Baseballs and Caps - Messaging Uncertainty

Imagine yourself at the forecast desk, or about to brief partners, or working up a “Key Takeaways” graphic for social media. You’re looking through various model guidance and you see a very consistent trend for a very concerning environment over the next 24 hours, characterized by extreme instability (4000-5000 j/kg MLCAPE), modest shear (30-35kt effective), weak inhibition (-25 j/k CIN), and very steep lapse rates (8-9 C/km). It’s the kind of environment you tell your spouse to keep the flashlight and basement handy. But, there’s a caveat. You can’t find any appreciable large-scale forcing for ascent and low-level convergence is weak, at best. Oh, and there’s a little ridging building in aloft. It’s one of those very conditional, but non-zero threats. The thing is, we’re not talking about a conditional threat of pea size hail and 30 mph wind gusts. This is a conditional threat of baseballs, 80 mph wind gusts, and the occasional EF-3 tornado. It may be that only one storm forms, but the impact would be high. But, from a probabilistic standpoint, it’s likely that people will see puffy clouds and experience a hot, muggy, storm-free day. What do you do?

It’s a not-to-uncommon question faced by Meteorologists on the Plains, especially in the transition from spring to summer patterns, where instability is trending higher, but the stronger flow aloft is shifting away from the area and forcing is weak. It’s a target of opportunity that probably deserves some attention, but how much?

This week I begin my fourth year forecasting the weather in the Central Plains, and I still have a lot to learn. These conditional high-impact days are intriguing, a challenge to forecast, and carry a lot of weight. If you tell people severe weather is possible, will they treat it like it’s likely? Does the crying wolf syndrome come into play? What if you skip messaging the low probability of occurrence, but then it happens? Which is worse, crying wolf or “it hit without warning”? Maybe the answer varies by region of the country? Maybe there isn’t a one-size-fits-all-regions answer.

There are a lot of factors at play here, some of which social science probably gives us the best avenue moving forward in an increasingly probabilistic realm of messaging.

I recently asked some fellow Mets, on Twitter, what they thought this scenario (if interested, you can read the thread to see the discussion). Something in that discussion that struck me was our ability, as Meteorologists, to message the environment. We focus a lot on messaging the forecast, but I’m seeing more and more that the message can’t stop there. Dr. Julie Demuth suggests that we “stop thinking of a given forecast as the end-point and start thinking of it as the starting-point for a conversation.”. In our scenario above, our users are seeing a low probability of storms in our forecast, but do they understand the magnitude of severe weather that could occur if storms do form? I wonder if targets of opportunity extend beyond just our forecast grids. Maybe the environment, itself, is a target.

We may not change our forecast, but we might consider changing our messaging.

Three years ago this month, I worked a shift that featured a conditional, high-impact environment.  I ended up working a 13 hour shift that day…a day that included baseball size hail and an EF-3 tornado. Three years later, I worked a shift with a similar conditional threat with a very similar environment. That shift ended on time, and did not include any baseballs or tornadoes. Two shifts with a similar, high-impact potential, but with drastically different outcomes.

Probabilistic forecasting isn’t exactly new for Meteorologists, or even our users. However, it appears that we are moving into an advanced realm of forecasting and messaging that has a higher ratio of probabilistic to deterministic info, with a learning curve both for us and for our users. I get the sense that there isn’t one right answer for all scenarios, but I still am not sure where to land on these “fringe” events, so-to-speak. I’m hoping continued discussion, group-think, trial and error, user feedback, and social science findings will help us as we continue to seek effective messaging of low-probability events.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, or comments on this topic, I’d love to hear them! Comment on the post, shoot me a message, or add to the Twitter discussion. We’re better off if we learn together.

Remembering April 27, 2011

Ten years ago, today, I came minutes away from possibly losing my life. This is my story…

The craziness of April 27^th, 2011 started days in advance, for me, as multiple rounds of severe weather and flooding impacted areas from Arkansas to Kentucky. Many nights prior to 4/27, I stayed up watching the severe weather edge closer and closer to north Alabama (where my wife and I were living at the time). Storms generally reached our area in a weakened state, so the bigger impact for me was not getting as much sleep leading up to that Wednesday (April 27).

