Crying Wolf

I continue to be concerned about the “crying wolf” syndrome when it comes to weather watches, warnings, and advisories in Alabama, and the rest of the nation.

Let me say up front this is NOT to criticize anyone at the local National Weather Service office here in Birmingham; our friends there do a very good job, and I am thankful for their work. I would even expect a number of folks there to share my concern. The criteria for the various weather warnings and advisories come from their superiors in Fort Worth and Washington. I simply believe we have way too many severe weather messages bombarding the public now, and they are not going to listen when we REALLY have an emergency going on and they REALLY have to take immediate action.

The recent “heat advisory” was a good example… that thing got the media in full hype mode early this week. There were even heat stories on the news last night as rain was falling and temperatures were in the low 70s in most places! Watch some TV reporters and you would think we were all about to go into spontaneous combustion or something. It simply wasn’t hot enough for a real serious heat problem here; the weather is supposed to be that hot in late July. Lets save the hype for a real heat emergency.

I also think severe thunderstorm warnings have become so common that nobody pays attention. We really need to “raise the bar”; I suggest hail of 1” in diameter or larger or winds of 65 mph or greater (the current criteria is 3/4" diameter hail and 58 mph winds). This should cut back on a ton of frivolous warnings. And, yes, the false alarm ratio (FAR) on tornado warnings is still too high. The easiest thing in the world is to issue a tornado warning; the most difficult thing to do is NOT pull the trigger everytime a TVS or MESO shows up on radar.That difficult choice is most often the correct choice. Yes, I know we need to follow the "course of least regret", but something needs to be done or all of these messages will be worthless.

If the bar isn't raised on existing warnings, I am a big proponent of initiating formal “tornado emergency”, “severe thunderstorm emergency”, and “heat emergency” messages that would be rarely used, and only when there is a KNOWN immediate threat to life. Examples of a tornado emergency would include the 4/8/1998 tornado outbreak (34 people lost their lives that night); a severe thunderstorm emergency would be like the derecho event on February 16, 2001 when widespread winds of 100 mph moved through Birmingham (this complex produced severe damage from eastern Mississippi all the way across Alabama), and a heat emergency would be needed for events like the July 1980 heat wave in which a number of people lost their life.

Unless the warning system changes, it will become insignificant. And, that will cost many lives. We need change,and we need it now. Once again, this is a call for those high up in the National Weather Service organization to consider making some moves now in watch and warning criteria, or initiating the new "emergency" messages as I mention here. And, don't even get me started about the bewildering number of advisories used during winter storm situations. I will write that article on a colder day!