Catching Up After the Tornado Siege of 2024

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Thirty-two days of above normal numbers of tornadoes. While we have to wait for final numbers, this appears to be the worst period of tornadoes since the infamous year of 2011. Meteorologists east of the Rockies are exhausted, at least I certainly am. 

That is not to say there won't be more tornadoes this year -- there certainly will be. But, I'm hoping we won't go through another period where the tornadoes are as continuous as the period just passed.

Tornado Warnings

The storm death toll in 2024, for the number of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms (our first lightning death in the U.S. didn't occur until Friday), appears to have been mitigated by what were quality warnings (with a few exceptions). 
This Dallas Morning News story is about Texas men getting a call from Oklahoma telling him they had ten minutes before the tornado struck. The men then warned other people, saving lives. 

There are several points to consider here:
  • Generally, people can get to safety with only seconds or a very few minutes of warning. 
  • There is a trade-off between accuracy and lead-time (the interval between the issuance of the warning and the arrival of the storm). Smaller, shorter-period lead time tornado warnings are going to be the most useful, especially since the false alarm rate would go down (credibility would go up).
  • Congress and others pressing for 60-minute lead-time tornado warnings are misguided. With too much lead-time, people will be tempted to drive across town to get their children (rather than having their children shelter at their friend's house) or will try to drive property out of harm's way causing giant traffic jams (as we have seen in Oklahoma). Both increase danger and are counterproductive to the goal of the warnings, which is to save lives. 

 Airliner Turbulence

The desire by the MSM to make everything in the world about global warming -- regardless of the science -- seems to be infinite. This is unquestionably true regarding turbulence affecting airliners. Last week, I wrote about the Singapore Airlines fatal turbulence encounter. I wouldn't change a word of what I wrote.

Dr. Cliff Mass, professor of meteorology for the University of Washington, has a more detailed piece here and comes to the same conclusion. The Singapore encounter and aircraft turbulence in general have nothing to do with global warming. 

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