Joplin, Missouri Tornado Assessment - recommendations

[JoMo]

Easy, Cellers and probably sirens when the tornado warning happens and a second siren when you are in the clear.

But Joplin faired pretty well, my initial death toll guess was too high by a factor of 10.

Two sirens would confuse people, they already have trouble figuring out if the sirens went off once.

Not sure what you mean when you say cellers? basements?

[NaoPos]

Easy, Cellers and probably sirens when the tornado warning happens and a second siren when you are in the clear.

But Joplin faired pretty well, my initial death toll guess was too high by a factor of 10.

Faired pretty well as in 140+ deaths faired well?

[andyhb]

Faired pretty well as in 140+ deaths faired well?

Faired pretty well as in over 500 people did not die...

[B-Rent]

We have warnings for just about everything now, so adding one isn't going to screw over the public. And what I meant wasn't exactly a "squall line warning" verbatim (since 99% of the public won't know what a squall line is), just a warning designed specifically for QLCS damaging-wind spinup-tornado situations.

I'm already drunk, so one more beer won't hurt anything.

When the goal of the conversation is to try and fix something that's broken, there is a fallacy in that type of logic. We have warnings for just about everything now, thats the problem.

[JoMo]

Yes, Joplin fared pretty well for what happened. If there had been a tornado on a weekday, there may have been more people in harms way, not to mention if the schools were in session. (and if the tornado was while they were in session)

[B-Rent]

I had a friend from Joplin up this week, he lived a few miles out of the path. We passed an RV sales lot and he goes "Hey look, it's like I'm home!"

In all seriousness, talking face to face with someone who actually experienced it is eye opening. Not to undercut JoMo's pictures and descriptions, but the emotion in actually discussing it one on one... Really pushes the drive to want things "right" next time.

[NaoPos]

Faired pretty well as in over 500 people did not die...

You some some high standards... Faired well IMHO would be 10-15 with this EF-5. 150ish( pardon me for

Not known the exact death toll) is extremely high, especially compared to recent EF-5's....

[Amped]

Two sirens would confuse people, they already have trouble figuring out if the sirens went off once.

Not sure what you mean when you say cellers? basements?

Yes any room that protects against a tornado.

The second siren would not sound the same as the first. Kind of like when we had fire drills at school, there was a second, safe to go back in bell.

I think people knowing when the danger has passed is important, if there is a warning siren 25 minutes in advance people may come out too early thinking the danger has passed, if they don't have power or weather apps on their cell..

[JoMo]

Yes any room that protects against a tornado.

The second siren would not sound the same as the first. Kind of like when we had fire drills at school, there was a second, safe to go back in bell.

I think people knowing when the danger has passed is important, if there is a warning siren 25 minutes in advance people may come out too early thinking the danger has passed, if they don't have power or weather apps on their cell..

I still think people would be confused even though I do think it's a good idea. I mean, there are still people that think a tornado watch means watch out for a tornado because someone has spotted one! heh

As far as a safe room or basement, those should be left up to the homeowner to decide as they can be costly and not everyone can afford them.

[andyhb]

You some some high standards... Faired well IMHO would be 10-15 with this EF-5. 150ish( pardon me for

Not known the exact death toll) is extremely high, especially compared to recent EF-5's....

Considering the thing went through perhaps the most densely populated part of a city of >50,000 people, was rain-wrapped, went from a funnel cloud to a wedge in less than a minute, made a direct hit on a major hospital, was absolutely huge and maxed out in intensity in some of the worst possible places and had nowhere near the live media coverage that several other F5's/EF5's in the past couple decades have had (Apr. 27th, Greensburg and Bridge Creek come immediately to mind), I'm, in all honesty, surprised the death toll wasn't a significant amount higher.

JoMo raises a persistently scary point about the schools...

