General Weather Discussion - May 2019

[jonny d]

the nws could care less about local tv ratings ..

They might not, but Mike Morgan and David Payne do.

[sooner333]

I think there are sometimes the weather is hyped up to get ratings. It probably happens more in the winter, but sometimes in the spring. Sometimes they mignt day something is a moderate risk using their own terminology compared to what the NWS says is a slight risk.

Yesterday was not one of those days. The NWS used as strong of language as they ever have. The only other time it was used a massive tornado broke out that was historical in proportions. The signals also continued to get worse all the way up to the early afternoon.

I think the overhype comes from the people. We saw what happened six years ago and don’t want to be out when it happens again. So we heed warnings more than we would have before. That overhype isn’t a bad thing.

[Pete]

As an employer, it's hard to know what to do.

I was worried going into the morning but Mondays are big days at the Gazette; we have to put the paper to bed by the afternoon so it can be delivered on Wednesday.

So, we really didn't have the option of not being open or closing by noon. In the end, we were able to get out of there by 3 PM and of course, we didn't even get rain until much later. I would have felt really foolish if we had canceled the whole workday, however. And it would have been a full day of wasted productivity.


One very good thing about our workplace: We have a full basement that would be a fantastic storm shelter. In fact, I live close enough that I'll be heading there with my animals if my house is ever under immediate threat.

[jn1780]

With social media, there is no way to accurately describe yesterday's conditions without people magnifying things to hype conditions. People are looking for the doom and gloom reports just to post. The local TV guys are making up a smaller and smaller portion of the sources of information year by year.

[jn1780]

As an employer, it's hard to know what to do.

I was worried going into the morning but Mondays are big days at the Gazette; we have to put the paper to bed by the afternoon so it can be delivered on Wednesday morning.

So, we really didn't have the option of not being open or closing by noon. In the end, we were able to get out of there by 3 PM and of course, we didn't even get rain until much later. I would have felt really foolish if we had canceled the whole workday, however. And it would have been a full day of wasted productivity.


One very good thing about our workplace: We have a full basement that would be a fantastic storm shelter. In fact, I live close enough that I'll be heading there with my animals if my house is ever under immediate threat.

3 was a good call. There was a nws discussion that called for development by 2 to 3 in south central oklahoma. Only one storm formed from that boundary before cap slightly built back in. It wasnt s strong cap, but there was little to no lift.

[Pete]

^

Yeah, I was monitoring that closely.

We have a couple of people who live a relatively good distance away and we sent them home around 2.

[BBatesokc]

the nws could care less about local tv ratings ..

Which is why I simply cut out the middleman (local TV weather dudes and dudettes) and just pull up the NWS data on my smart device and avoid the talking fear mongering meteorologists. You can tell your audience that this is looking serious and it's a PDS or whatever, but the local news goes much further than that an it's ridiculous.

[jedicurt]

I have to disagree. If they don’t hype it and it turns bad you have mass people trapped in cars on road and kids in school. We had deaths from school collapse and people stranded on roads.

yes... but we also have had local media personalities who said on the air, while trying to hype it up, that people need to get in their cars and drive away from this storm... see the problem there...

[SoonerDave]

3 was a good call. There was a nws discussion that called for development by 2 to 3 in south central oklahoma. Only one storm formed from that boundary before cap slightly built back in. It wasnt s strong cap, but there was little to no lift.

I think you had so much convection in that cold region north of the front that it basically, for lack of a better term, sucked the energy out of the region everyone was most concerned about. The atmosphere was changing so rapidly that the few storms that tried to go up in SC OK in the 1pm-2pm time frame would go away almost as quickly as they started, as if they just never had time to get organized before the broader convection north just forced the issue away from the area that was seemingly primed to "pop."

[SoonerDave]

yes... but we also have had local media personalities who said on the air, while trying to hype it up, that people need to get in their cars and drive away from this storm... see the problem there...

In all fairness, I think we had *one* notorious local met who did that, and we all know who that was. FWIW, I know that emergency preparedness briefings were drawn up following that incident as a model of "what not to do." It was an embarrassment.