On Tuesday night (April 26), yet another round of storms developed to our west. This round looked like it had a little more potential to reach our area with at least some severe weather threat, but not until late that night or early Wednesday morning. I decided to at least stay up to see SPC’s initial Day 1 Outlook for 4/27, then my plan was to see what the storms were doing to the west to decide whether to stay up or to try to get some rest. Not surprisingly, north Alabama was put under the rare High Risk of severe weather. 

SPC's Day 1 Severe Weather Outlook for April 27, 2011

 

As best I can remember, this was the first time I was ever in an area that was outlooked in a high risk. Even at that late hour of night, the outlook triggered a little bit of an adrenaline rush as I pondered how the day would play out. As tough as it was to counteract that, I decided to force myself to lie down for a few hours knowing I would need the rest.

My "nap" didn't last long. Around 2:30am (yes, only 1 and a half hours of sleep), our weather radio went off. The first tornado watch of the day was issued as that round of storms, that I previously mentioned was developing to our west, began entering western Alabama. 

 

Since we still had an hour or two before they reached the Huntsville area (where we lived), I thought maybe I could lay back down for at least another 30 minutes or so. Right about that time, tornado warnings went up for a couple of counties to our west. I decided to get up and turn the TV on to watch the wall-to-wall coverage that I knew would start soon on the local TV stations. The line of storms continued to race eastward with a wind and tornado threat. As it approached I-65 (just west of our house), a tornado warning was issued for Madison County (where we lived). Much to my wife's dismay, I ran into our bedroom to wake her up around 5 am and we got in the center of our house. You could hear the wind howling outside, but no sounds of things breaking. The storm passed, we still had power, and things seemed to be ok.

After the storm passed, my wife tried to get a little more sleep before going into work. I was planning the same, but wanted to take one last look at the storms since they would likely hit the Chattanooga area shortly (where a lot of my extended family lives). Unfortunately, the line of storms was producing numerous, brief tornadoes and widespread wind damage. It appeared that the worst of the line was going to go right through the Chattanooga area. Realizing this, I called my family there to give them a heads up. My hope for a little more sleep was put on hold.

One of the hardest aspects of being a Meteorologist is the waiting. We give people a heads up, hope they take action, then patiently wait to hear how they fared. When you’re warning family, it takes the waiting to a whole other level. As I watched that line of storms move through Chattanooga, all I could do was wait, for what seemed like eternity….

About 30 minutes later, I finally got a call from one of my family members. She said the storm was crazy. She had no power and trees were down everywhere, including one that narrowly missed her house. Other houses in her neighborhood were not so lucky. There is a highway that runs a decent distance beyond her house, which normally can't be seen because of all the trees in her neighborhood. You can see it now. Eventually I heard from the rest of my family. Everyone was accounted for and alive!

Back in the Huntsville area, things had quieted down with just some light rain falling. By now, it was about mid-morning or so. My wife had already left for work, but I was staying home since I was off that day. One of the tricky parts of forecasting thunderstorms and severe weather is trying to figure out what, if any, impact one round of storms will have on the next. Sometimes one round can all but end the severe weather threat. Despite widespread storms that morning, this event was only just getting started, and would regularly prove not all events play by the "rules".

Around 9 am, more storms began developing to our west across Mississippi. These storms formed into yet another line and began marching towards Alabama for round two. 

 

As those storms approached our area, an isolated storm developed out ahead of the line (which usually means trouble). This storm had some rotation with it and strengthened some as it approached our house. And, again, tornado sirens started blaring. I began watching out my window to see the storm. As it approached, I began hearing an eerily loud sound that I hadn’t heard with other storms before. It made me nervous because I was wondering if I was hearing the sound of a tornado. I could see the rain shaft approaching and figured it could be a rain-wrapped tornado. Then it hit. Fortunately, that loud sound was NOT a tornado. It was hail…and LOTS of it! The hail was not that big (only about penny sized), but it was the loudest hailstorm I have ever experienced. Hail was raining down hard and fast. The hail was so loud, and there was so much of it, that it could be heard from far away as the storm approached. The storm left the ground covered in a broken layer of white.