[JoMo]

Considering the thing went through perhaps the most densely populated part of a city of >50,000 people, was rain-wrapped, went from a funnel cloud to a wedge in less than a minute, made a direct hit on a major hospital, was absolutely huge and maxed out in intensity in some of the worst possible places and had nowhere near the live media coverage that several other F5's/EF5's in the past couple decades have had (Apr. 27th, Greensburg and Bridge Creek come immediately to mind), I'm, in all honesty, surprised the death toll wasn't a significant amount higher.

JoMo raises a persistently scary point about the schools...

I can't remember if it was here or at Eastern but I think in one of the severe threads I posted that it's only going to be a matter of time before a large tornado hits a hospital. I also remember thinking that after the Picher tornado, it's only a matter of time before a tornado hits Joplin. I just never could have imagined that an EF-5 would hit Joplin and St. Johns hospital. We have been lucky through the years and I guess our luck ran out. I know I'll never forget it.

One thing I would like to note though, when the event is happening, there is a lot of confusion on what exactly is going on. I mean, I was looking at radar and the couplet being nearly over me, I heard the tornado roar, yet I had no idea where the actual tornado was or if a tornado had actually touched down even. It's very hard to see due to the amount of trees, then the loss of power and cell signal left me pretty clueless. There was a feeling that "no, this isn't happening" even though it was. A sense of denial I guess.

[andyhb]

I can't remember if it was here or at Eastern but I think in one of the severe threads I posted that it's only going to be a matter of time before a large tornado hits a hospital.

Was in the April 27th thread if I remember correctly.

I heard the tornado roar, yet I had no idea where the actual tornado was or if a tornado had actually touched down even.

Kinda makes me think that people saw something very similar coming at them on March 18th, 1925...

[thewxmann]

I would be against this, because there have been instances of squall lines producing EF-2 and 3. It is just hard to delineate strength right now with radar representation. Plus we have seen EF0s and 1s kill people before so we should treat all tornadoes as being equally dangerous.

If there was a legitimate couplet associated with a comma head or an embedded supercell (e.g. many of the 4/27 morning couplets) a TOR would still be warranted, of course. The warning would be used for instances when QLCS spinups are impossible to detect, and would serve the same purpose as the current blanket SVRs/TORs.

[thewxmann]

I can't remember if it was here or at Eastern but I think in one of the severe threads I posted that it's only going to be a matter of time before a large tornado hits a hospital. I also remember thinking that after the Picher tornado, it's only a matter of time before a tornado hits Joplin. I just never could have imagined that an EF-5 would hit Joplin and St. Johns hospital. We have been lucky through the years and I guess our luck ran out. I know I'll never forget it.

I didn't post about it but I had the same feeling after May 10, 2008. Always felt Joplin was a big target in a very tornado prone area... that area in SW MO has had some pretty violent tornadoes and high fatalities recently.

[BeauDodson]

Springfield had an 85% FAR in 2010 until May 22nd 2011.

This summer on Aug 10th, there was a squall line that produced an EF-2 tornado which killed someone in a mobile home in Locust Grove, OK. The thunderstorm was only severe warned with "winds of 70 MPH" in the warning.

Thunderstorms "can and occasionally do produce tornadoes" should (and typically are) be included in severe thunderstorm warnings and perhaps we need to educate the general public about this fact. I realize that most of us have read the above statement in warnings. Most people do not read warnings - they just hear it from their local media/other.

[BeauDodson]

I can't remember if it was here or at Eastern but I think in one of the severe threads I posted that it's only going to be a matter of time before a large tornado hits a hospital. I also remember thinking that after the Picher tornado, it's only a matter of time before a tornado hits Joplin. I just never could have imagined that an EF-5 would hit Joplin and St. Johns hospital. We have been lucky through the years and I guess our luck ran out. I know I'll never forget it.

One thing I would like to note though, when the event is happening, there is a lot of confusion on what exactly is going on. I mean, I was looking at radar and the couplet being nearly over me, I heard the tornado roar, yet I had no idea where the actual tornado was or if a tornado had actually touched down even. It's very hard to see due to the amount of trees, then the loss of power and cell signal left me pretty clueless. There was a feeling that "no, this isn't happening" even though it was. A sense of denial I guess.