[jn1780]

I think you had so much convection in that cold region north of the front that it basically, for lack of a better term, sucked the energy out of the region everyone was most concerned about. The atmosphere was changing so rapidly that the few storms that tried to go up in SC OK in the 1pm-2pm time frame would go away almost as quickly as they started, as if they just never had time to get organized before the broader convection north just forced the issue away from the area that was seemingly primed to "pop."

The air north of warmfront was unseasonably cold for this time of year. I saw a couple of meteorologist talk about that before this event. Too much cloud cover also in warm sector.

[bchris02]

Which is why I simply cut out the middleman (local TV weather dudes and dudettes) and just pull up the NWS data on my smart device and avoid the talking fear mongering meteorologists. You can tell your audience that this is looking serious and it's a PDS or whatever, but the local news goes much further than that an it's ridiculous.

Even doing that though this looked pretty dire. The language from the SPC was probably as high-end as I've seen since 5/31/13 if not above that. It was a very scary day. And the thing is, had conditions been a little more favorable then it could have been the storm of the century.

This is another example of how easy it is for a high-end setup to go bust if just one thing doesn't fall into place like predicted. And by bust, I wouldn't call yesterday a total bust but it wasn't near as high-end as predicted.

[chuck5815]

i would say that yesterday was a pretty big win for OKC.

huge F5s are just bad PR all the way around, unless you are drinking them at COOP Ale Works, of course.

[SoonerDave]

The air north of warmfront was unseasonably cold for this time of year. I saw a couple of meteorologist talk about that before this event. Too much cloud cover also in warm sector.

The one thing I did see that gave me pause even within the SPC forecasts was the note that soundings were showing MLCAPE's in the 3500-4000 range, which is high, but I remember a lot more attention being drawn in situations with values more in the 5-6K (and up) range. I think the consensus was that the overall environment was so primed that the storms would be able to leverage that amount of energy. Had the actual values been more in that range, I think we would have seen more of the storms everyone expected.

[Celebrator]

Which is why I simply cut out the middleman (local TV weather dudes and dudettes) and just pull up the NWS data on my smart device and avoid the talking fear mongering meteorologists. You can tell your audience that this is looking serious and it's a PDS or whatever, but the local news goes much further than that an it's ridiculous.

This is exactly what I did for the first time with this event. I stopped watching local news after last Friday night and went with NWS Norman Twitter feed exclusively Sat., Sun., and all day yesterday. It was very freeing not to be tied to wall-to-wall coverage and hyperbole. Had the weather radio for the overnight warnings and just checked the NWS Norman Twitter feed when it went off for more info. It was great. Less stressful.

[jedicurt]

This is exactly what I did for the first time with this event. I stopped watching local news after last Friday night and went with NWS Norman Twitter feed exclusively Sat., Sun., and all day yesterday. It was very freeing not to be tied to wall-to-wall coverage and hyperbole. Had the weather radio for the overnight warnings and just checked the NWS Norman Twitter feed when it went off for more info. It was great. Less stressful.

yes, and sometimes the only way to get this info... i didn't turn on the tv at 4am this morning when the sirens went off in norman, i just got on the NWS pages... but i have heard from several at work today that the local media stations failed to really have much about what was going on then... that i guess one had a crew out and was just talking but not showing radar, and the other two just had a scroll, no radar and didn't even interrupt the programming... again, this is all second hand, i did not witness, so please provide info to prove this not to be true, because it's actually really scary if true.

[OKC Guy]

yes... but we also have had local media personalities who said on the air, while trying to hype it up, that people need to get in their cars and drive away from this storm... see the problem there...

Thats a whole separate situation:

1. There is preplanning warnings to alert public of chances of storms

2. There is actual storm taking place and people giving advice what to do that exact moment

That tv station was wrong to ask people to leave. At that point it was too late, if people didn’t already leave they were better off in house. I personally feel that person caused deaths by telling people to leave.

The main discussion is about yesterdays “predictions” way before any storms popped. Not the same scenario. I feel they were correct in overhyping yesterday based on the info they had.

[Ginkasa]

yes, and sometimes the only way to get this info... i didn't turn on the tv at 4am this morning when the sirens went off in norman, i just got on the NWS pages... but i have heard from several at work today that the local media stations failed to really have much about what was going on then... that i guess one had a crew out and was just talking but not showing radar, and the other two just had a scroll, no radar and didn't even interrupt the programming... again, this is all second hand, i did not witness, so please provide info to prove this not to be true, because it's actually really scary if true.