That was storm number two at our house. Unfortunately, this was also the first, of many, mistakes I made that day (and one that could have cost me my life). If you’re under a tornado warning and you hear an ominous sound, don’t take your chances. Take shelter!! As interesting as it was to watch that hail storm, I NEVER should have waited that long to take shelter. If it weren’t for the morning storms, that storm might have had a better chance of producing a tornado. Shortly after that storm hit, the 2nd line of storms came through. 

 

More sirens blaring as a tornado warning was issued. From my garage, I watched as the storms approached. The sky to the west was dark and green so I figured it would at least have some hail. As I waited for the storms to arrive, I got a phone call from a cousin of mine who was very afraid of tornadoes. He said he and his family, south of Huntsville, were taking shelter and asked me what was going to happen. You could hear the fear in his voice. I told him to do exactly as his family said. Deep down, though, I knew I couldn't promise him that everything would be ok. That was one of the toughest phone calls I have ever taken. I almost broke down and cried. I fought back tears as I told him it would be ok.

Shortly after that call, the storms hit our area. Strong winds began hitting the house along with hail. The lights began flickering. At that point, I tried to close the garage door (I had it opened so I could watch the storms). But, as Murphy's Law would have it, the power went off before the door shut. I ran over and closed it manually then ran back into the house. The wind continued strong for a bit longer, then quit. With no power, I had to rely on the internet on my phone and the radio in my car. I listened as storm reports began coming in from the area, specifically the Madison and Harvest areas (suburbs of Huntsville). There were reports of trees and power lines down everywhere. Later, NWS surveys determined that some of this damage was from embedded tornadoes. I did a quick check on our house and determined that no damage had been done. But, now I was stuck in my house because my car was stuck in the garage with a door that I assumed I could not open manually. For those wondering, my cousin and his family survived the storm, although I didn't hear about them being safe until much later.

For the next couple of hours I continued to get updates from a friend of mine in the NWS (Matt), my phone, and the radio in my car. I listened as the first of many tornadic supercells began moving into Alabama (the “March of the Supercells” some have called it). 

 

Then I got a call that I will never forget. Matt called and said that there were reports of a 1/2 mile wide tornado on the ground near Phil Campbell, AL (SW of Huntsville). He said, "Roger, if that storm holds together, it will hit northwest Madison County within the hour." Oftentimes, tornadic storms will produce multiple tornadoes, but not necessarily one continuously. April 27^th was different. Conditions were such that any tornado that developed could be large, possibly violent, and long-tracked. Hearing Matt's report got me concerned. I told him my car was stuck in the garage and he said I should figure some way to get it open. The house we lived in was nice, but wasn’t a well-built, brick home, and most likely would not survive a direct hit from a tornado. Although, even well-built brick homes were not surviving tornadoes that day.

I knew I couldn't stay. I went through the house and began getting some important things (legal docs, medical history, etc.) and put them in my car. Around that time, Matt called again and said the tornado was holding together and was headed straight for Harvest (the suburb of Huntsville we lived in). About that time, my weather radio went off as the NWS Huntsville office issued the tornado warning for Madison County ahead of the approaching tornado. Eerily, though, all I heard after the warning tone was static (instead of the normal voice that comes on with the wording of the warning).

I ran to the garage and was finally able to get the door open manually. As I pulled out of the garage, I was struck with a fear I have not experienced before. The lightning was ridiculous and the sky was an eery green…AGAIN! The fear came from what I saw when I looked up. There were pieces of debris (mostly small pieces of wood, paper, and insulation) flying around in the air above me and landing in our yard. I knew the tornado had to be close. What I didn't know was just how close and just how big this tornado was.