Perhaps we need to embrace reality when it comes to the outdoor siren system. Emergency management wants to use the outdoor siren system to encourage people to take shelter during a tornado event. They are blown when the NWS issues a tornado warning (typically sirens are blown for entire counties because most communities can not afford the polygon siren system).

According to social science studies it would appear that people are using the sirens more often for a heads up - something is going on alert vs take shelter now action.

Perhaps we need to understand and accept that people get used to hearing the outdoor sirens because of the number of tornado warnings being issued. According to a recent study out of Alabama ( http://weatherbrains...rbrains/?p=2296 - Kim Klockow, a PhD student in the Department of Geography at the University of Oklahoma) people admitted they heard the sirens but had heard them so many times before that they only looked outside or turned on the television to get more information. Is there anything inherently wrong with this action? If people hear the sirens and react by stopping what they are doing and checking on the weather then perhaps that should be considered a success?

I don't know - posing the question.

Maybe we need to stop judging failure as people saying

"we hear the sirens all the time"

"they cry wolf a lot"

"oh my house never gets hit when they blow the sirens"

Instead perhaps we should judge success as people saying

"we stopped what we are doing and turned on the television"

"we stopped what we were doing and turned on the television set"

------

Would be nice to see the FAR for supercell tornadic thunderstorms vs squall line type systems. Unsure if anyone has done that type of break down.

[JoMo]

Thunderstorms "can and occasionally do produce tornadoes" should (and typically are) be included in severe thunderstorm warnings and perhaps we need to educate the general public about this fact. I realize that most of us have read the above statement in warnings. Most people do not read warnings - they just hear it from their local media/other.

To be honest, I rarely pay attention to that portion of the warning like you stated. This was around 3-4 AM at night in a QLCS that produced a brief spin-up. I think the path was 400 yards wide and 5 miles or so long and the storms were moving fairly fast. It was a rare event being how it was August in Oklahoma and it was early morning.

[JoMo]

Perhaps we need to embrace reality when it comes to the outdoor siren system. Emergency management wants to use the outdoor siren system to encourage people to take shelter during a tornado event. They are blown when the NWS issues a tornado warning (typically sirens are blown for entire counties because most communities can not afford the polygon siren system).

According to social science studies it would appear that people are using the sirens more often for a heads up - something is going on alert vs take shelter now action.

Perhaps we need to understand and accept that people get used to hearing the outdoor sirens because of the number of tornado warnings being issued. According to a recent study out of Alabama ( http://weatherbrains...rbrains/?p=2296 - Kim Klockow, a PhD student in the Department of Geography at the University of Oklahoma) people admitted they heard the sirens but had heard them so many times before that they only looked outside or turned on the television to get more information. Is there anything inherently wrong with this action? If people hear the sirens and react by stopping what they are doing and checking on the weather then perhaps that should be considered a success?

I don't know - posing the question.

Maybe we need to stop judging failure as people saying

"we hear the sirens all the time"

"they cry wolf a lot"

"oh my house never gets hit when they blow the sirens"

Instead perhaps we should judge success as people saying

"we stopped what we are doing and turned on the television"

"we stopped what we were doing and turned on the television set"

------

Would be nice to see the FAR for supercell tornadic thunderstorms vs squall line type systems. Unsure if anyone has done that type of break down.

That would be interesting to see the FAR stats for supercell tornadic storms vs squall line systems. Of course, where do you draw the line when it comes to embedded supercells?

I think you make an interesting point when it comes to judging success. I know our EM says "If the tornado sirens are going off, go hide" but a lot of people don't do that. They want to make sure the tornado is going to hit them or if there is a tornado at all. I think that's part of human nature though. We have to make sure that we are threatened before we take action. We are curious. If the sirens make people pay attention to the weather and look for other verification, then I think they are a success.

