplay it at all, which I'm sure would be expected by some given my bust of a two weeks out there (I may be the only person not to see a tornado this year)... There was just some hyperventilating in the leadup IMO.

It could be that we were one small shift away from a much more disastrous situation--and as you note, it did really start off big. Had that continued into the evening in OK and the stuff in TX produced a bit better this might not even be a discussion to have.

My "weather job" is heavily tied to communicating to the public, so I tend to look at things in that light. I just think in many situations over recent years the hysteria has grown to a level that is not helpful in many cases. Shoot, we had 400 people in this thread with 6 pages of OMG as a tornado was ripping up a field with a few houses here and there. That's a pretty common occurrence whether or not yesterday was as a whole.

I thought the event was forecast very well among prof mets and other credible severe weather folks on this board. There was an enormous amount of potential, and some it was realized yesterday (although not to the fullest possible extent, but then again few events do). The caveats, particularly with the trough orientation and the backing of the mid-level winds, were clearly identified and outlined by many on this thread. I agree that this could very well have been much worse. If this were any other year, I suspect yesterday would've been more noteworthy.

But yeah, there were times yesterday when the weenies were out in full force, with the "OMG! pray for XYZ...people are dying! etc" posts. Honestly, this stuff should be kept to a minimum, particularly in real-time when the flow of new info is critical.

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I'm not trying to downplay it at all, which I'm sure would be expected by some given my bust of a two weeks out there (I may be the only person not to see a tornado this year)... There was just some hyperventilating in the leadup IMO.

It could be that we were one small shift away from a much more disastrous situation--and as you note, it did really start off big. Had that continued into the evening in OK and the stuff in TX produced a bit better this might not even be a discussion to have.

My "weather job" is heavily tied to communicating to the public, so I tend to look at things in that light. I just think in many situations over recent years the hysteria has grown to a level that is not helpful in many cases. Shoot, we had 400 people in this thread with 6 pages of OMG as a tornado was ripping up a field with a few houses here and there. That's a pretty common occurrence whether or not yesterday was as a whole.

You've communicated this better than I did.

I think yesterday performed up to what the experts (speaking of the good mets here and SPC) expected pretty much. What makes this "less" than some of the others is that it didn't overperform like seemingly every outbreak this year. I think may hobbyists expected that it would.

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But really, the dissemination of information yesterday in OK was both entirely warranted scientifically, and expertly executed in practice. Anyone who watched the news had any hint of their FAR blues disintegrate quickly.

And despite this, 10 people were still killed in OK yesterday, making it the deadliest tornado day in OK since 5/3/99. I think that alone speaks volumes about how bad these tornadoes were, and how much more bad it could have been.

And as an aside, CUmet did a great job of dissecting the potential and the possible failure modes yesterday. I'm pretty sure he has already heard enough kudos this year, but an additional one can't hurt.

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I thought the event was forecast very well among prof mets and other credible severe weather folks on this board. There was an enormous amount of potential, and some it was realized yesterday (although not to the fullest possible extent, but then again few events do). The caveats, particularly with the trough orientation and the backing of the mid-level winds, were clearly identified and outlined by many on this thread. I agree with that this could very well have been much worse. If this were any other year, I suspect yesterday would've been more noteworthy.

But yeah, there were times yesterday when the weenies were out in full force, with the "OMG! pray for XYZ...people are dying! etc" posts. Honestly, this stuff should be kept to a minimum, particularly in real-time when the flow of new info is critical.

I guess part of it is that I view an event like this in the Plains differently than one in the southeast or Midwest etc. Tornado folklore is part of life there. People know what to do. Part of it is random luck too. I don't think I actually used the word hype anywhere... nor do I believe any mention was literal. I would hope we could discuss any slight underperformance as much as we could an overperformance. As noted, I don't think any of the educated talk was unnecessary... and I threw in a few gripes with overall coverage of severe weather these days that don't really have much to do with this board.

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Maybe people's perceptions of things would have been different with a little bit more active moderation by the staff? Maybe then we wouldn't have had 6 pages of OMG.

A stickied thread was made and the weenies (many of whom I've never seen in an outbreak thread) rushed in...of course that's going to tilt the expectations in an unreasonable direction.

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Maybe people's perceptions of things would have been different with a little bit more active moderation by the staff? Maybe then we wouldn't have had 6 pages of OMG.