 

I honestly thought I was too late. I kept trying, frantically, to call Matt, wanting to know what was going on. Keep in mind, the power never came back on at our house after the morning storms, so I didn't have all of my normal sources for weather information to keep up with what all was transpiring. All I had was the car radio (verbal descriptions don't always fully convey what others can see on TV), my phone, and Matt. Eventually, I even lost the ability to use my phone because the battery died and I had no way to charge it (I had no car charger at the time). 

Before my phone died, I finally got through to Matt and he told me that I may be too late. He said I should drive as fast as possible if I wanted to leave. I was in a bit of freak out mode at this point, but I decided to leave. I pulled out of my driveway and started going about 80 mph down the road headed east. 

 

As I was driving, small pieces of debris continued to fall from the sky and hit my car. This tipped Matt and I off to the fact that maybe I wasn’t out of the tornado’s path. I thought I was driving AWAY from the tornado, but little did I know I was driving towards it! I want to pause here for a little perspective. I don’t know how much time elapsed, but the tornado (an EF-3 at that time) did end up crossing the very road I was driving on. Because of the debris falling from the sky, and based on a little radar interrogation after-the-fact, I’m guessing it was a matter of minutes.

 

What was supposed to be an attempt to get OUT of the tornado’s path, became an attempt to outrun the tornado. I drove as fast as I could. Eventually, I saw an eerily, dark sky behind me and no more debris falling in front of me. I had made it, but I kept driving just to be safe. Then I hit traffic. It was around 5 pm and some people were getting off work early due to the storms. It was chaotic because none of the traffic lights worked due to the widespread wind damage and power outages from earlier in the day. Also, with all the rain from multiple rounds of storms, roads were beginning to flood. I could barely see because of the rain, so I pulled into a gas station south of the storm's path. At this time, I was briefly able to call my wife. I told her to stay at work and to NOT come home (if we even had one still).

Then, a second tornadic storm developed south of the one I had just outrun. This storm was headed straight for the gas station I was at. I quickly left the gas station and tried to get safely south. It was so hard to see…lightning was flashing everywhere and there was a lot of hail coming down. The hail sounded like it was at least golf ball sized. Crazy doesn't even describe the feeling. Once again, I pulled over, this time into a neighborhood. I tried calling Matt again. He said I was stuck and that he didn't know what I should do. The hail started getting worse and I knew this could be the hail core that often precedes a developing tornado. I figured I wouldn't survive in my car so I ran into the nearest house and began banging on the door…no answer. The lightning was getting worse. I was ready to just crouch down and ride it out on this porch. I was honestly afraid for my life (AGAIN). Then, I heard a noise…the door opened! This amazingly nice couple let me in and I spent the next hour with them in their bathroom as storm after storm moved through the area. You could hear the hail hitting the roof. I imagine the hail was a bit bigger than what hit our house earlier. Finally it calmed down.

Then we heard a new sound. A continuous stream of cops, ambulances, and fire trucks were headed north towards Harvest. Reports were coming in of people being trapped. I assumed I didn't have a house anymore. But, I wanted to get home to see. About 2 hours later, around 7pm, I finally got back to my neighborhood after driving through street after street of flooding and damage. Many roads were impassible. Much to my amazement, when I got to our street, I could see our house still standing! The way those storms were tracking, I really wasn’t sure I’d have much to come home to. We were so fortunate compared to other parts of our county and state. When I got home, the last of, I can't even remember how many, storms hit. More strong wind and hail, but no damage to the house. It was now around 8pm and I had not heard from my wife (she usually got off at 5). My goal now was to try to locate her. With all the impassible roads, I knew I couldn't drive around to find her. Cell phones were mostly useless as towers were damaged and the ones working were clogged with so many people trying to make calls. Little did I know, the call I made to her from the gas station around 4pm was the last time I would be able to call her directly that day.