There are many stories of people that waited until the last possible second to take shelter, once they had verified that it was actually a tornado and those people survived. There are some that took shelter immediately after the sirens went off, and they were killed while taking shelter.

[BeauDodson]

That would be interesting to see the FAR stats for supercell tornadic storms vs squall line systems. Of course, where do you draw the line when it comes to embedded supercells?

I think you make an interesting point when it comes to judging success. I know our EM says "If the tornado sirens are going off, go hide" but a lot of people don't do that. They want to make sure the tornado is going to hit them or if there is a tornado at all. I think that's part of human nature though. We have to make sure that we are threatened before we take action. We are curious. If the sirens make people pay attention to the weather and look for other verification, then I think they are a success.

There are many stories of people that waited until the last possible second to take shelter, once they had verified that it was actually a tornado and those people survived. There are some that took shelter immediately after the sirens went off, and they were killed while taking shelter.

I would love to see one of the questions on these surveys be

How do you respond to the outdoor siren system

I wonder how many people automatically take shelter. Surely it is a low number. According to recent assessments most people need several ques in order to make the final decision to take shelter. Some studies coming out are going to indicate that most people wait until the last 1-2 minutes to make the decision to take shelter - which does not surprise me.

[Master of Disaster]

I and my office have been torn to shreds over this siren issue by a local paper The Sentinel and my opinion on the topic hasnt changed. We dont use sirens in Montgomery County and we wont use sirens. They cause nothing but confusion. What we should do is promote more NOAA weather radios, text alerting systems and social media.

There are some things I think could enhance the NWS warnings and watches. I like the idea with using "Tornado Emergency" for any confirmed tornado. I also think the SPC should use an "extreme" designation for the higher end outbreak senarios. So it would go something like "Slight" "Moderate" "High" "Extreme". It seems they try to do this with their PDS designations in some watches, but rarely do those concerns get relayed on to the public. A watch is a watch is a watch of course.

I noticed the difference when I released a Flash Flood Emergency on the alert system two weeks ago. That got everyones attention because it wasnt common verbage and is rarely used.

[Hoosier]

I and my office have been torn to shreds over this siren issue by a local paper The Sentinel and my opinion on the topic hasnt changed. We dont use sirens in Montgomery County and we wont use sirens. They cause nothing but confusion. What we should do is promote more NOAA weather radios, text alerting systems and social media.

There are some things I think could enhance the NWS warnings and watches. I like the idea with using "Tornado Emergency" for any confirmed tornado. I also think the SPC should use an "extreme" designation for the higher end outbreak senarios. So it would go something like "Slight" "Moderate" "High" "Extreme". It seems they try to do this with their PDS designations in some watches, but rarely do those concerns get relayed on to the public. A watch is a watch is a watch of course.

I noticed the difference when I released a Flash Flood Emergency on the alert system two weeks ago. That got everyones attention because it wasnt common verbage and is rarely used.

I forsee a problem with using "tornado emergency" for any confirmed tornado. What if it's a situation where the tornado is up and down multiple times over a short period of time and the overall environment isn't favorable for strong/violent tornadoes? If someone has enough misses with a tornado emergency, desensitization is bound to occur and they may not pay much attention to the one that counts. I have mixed feelings about the whole tornado emergency thing but definitely don't support its usage for any confirmed tornado.

[JoMo]

I forsee a problem with using "tornado emergency" for any confirmed tornado. What if it's a situation where the tornado is up and down multiple times over a short period of time and the overall environment isn't favorable for strong/violent tornadoes? If someone has enough misses with a tornado emergency, desensitization is bound to occur and they may not pay much attention to the one that counts. I have mixed feelings about the whole tornado emergency thing but definitely don't support its usage for any confirmed tornado.

How often is any one location in the path of a confirmed tornado though?

[Hoosier]

How often is any one location in the path of a confirmed tornado though?