Can't speak for the other stations, but Emily Sutton on Channel 4 was specifically speaking about the tornado right after I tuned in after being awoken by the alert from my phone. Within a minute of the alert I was able to get live information about the situation and determine that I was safe where I was.

In general, I don't watch the local news or the regular weather reports. Any "hype" I get comes from here, for the most part. I don't feel that this event was "overhyped".

[BoulderSooner]

Can't speak for the other stations, but Emily Sutton on Channel 4 was specifically speaking about the tornado right after I tuned in after being awoken by the alert from my phone. Within a minute of the alert I was able to get live information about the situation and determine that I was safe where I was.

In general, I don't watch the local news or the regular weather reports. Any "hype" I get comes from here, for the most part. I don't feel that this event was "overhyped".

local ABC met Shelby Hays was on at 430am when i tuned in and it seemed like she had been on for a litte while

[SoonerDave]

yes, and sometimes the only way to get this info... i didn't turn on the tv at 4am this morning when the sirens went off in norman, i just got on the NWS pages... but i have heard from several at work today that the local media stations failed to really have much about what was going on then... that i guess one had a crew out and was just talking but not showing radar, and the other two just had a scroll, no radar and didn't even interrupt the programming... again, this is all second hand, i did not witness, so please provide info to prove this not to be true, because it's actually really scary if true.

Channel 9 was live and called the TW in Norman before the sirens sounded. I was watching it live when it happened. Jed Castles was completely on the ball and basically running the show on his own (all the other mets were gone by then). I think he was also having to cover for the KOTV 6 side in Tulsa because he covered a TW just east of Tulsa at nearly the same time this morning.

So there was definitely local TV coverage of the Norman event this morning. It was unfortunate that they blew the sirens in apparently ALL of Cleveland County, which stretches up well into the OKC city limits....but that's a separate issue.

[jedicurt]

awesome... this all makes me much happier to hear. like i said, it was something i overheard, so it was all second hand info.

[SoonerDave]

Thats a whole separate situation:

1. There is preplanning warnings to alert public of chances of storms

2. There is actual storm taking place and people giving advice what to do that exact moment

That tv station was wrong to ask people to leave. At that point it was too late, if people didn’t already leave they were better off in house. I personally feel that person caused deaths by telling people to leave.

The main discussion is about yesterdays “predictions” way before any storms popped. Not the same scenario. I feel they were correct in overhyping yesterday based on the info they had.

Excellent point and spot-on regarding yesterday's forecasts: If you give the NWS and the SPC folks in particular the same parameters we had yesterday, they'll issue the same PDS every time. *ALL* the parameters were right there. I mean, IIRC, you had p(.95) of hail *AND* wind *and* tornadoes.

I think what happened yesterday just goes to highlight the fact that there are *so* many variables in play that, sometimes, you're very best information can still not work out exactly as might be predicted. Lost amid this discussion is the fact that SPC had this storm situation identified in long-range forecasts as much as (if not more than) a week ago. Perhaps the broader takeaway is that the more *micro* the forecast becomes, the greater the risk for departures from expectations.

This wasn't an abnormal hype situation. You had tornado chasers from all over the *country* here yesterday because of the atmospheric setup. The tornadoes in Mangum and east of Tulsa late last night were indicative of what they expected all over the state yesterday, so it wasn't like it was a total miss. I think OKC/central Oklahoma truly dodged a bullet.

[OKC Guy]

Saw this don’t shoot the messenger. Will be curious to see NOAA forecast later tonight. Most weather people are likely sleeping right now from being up all night

—-

Aaron Tuttle
@AaronTuttleOK
Tomorrow could be an interesting supercell surprise event over C OK. Join me tonight at 9:30 to discuss the possibility of tornadoes returning. #okwx #tornadoes #Oklahoma #okc #tulsa
12:51 PM · May 21, 2019 · Twitter for Android

[jn1780]

I think tomorrow has capping issues which why only a few people are latching onto it. But we will see.

[5alive]

.

awesome... this all makes me much happier to hear. like i said, it was something i overheard, so it was all second hand info

I also saw Shelby Hays on KOCO ...she was reporting and had a live report from Michael Armstrong in the field.