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Hype and sensationalism are nothing new to broadcasting but every station in every city has a 'Storm Team' thanks to the TV consultants who are happy to sell old rope for money. The promos usually show stock footage of wrecked homes and downed power lines while back at the station grim-faced meteorologists act as if they are launching a moon shot. Programming is interrupted with maps covering 1/4 of the screen and ear-splitting beeps.

Broadcasters are a cynical lot - they will use weather and its aftermath to attract and hold an audience even if it borders on inciting a panic. The problem, as Spann points out, is that these tactics become counter-productive when the audience tunes them out literally and figuratively.

The word 'ratings' does not appear in the piece but it should have since most populated areas have no shortage of weather information (NOAA, Accu Weather, etc.) in addition to the local broadcast outlets.

It's amusing to note that audiences in football-mad Alabama preemptively called ABC affiliates and warned (threatened?) them not to interrupt the game broadcast with frivolous weather bulletins about routine thunderstorms. The affiliates grumped about 'an important service to our viewers' etc. but they complied in the end.

One of the concerns emerging from Joplin is the apparent fact that many weather radios did not alert as they should have.

Sadly, many did not heed what warnings were given and did not take cover as they should have. Driving around when tornado sirens are blowing is never a good thing...

I understand the need for alerting people to bad weather, but the TV stations take it to the extreme. They go wall to wall and repeat the same information over and over. They should only go live if the tornado is on the ground. The continual hype and non stop blathering play a part in people not being weather aware.

I remember one TV weather caster go so excited he had a tornado on TV to show the audience. Turned out to be smoke from a smokestack in the distance :-)

It's a two-edged sword.

Tornado warnings are routinely issued when Doppler radar detects rotation in a thunderstorm, as such can be the sign of a developing tornado.

Often times, the rotation stays up in the cloud and no tornado hits.

But what if the NWS saw rotation, did not issue a tornado warning, and ten minutes a tornado hit with no warning? There would be outrage over that as well.

Folks, this is weather FORECASTING. It is IMPERFECT.

I remember a Tornado Warning they issued once when a Sheriff’s Deputy in a neighboring county “thought he saw a funnel cloud”!

I met James about four years ago, although he would not remember me from Adam. He is one of the good guys. I knew his banker uncle from early in my career. Good, solid people.

I think they need a new alert level between tornado watch and tornado warning. Right now the watch seems to be sounded for a fifteen county region at once and can last for hours if it gets somewhat stormy. No one pays much attention to that. Then the National Weather Service sounds a warning whenever the radar shows a rotation forming. That is usually limited to one county at a time for maybe a half hour. That same tornado warning is used for an actual sighting of a funnel cloud. Most of the rotational detections on the radar need to be bumped down a notch to something between the current watch and warning.

I have figured out a way to determine how serious a disaster warning is. If the radio station waits until the commercial is over to announce it, it's not to bad. If they will interrupt a commercial to announce the danger then you should be running for safety.

As someone who lives in “Tornado Alley”, I agree with Spann.

Our cable system has signed on with the Emergency Announcement System, EAS, and it is a royal PITA.

Example: I’m watching the local news & weather station and they are pre-empting all programing to give a moment by moment report of the storms moving through their broadcast area.

Suddenly, the EAS system breaks in, changes the channel to the Weather Channel and runs a weather announcement crawl across the top of the screen. Well, whoop-de-doop, I was just watching a much more detailed report on the storm and the EAS is now giving me far less useful information.

Also, I estimate that fully 90% of the weather reports telling us we might have tornadoes coming through are wrong.

Even so, here in Oklahoma, when we hear the sirens going off, we walk outside to see if we can spot a tornado, rather than running into our “safe place” right away. We’re either way stupid, or made of sterner stuff than most. Or maybe both.

I agree with Spann that the siren alert system is of limited use. The sirens go off anytime there is a tornado warning in any part of a county. They often go off where I live and the dangerous storm system is twenty miles away and not headed in my direction. That’s for 80% or more of the siren alarms. It’s far more important to know where the dangerous system is, and its direction.

Unless someone has no TV, and no internet and no radio, and no weather warning station, the sirens cause more confusion than anything else. And the weather alert devices work on batteries if the power is off, as do portable radios.

Not sure the tornado warnings are excessive because those systems are often dangerous even if no tornado touches ground. It’s good to take some precautions.

As a long time warning forecaster (over 30 years now), I have experienced the dramatic change in NWS capability as technology improved. I have taught many seminars on warning philosophy, based on both my experiences and those of other warning forecasters. I study warning failures in great detail. Much of the problem with warning verification comes from lack of detection, or ground truth. I always advise warning forecasters to separate reports from events. In other words, just because no one saw the tornado doesn't mean in didn't occur. I have personally worked events where spotters insisted there was no tornado, when in fact it was right in front of them in broad daylight with good visibility. How can that happen? I didn't fit the perceived profile. It didn't “look” like a tornado. Not all tornadoes are visible. Should we wait until a tornado is actually sighted before issuing the warning? What if the tornado spins up in the middle of a populated area? It happens. Who wants to be the mine canary? What about at night when visibility is low and few are awake to see?

Personally, I have always been conservative with warnings (I'm a long-time Freeper. What would you expect?), and tend to set the threshold rather high. Normally, warning forecasters want to see more than just rotation in a thunderstorm. We prefer to see vertical and temporal consistency. That means the rotation occurs over a vertical depth, rather than one level...and over a period of time, rather than just once. The threshold will vary depending on the situation. If it is a wild day with a high threat, the threshold will be lower. You can't take a lot of time to analyze one storm when there are 10 others going on at the same time. You have to decide, and move on to another storm. If they are moving at 60 mph, you also don't have time to dither. Warning decisions are usually made in a matter of seconds.

I always preach that the toughest decision is the one NOT to warn. This is because if you are considering a warning, then you have evidence of a threat. You must conclude that the evidence is not strong enough to go with a no warn decision. Now you are betting the public’s life on things we don't fully understand. The easy approach is to just issue the warning and “be safe”. Of course, this just waters down the value of warnings.

Bottom line, it is a tough job. There is so much uncertainty, and often conflicting information. You are gambling with real lives. I have had numerous fatalities during my watch, but fortunately they all occurred with warnings in place. I have been lucky. I have watched other warning forecasters not so lucky. They will carry the scars of the wrong decision to the grave.