Not as often as just being under a warning, but this would open the door to having a tornado emergency even if the "confirmation" is an untrained law enforcement official or any member of the public.

[JoMo]

Not as often as just being under a warning, but this would open the door to having a tornado emergency even if the "confirmation" is an untrained law enforcement official or any member of the public.

Good point. I know we get a lot of sheriffnados and public funnel clouds that are just scud.

[BeauDodson]

I forsee a problem with using "tornado emergency" for any confirmed tornado. What if it's a situation where the tornado is up and down multiple times over a short period of time and the overall environment isn't favorable for strong/violent tornadoes? If someone has enough misses with a tornado emergency, desensitization is bound to occur and they may not pay much attention to the one that counts. I have mixed feelings about the whole tornado emergency thing but definitely don't support its usage for any confirmed tornado.

At some point we have to trust the NWS to use fair judgement. Most of us on this thread would probably agree on the majority of storms that should have a tornado emergency designation. You will never bat 100%. The Storm Track thread on this topic is worth reading, as well.

With new radar technology coming out in the years ahead we are going to see more false alarm rates. As radar is able to pick up on weaker tornadoes or "possible" tornadoes you will have more tornado warnings. Unless we change the criteria for issuing a tornado warning. 75% of warnings don't produce a tornado. That FAR would probably be less if offices only warned on verified tornadoes or stronger Doppler Radar indicated tornadoes. But that does not appear to be the goal of the NWS - at least at this time. They appear to be issuing more warnings for the squall line type (small spin ups) tornadoes. Whether we like it or not (and there is much debate on the issue).

On top of that how often does a tornado strike an individual home? Even if a large tornado moves through an area - your home will be missed 99.9% of the time. Made that number up - but it must be a fairly high number. How many times has your home been destroyed by a tornado? I have people ask me all of the time - will my home be hit today by a tornado. People don't understand the nature of severe weather or fail to think through their question. If you pose the question back to them as - how many times has your home been hit by a tornado? Then they think - oh yeah I guess you are right. People (particularly) this year have been frightened by the extent of the tornado outbreaks and the damage.

So not only do we have to deal with FAR that are quite high - we also have to deal with the fact that most of the time your house is not going to be hit by a tornado. If your house isn't hit by a tornado and if your home does not have damage then was it a bad forecast? Some people think so. I see them all of the time on social media sites talking about how nothing happened at their home - the weatherman was wrong.

It is unfortunate that the public has gotten used to severe weather warnings. Perhaps part of the blame could be placed on social media and instant information. Two edged sword. It is amazing that everyone we know can receive a warning within seconds of the NWS issuing that product. Facebook, twitter, text messages, telephone call from weather warning services, multiple television channels, and on and on it goes. But perhaps this is also causing warning fatigue.

People have to be responsible for their well being. There is only so much emergency management and meteorologists can do to protect their communities. Sirens fail - communications fail - people don't listen - people choose to ignore a warning. In other situations people can take the exact precautions that we encourage them to take - only to be killed. EF4 and 5 tornadoes don't care if you live in a mobile home, a 50 year old home, a brand new home - sitting outside - sitting in a car - in a basement.

This is worth listening to

http://ams.confex.co...cordingid=18195

[Master of Disaster]

I forsee a problem with using "tornado emergency" for any confirmed tornado. What if it's a situation where the tornado is up and down multiple times over a short period of time and the overall environment isn't favorable for strong/violent tornadoes? If someone has enough misses with a tornado emergency, desensitization is bound to occur and they may not pay much attention to the one that counts. I have mixed feelings about the whole tornado emergency thing but definitely don't support its usage for any confirmed tornado.

Well, I think you have a really good point. And I certainly dont have an answer. But I think we risk desensitizing the public anytime we cry wolf for minor events. Yelling about how every hurricane is a "Major" storm is fine until you do it 4-5 times a season and they remain out to see until you get that ONE like Katrina.