At this point, I had been running on pure adrenaline. Remember, I had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep the night before and I hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning (too many storms and no power). I was exhausted, my head hurt, and I wanted to hear from Jen. Then, I got a text. She said she was at a friend's house! What a relief. Still, I was determined to go be with her. I drove to her friend's house which was only a few miles away. However, that three mile drive took over an hour. I got to her friend's house, only to discover she wasn't there. As it turns out, we had the same idea in mind. I was trying to get to her and she was trying to get to me. When I tried to get back home, the roads had been closed and I couldn’t find a way back to our house. Now I had to find somewhere to spend the night. I was so tired, I knew I would just have to continue my quest to get home in the morning. So, I drove to another friend's house in Huntsville. I finally got word from my Mom that she had spoken with Jen and that she was safe! God was so good to let me know this before going to bed. 

I slept for a long time, then made the trek back home the next morning (April 28). There was devastation everywhere. Whole buildings and houses were severely damaged or simply gone, leaving only slab foundations in some cases. Trees were debarked and de-leaved, making it look like a bunch of toothpicks sticking out of the ground. It was a much different Harvest than I once knew. On my way back home, I passed a car that had been flipped over on the road the day before. Where that car was flipped over was on the same road I had been on the day before while trying to outrun the tornado. It hit me...that car could have been me. To this day, I still wonder what happened to the people in that car. I never found out...

Later that morning, I finally made it home and there was Jen!  We hugged for a while then shared stories from the day before. I ate again for the first time in about 24 hours. It was surreal being back with her and thinking through what we had just experienced. In the days after, we stayed at many people's houses and did a lot of grilling out. Power was out across all of Huntsville. The main transmission lines that carried power into the area had been taken down by the tornado that passed through Harvest. Power finally came back on a week later (the following Wednesday).

Harvest will never be the same...Alabama will never be the same...much of the Southeastern US will never be the same…I will never be the same. I now have an appreciation for severe weather that I never had prior to that event. As a Meteorologist, I thought I was prepared; I wasn't.

If you remember one thing about my story, let it be this. Please don’t take severe weather lightly. Learn from my mistakes. Have a severe weather plan. Have a backup plan for what to do if things like cell phones, garage doors, weather radios, or electricity don’t work. Every event doesn’t have to be as severe or as widespread as April 27^th. All it takes is one tornado to wreck your world. The extra preparation could save your life...

Reflections on 2020

I began this past year with a review of the previous ten years…a decade in review of sorts, looking at noteworthy weather events (as voted on #wxtwitter). That review seems like so long ago. It’s almost as if writing a review of this past year is like writing another decade in review. Looking ahead to 2020 quickly became how-fast-can-we-get-through-2020. A year highlighted by a lot of negatives was given its own hashtag (#2020). And, in case you didn’t know, tweets with that appended to it weren’t the most encouraging. I often try to find the light in the middle of the forest, while not diminishing the existence of the struggle to get through the trees. Below is my attempt at this perspective as I think back on 2020…

It’s striking to me how we, as a people, bounced around with how to handle the incoming pandemic, then more or less settled into a groove. Out-of-the-box ideas, pre-COVID, suddenly became hugely important. Within the NWS, I’ve watched as telework and virtual meetings have gone from occasional use to how-did-we-survive-without-this? It’s like life after 88D radars (how did you even issue warnings before?). COVID has brought some changes to operations that will probably stick with us for the foreseeable future, many of those positive.

A layer of virtualness in operations has its pros, but at times it also leaves something to be desired (at least it has for me). I’m incredibly grateful for technology and the ability to still “see” people face to face (imagine COVID in the 1980s…yikes). Where it has been tough, at times, is missing the day to day, in-person interactions. Some have probably loved COVID’s change in operations since it has made it more quiet in the office (nothing wrong with that), but that’s not me. I really enjoy being in an office full of people. Pre-COVID, I was always was a little bummed about working weekends, not because everyone else in the world is off, but because the office is lighter on faces. Every day now is a weekend. Like with telework and virtual meetings, though, it has become normal and I’ve settled into the groove of never-ending weekend shifts. Don't tell anyone, but sometimes the quiet of the new normal is nice, especially with the noise of four young children at home :)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention those on permanent telework. I miss having a full office, but at least I get to go into the office and see a few people on a regular basis. There are those, in the weather community, who haven’t been in an office on a regular basis in almost a year. That’s hard to imagine, and I want to fully acknowledge the difficulties of that, especially for those who would rather be in an office with people.

