Thoughts After a Blizzard

I'm going to cover the stupid, bad and the humorous before beginning forecasting for the Texas snow storm. 

The Stupid

Whose bright idea was it to use a WEA message to tell people the roads are bad and to stay home?!!

WEA ("wireless emergency alerts") are supposed to be, and are promoted as, strictly for life-threatening situations. See below.

To BLAST everyone with that obnoxious tone more than 24 hours after the storm began is not life saving -- it was old news. I would be much more empathetic had they done this during the mid-morning Sunday before the winds really came up; that would have helped prevent people from getting on the roads. But, at our home, we had 2.5' drifts across our driveway when the WEA alert came -- we couldn't go anywhere if we wanted to.

The above is just one of the many comments on Twitter/X. I didn't see any that thought it was a good idea. 

My original fear, which has been amply validated, was that WEA would morph from life-saving (only!) to a general message system. Now that we can be awakened by WEA at 3am due to hail (only) and this -- stay home in a blizzard -- it is time to rethink WEA.

While on the subject, Thursday around noon Kansas highway officials flashed "Winter Storm Warning" on the electronic road signs in Johnson County. The problem is that there was no winter storm warning nor even a winter storm watch in effect at the time.

Kansas officials: stop trying to "play meteorologist." You aren't very good at it!

The Bad

The National Weather Service's inadequate infrastructure bit the Wichita forecast office -- and the public it serves -- while both the blizzard and ice storm were in progress in their area of warning responsibility.

Not only did we lose the NWS's radar, we also lost the FAA's weather radar as a result. Topeka's office issued Wichita's products but I imagine they were plenty busy already with a blizzard throughout their service territory. We desperately need a National Disaster Review Board to help the NWS/NOAA sift through their priorities in an era when NOAA is giving away eight-figure climate "education" grants.

Addition. This was written on Twitter (I am purposely omitting the name of the author) this morning:

It caused the male author a great deal of difficulty because he did not prepare for the storm. I had an online class over the noon hour today and two of the participants said they didn't believe the forecast and were (mildly) inadequately prepared. 

As you know, this baffles me. Blizzard and ice storm warnings are rare. When a blizzard warning is calling for 10+ inches of snow (as we meteorologists were forecasting for the home town of the Twitter statement's author), it seems odd that it would not be taken seriously. For the record, his home town received 14.8 inches. 

Yes! Weather forecasts are sometimes wrong. It is possible that, say 5" of snow might have fallen with gusts to 25 mph (instead of 40+ mph). But had a lesser storm occurred, it would have still caused serious travel disruptions. 

If you did not act on the blizzard and ice storm warning and would like to talk about, please let a note in the comments. Thank you!!

The Good

With the exceptions of being ~12 hours too slow to use the "B-word" (blizzard) and not extending the "ice storm warning" farther east in the Ohio Valley, the NWS did an outstanding job with this storm. Congratulations!!!

You might wonder why I am being this positive but the wording of their forecasts clearly conveyed that blizzard and ice storm conditions were going to occur in each pertinent location. It was the forecast "headlines" that were lacking. So, they get an A- for that. FYI: about a million people from Kansas to the Mid-Atlantic have lost power due to the ice storm. It will be days before everyone is back online.

Wichita names its snow plows. This year, they put the name of the plows into their GIS program that allow residents to see which roads are freshly plowed. 

I think my favorite is Edward Blizzardhands but I also like Mr. Sandman (in Wichita, the plows also spread sand). Where are The Chordettes when we need them?!

I expect to have the Texas - Oklahoma snow forecast up by mid-afternoon.