[Cajun Thunder]

Well, I think you have a really good point. And I certainly dont have an answer. But I think we risk desensitizing the public anytime we cry wolf for minor events. Yelling about how every hurricane is a "Major" storm is fine until you do it 4-5 times a season and they remain out to see until you get that ONE like Katrina.

Unfortunately, there are some on this board that scream "Major" for every swirl on the 384 hr GFS.

[BeauDodson]

I think we also have to consider the possibility that the false alarm rate (FAR) is a skewed number from one office to the next, as well.

I say that because I know for a fact that the NWS in Paducah, Kentucky does everything in their power to verify their tornado warnings. If they issue a tornado warning then they will send people out to look for damage - they will GPS the meso track and they will attempt to find damage. Does every office do this? No. I am glad that the Paducah office makes every attempt to verify their warnings - to me that makes for a more accurate accounting of what happened - what went right - what went wrong. I think highly of our local office and their staff.

I also know that the PAH office does a great job at surveying reported storm damage paths. I believe they have surveyed 80 path tracks this year alone. They make a coordinated effort to verify their warnings. If you tell them you are aware of a damage path then they will make every attempt to go out and see what happened - was it a down burst - was it a tornado - what was it.

It is also the belief of some local meteorologists that there are a far greater number of small short lived tornadoes occurring than we realize. The reason behind this belief is we have one county in particular that has storm spotter/chase teams that go out and intercept warned cells. They make every effort possible to find any and all damage within their county. They have had a large number of verified tornado events within their county over the last few years. Is this because of bad luck that they have been struck by so many tornadoes or because they are actively looking for damage paths? It is a running bet when a severe weather event is underway as to how long before county X is under a tornado warning and how long until that warning is verified. Does that mean other counties don't have great spotter networks? No - not at all. Many of our counties have exceptional spotter groups - but they don't actively chase or intercept storms either.

You would be surprised how many times the NWS does not hear about storm damage. It would be easy to assume that surely they would hear about a damage path if there was one within their WFO. This is just not the case. It can take the shaking of bushes to find out about damage and occasionally even significant damage within a region. Most people don't ever think about calling law enforcement or the NWS to tell them they have tree or barn damage. The local office has a newspaper clipping service and often times they will find out a week or two after an event that damage occurred in county X.

The FAR can also be deceiving because it isn't a clear cut number. We can't just say 75% of tornado warnings never produce a tornado. Partly because of the above. But also because that number varies for other reasons. Breaking it down from season to season will change that number - breaking it down from office to office will change that number - the time of day will change that number, as well. I think the challenge is figuring out how to at least knock off a percentage of the false alarm rates without hurting your POD number. In order to do that you have to break down where your false alarm rates are occurring and why.

The FAR is highest for the first tornado event of a day. If you have a tornado event then the tornado that is most likely to not be warned upon would be the first tornado of the day. The first tornado of the day is missed 44% of the time. Also 1 out of 3 false alarms are on days with no tornado event at all. If the tornado is an isolated event then it has a 55% chance of not being warned upon.

If you have two tornado events then the chance of it not being warned upon drops down to 23%. You can drop that down even more for outbreak days - between 5 and 20 tornadoes you would see only 10-12% of them not warned upon.

The majority of the events that are not warned upon occur during the night and during the morning. This makes sense because of the spotter network and ability to see what is happening within a storm. Also of interest is that 92% of tornado warnings in January are false alarms. That is 9 out of 10 tornado warnings.

The more tornadoes within a WFO then the lower the FAR will drop.

The good news when it comes to the FAR number is that the larger the tornado the less likely it will be missed or that it will be a false alarm. Only 5.3% of 38 F4 tornadoes occurred without a warning and only 8.6% of 162 F3 tornadoes occurred without a tornado warning. Of those 162 F3 tornadoes 107 deaths were reported and only 3.7% of those deaths occurred without a warning. Of the 38 F4 tornadoes 43 people were killed and only 4.7% of those occurred without a warning (that is a warning issued - there is no way of knowing whether the individual received the warning or not).

