4 ms·

The general public can’t grasp the distinction between watches and warnings, and your solution is to divide warnings into subcategories?

progman32 5y ago
I suspect the confusion is the specific but uncommon word choice. Perhaps if they were called something like "tornado likely" and "active tornado", respectively, it would be more widely understood.
- cbfrench 5y ago
  Now, that’s a reasonable solution. My only concern is that people won’t take “tornado likely” seriously. But I guess, based on OP, people don’t take “tornado warning” seriously, either.
1123581321 5y ago
My proposed solution is to continue to reserve the word warning for its old use, to keep people safe by preventing the cry-wolf effect and to introduce an intermediate term to appease the people who want to ring the alarm more often and communicate with locals who want more information. I agree that the older, simpler watch and warning system was better, if that's what you're saying.
- cbfrench 5y ago
  We agree that the existing watch/warning system as it stands is highly effective. Sure, there are more warnings than there used to be, but that is largely based on the fact that the radar data available to make warning decisions is much more reliable than it used to be. There are potentially more warnings issued that don’t verify, but they’re also based on data that is much likelier to verify. (As opposed to relying solely on spotters to make warning decisions.) Adding complications to the existing watch/warning system just seems unnecessary. What people don’t grasp is that a tornado warning may not verify for their exact location, while it may (unfortunately) verify for a location two miles away. The fact that some warnings don’t verify doesn’t mean we should change our warning system. What we have in place remains highly accurate. It might be better if people understood how to interpret radar data and to evaluate warnings based on that.
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    Yes, the bottom line is we have to hope for more sophisticated interaction with weather alerts over time. Events like this weekend's tornado could have that silver lining as the timeline becomes more widely known as it currently appears to have involved tornado(s) that moved too quickly once on the ground for lives to be saved. I'm not optimistic given the careless behavior I've observed living in tornado-prevalent areas--but this was a bad one.

progman32 5y ago

I suspect the confusion is the specific but uncommon word choice. Perhaps if they were called something like "tornado likely" and "active tornado", respectively, it would be more widely understood.

cbfrench 5y ago
Now, that’s a reasonable solution. My only concern is that people won’t take “tornado likely” seriously. But I guess, based on OP, people don’t take “tornado warning” seriously, either.

1123581321 5y ago

My proposed solution is to continue to reserve the word warning for its old use, to keep people safe by preventing the cry-wolf effect and to introduce an intermediate term to appease the people who want to ring the alarm more often and communicate with locals who want more information. I agree that the older, simpler watch and warning system was better, if that's what you're saying.

cbfrench 5y ago
We agree that the existing watch/warning system as it stands is highly effective. Sure, there are more warnings than there used to be, but that is largely based on the fact that the radar data available to make warning decisions is much more reliable than it used to be. There are potentially more warnings issued that don’t verify, but they’re also based on data that is much likelier to verify. (As opposed to relying solely on spotters to make warning decisions.) Adding complications to the existing watch/warning system just seems unnecessary. What people don’t grasp is that a tornado warning may not verify for their exact location, while it may (unfortunately) verify for a location two miles away. The fact that some warnings don’t verify doesn’t mean we should change our warning system. What we have in place remains highly accurate. It might be better if people understood how to interpret radar data and to evaluate warnings based on that.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  Yes, the bottom line is we have to hope for more sophisticated interaction with weather alerts over time. Events like this weekend's tornado could have that silver lining as the timeline becomes more widely known as it currently appears to have involved tornado(s) that moved too quickly once on the ground for lives to be saved. I'm not optimistic given the careless behavior I've observed living in tornado-prevalent areas--but this was a bad one.