A stickied thread was made and the weenies (many of whom I've never seen in an outbreak thread) rushed in...of course that's going to tilt the expectations in an unreasonable direction.

Agree, there was some over top weenieing going on yesterday from some people that could post less and read more.

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Maybe people's perceptions of things would have been different with a little bit more active moderation by the staff? Maybe then we wouldn't have had 6 pages of OMG.

A stickied thread was made and the weenies (many of whom I've never seen in an outbreak thread) rushed in...of course that's going to tilt the expectations in an unreasonable direction.

Thread was moving really fast. I sorta want to check radar/feeds on my own without having to refresh the thread and delete every 2 seconds. It tends to be the same people with frequent "OMG" "this is not good" "pray for my friend's third cousin and his dog" posts who could be dealt with more harshly. I guess I'm a little too nice sometimes.

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Thread was moving really fast. I sorta want to check radar/feeds on my own without having to refresh the thread and delete every 2 seconds. It tends to be the same people with frequent "OMG" "this is not good" "pray for my friend's third cousin and his dog" posts who could be dealt with more harshly. I guess I'm a little too nice sometimes.

If you dont want to moderate, resign.

between the weeniegasm and zwyts trolling, you guys looked totally neutered yesterday.

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Thread was moving really fast. I sorta want to check radar/feeds on my own without having to refresh the thread and delete every 2 seconds. It tends to be the same people with frequent "OMG" "this is not good" "pray for my friend's third cousin and his dog" posts who could be dealt with more harshly. I guess I'm a little too nice sometimes.

Let's see, Sickman, BI earthlight and lord knows how many other Green and Black tags were in this thread yesterday evening/last night. I mean come on, at one point you'd have thought Dallas was being destroyed, flattened to nothing and the Dallas TV media was just ignoring it to pee in some weenies post toasties, but I digress.

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Not to mention there would be a lot less to delete/moderate/answer reports about if someone on staff had publicly warned people and encouraged people to knock off the worthless posts...you'd then have time to follow the thread because it wouldnt be moving along at a page per 5 minutes.

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Thread was moving really fast. I sorta want to check radar/feeds on my own without having to refresh the thread and delete every 2 seconds. It tends to be the same people with frequent "OMG" "this is not good" "pray for my friend's third cousin and his dog" posts who could be dealt with more harshly. I guess I'm a little too nice sometimes.

I'm new to the severe threads-- I don't usually post in them-- but I totally get what you're saying.

The prayers and sad faces and "This is not good" and "Lord help these people" posts definitely add a bit of filler, for sure. I'm not against that stuff, but, yeah, once a big event is unfolding and the sh*t is really hitting the fan, it would be cool if folks could think a little more about what they're posting and whether it adds on a meteorological level. This would seem to be especially important in severe threads, where things happen so darn fast. There's just no room for any fat when events change minute to minute.

P.S. I'm not against chitchat on the wx side. Certain threads, like the Atlantic Tropical Action thread, are specifically designed to be light and chatty-- sort of an online lounge during the slow periods.

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lol....I trolled for 5 minutes.....sorry you were so "hurtyhurtz" by an "icepussy" making like 4-5 posts in a 5-10 minutes span and then disappearing

It didn't hurt me...just pointing out how lame it is that the staff just rolled over and let you do your thing. They look totally spineless.

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Just because you don't realize it doesn't mean I wasn't moderating.

If you moderate in the forest and no one is there to see it or be influenced by it, are you really moderating?

You act liek the only arrow in your quiver is deletion. Try being proactive. Make a big deal up front about how people have to post better and knock off the OMG's, and they will decrease...dramatically.

I just thought it was odd that no one stepped in and gave some gentle guidance on how to post better, despite the fact that there was almost always a handful of staff in the thread when all of this was going down.

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I made a valid point...people were foaming at the mouth for long track EF-4's/5's to hit highly populated areas....How is that trolling?

Because it has always been considered inappropriate to discuss the morality of our weather habits in event threads....this is true across all weather types

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my "thing" lasted like 5 minutes...it was hardly some repeated disruptive intrusion....you should learn how to troll better

you're the one who needs to learn to troll better...you spent all day calling bust, saying the storms were going linear, then eventually moving to the people are wishing for ef5's stuff.

like a baby seeking attention, you poked and prodded from the periphery all day.

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