That vast majority of tornado deaths are occurring with the upper end tornadoes (no surprise) and most of those are being warned on. The problem is that the largest number of tornadoes are along the EF0-EF1 range. Out of 6296 F0 and F1 tornadoes, 22 people were killed. Of those 6296 tornadoes 4555 of them had tornado warnings and 1741 were not warned.

It would be interesting to see future studies determine WFO policies for storm verification. Do they actively go out in the field and look for damage tracks - even if they are just in a corn field or wooded areas. Is their policy subjective to the time of year - back to back events - ability to staff their office - budget cuts - other variables that perhaps I haven't listed but I am sure exists.

This subject came up on Storm Track a few times - there are some offices that will not go out to verify their tornado warnings because they just don't believe they have the staffing to justify the time and expense. Obviously for big events they do surveys - but not for every single tornado warning.

According to ICOW - for comparison purposes

This is Paducah for 2011

This is Springfield, MO for 2011

If we look at 2010 at the Paducah office

And Springfield, MO

It is possible that it is much more difficult to verify tornadoes in the Ozarks region of Missouri vs the Paducah forecast area. I don't know. Just a thought.

If the higher end fatality events are occurring with the EF3-4-5 tornadoes and most of those are being warned upon then that is a success of sorts. It does not bring comfort to those who lost lives in this years tornado outbreaks. The death toll could have been much higher - we assume. Some numbers are difficult to measure and this is one of them.

If we made attempts to do away with the large number of small spin-up tornado warnings (those with squall lines/other - and yes one could argue that to some degree we don't know when and if an event is going to stay small) then would the death toll for those events be much higher than we are currently seeing? Again - there is no way to actually determine this number accurately.

It would be interesting to know if people in a severe weather situation respond differently to a severe thunderstorm warning vs a tornado warning when they perceive the danger to be higher than normal. In other words - a severe thunderstorm warning is issued and they look outside and perceive the danger to be greater than usual because they are experiencing high/damaging winds then would they be just as likely to take shelter whether there was or was not a tornado warning?

Are you more likely to take shelter (real shelter) if a tornado warning is issued vs a severe thunderstorm warning? Are you more likely to take the same action if you perceive the severe thunderstorm to be producing more extreme weather than normally occurs with a severe thunderstorm (58-65 mph wind gusts).

How many of these EF0 and EF1 tornadoes are occurring with squall lines and are only on the ground for a mile or two? How many tornado warnings are being issued for these same events? Are the majority of tornado warnings that verify being issued on supercell tornadoes vs squall line tornadoes? Are the majority of false alarms associated with squall lines vs supercells? If so - what would that break down look like.

We also have to ask ourselves how the public perceives the FAR. Do they even care about an EF0 that hits a couple of trees or a corn field? Do we even care about EF0 tornadoes of this nature? I have heard NWS meteorologists say that there are many times they are uncertain about whether damage is or is not a tornado when it comes to these low rated events.

Some of the tornado statistics were from

J. Brotzge, CAPS/Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK; and H. E. Brooks and S. A. Erickson

[JoMo]

Interesting research there Beau.

It appears SGF has a pretty large FAR. I know they issue a lot of tornado warnings based on squall line events.

I can speak for a lot of people that I've talked with and they typically don't take shelter during severe thunderstorm events. They will move their car under somewhere if they think there is going to be hail though.

[BeauDodson]

Interesting research there Beau.

It appears SGF has a pretty large FAR. I know they issue a lot of tornado warnings based on squall line events.

I can speak for a lot of people that I've talked with and they typically don't take shelter during severe thunderstorm events. They will move their car under somewhere if they think there is going to be hail though.

I just wonder how many of Springfield's warnings are not verified because of rural locations. Hard to say. They defin have a reputation for issuing a lot of tornado warnings (as mentioned on this and other forums). Whether that is right or wrong - good or bad - I don't know. Each office is different.