2020 was a learning curve for operations in the middle of a pandemic, but I gotta say…I’m really impressed with how the agency just settled into a groove to keep our service going. It’s so neat to watch people improvise and find a way to make things happen. I’ve seen that in high-impact weather events in years past and I’ve watched it again with COVID. A previous forecaster in our office used to grace us with a hearty “NEAAATTT!!”, and I echo that sentiment as I think back on the flexibility of operations over the past year.

While COVID and politics (don’t worry, I won’t go there) have taken much of 2020’s stage, weather certainly made many attempts to grab some air time. For starters, tornadoes weren’t all that fond of the Plains, and instead chose locations like Oregon and Maine. The NWS Wichita office’s lack of tornadoes in 2020 made a nice, little doughnut hole in the Plains, with a scattering of tornadoes in surrounding states. 

Really, it was the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee River Valleys that saw some incredible activity. Remember that tornado in MS with debris lofted downstream that was visible on radar? 

On a personal note, the Chattanooga tornado sticks out to me the most as that is where I spent my early childhood, and is where a large portion of my family still resides. Watching a debris signature so clearly evident over a city like that always carries some weight, but this one was different for me. I can count on one hand the number of times I have called my Grandparents and told them to get to the closet…this year makes #2 (the first was during the 4/27/11 tornado outbreak). Fortunately, my family all survived this year’s tornado, but one family member had significant damage in their neighborhood, including their house. Among other damage, a tree split their house in half, and landed the next room over from where they were seeking shelter. That debris signature on radar probably included parts of their house and neighborhood. Seeing a signature like that on radar and then waiting to hear from people…not a great feeling. But, what a relief after hearing all were spared!

Other notable events that stick out to me are the Midwest Derecho (can't get enough of those YouTube videos and how the wind just wouldn't stop) and the insanely active Atlantic Hurricane season. I kinda just thought that the 2020 hurricane season would simply merge into 2021. It’s amazing Louisiana is still on the map.

As quiet as the weather has been here in southern Kansas, I almost feel a little sheltered from the big weather events that other offices, and areas of the country, had to deal with in the middle of COVID. On a side note, I would love to hear from anyone who has worked in some of those big events this past year and how COVID played a role (operations, messaging, etc.). Feel free to comment below or hit me up on Twitter!

Looking ahead to 2021, I’d say I’m cautiously optimistic. I tend to see life from the glass is half full perspective, and I’d say I’m still in that camp as I look forward. But, like with the uncertainties in an approaching winter storm, I’m less confident on what to expect. I will say, however, when I think about the weather community I so enjoy being a part of, I feel confident that a passion for what we do will still be there. COVID and politics seem to be the wild cards, but I don’t foresee those stopping what we do.

If I’ve learned anything from this year that I can take into the next, it would probably be to worry less about what others think. Being mindful, and considerate, of others is one thing, but it’s something else when focusing on others’ opinions too much leads to unhealthy decision making, or an unhealthy view of myself. Think of it this way…some of the people we most want to have positive opinions of us are the very people we may hurt the most by not being honest or by not being ourselves. I like to use Key Takeaways in weather messaging, and this was my personal key takeaway from 2020. What about you? What’s your key takeaway(s)? Is there anything from 2020 that sticks out to you as a point of improvement going into 2021?

I don’t really know how to end a post like this that doesn’t sound corny or lacking sincerity/originality, so I’ll make my best attempt. I truly hope 2021 has some great moments for you. If 2020 was full of bad, I hope the good outweighs the negatives in 2021. I hope areas of weakness can be strengthened. Lastly, I really hope for improved relationships and the return of common ground (where it has been lost). COVID and politics really seemed to cause some separation. While that may not fully change, my hope is that we can find common ground to stand on and work from. We don’t all have to agree on everything, but I still believe we can work together effectively and respectfully. I believe the environment we can create in that scenario can help us face whatever challenges the future holds.

“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.” - Bill Clinton