The Awful State of the National Weather Service's Storm Warning Program

NWS office in storm warning mode

While flash flood warnings have -- rightly and understandably -- dominated the news the past 10 days, this does not mean the National Weather Service's (NWS) other types of storm warnings are effective and meeting their goals. They are not; a point made here for more than a decade. 

I have two pieces of new information. 

The first involves an independent study (by an outside contractor) of the NWS's tornado warning program that was published last week but was not noticed because of all of the news and concern pertaining to the July 4 Hill Country Flood. Below are the results of the study with my comments and more below that. 

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As it may be hard to read, from the above report: 

"…the NWS has consistently fallen short of meeting performance goals for probability of detection and [tornado] warning lead times for the period from 2011 to 2023. In addition to the NWS’s limited effectiveness in forecasting and warning performance, NOAA lacks official outcome metrics to assess progress to meeting the … loss of life and mitigating economic losses from tornadoes, leaving this goal unmet without further improvements."

Of course, that is what this blog has said over and over during the past 13 years. 

The second is from a recently retired NWS lead forecaster at its Storm Prediction Center. It pertains to the NWS's "Service Assessments" where they study their own performance after major storms with a team exclusively comprised of federal employees -- and, most of those work for the NWS/NOAA. He explains why, based on his experience, an independent National Disaster Review Board (NDRB) is needed. 

Roger is completely correct. His comments, plus those of the tornado study, clearly indicate -- left on its own -- the NWS will take years -- if ever -- to improve.

I wish to emphasize the last item Roger wrote about "multidisciplinary." Clearly, human factors experts need to be included with a NDRB just as they are with the National Transportation Safety Board. For example, in June 2024, the NWS completely missed a strong tornado in Nebraska even though radar clearly showed a tornado and there were multiple storm chasers calling in to report the tornado and ask, "Why haven't you issued a warning?!" A warning wasn't issued until after the tornado had been on the ground for 20 minutes and after it had done significant damage near Whitman, Nebraska. The answer as to why a warning was not issued evidently lies in the field of human factors -- how humans make decisions in critical situations. 

In the past ten days, there have been many who have defended the NWS's performance the morning of July 4 in spite of the late issuance of the critical "flash flood emergency warning" (FFE) which -- per the NWS's own definitions -- is supposed to be issued when a "life-threatening flash flood" is expected or a situation where "water rescues" will present itself. The FFE was issued but it was an hour later than the data allowed and an hour after at least two camps, including Camp Mystic, were flooded. 

Per the "Grok" AI program, the July 4 Hill Country Flash Flood has likely killed more people in the United States than any flash flood since 1886 (if the total deaths approach 200). This can never be allowed to happen again!

The only way we can fix these recurring, life-threatening, problems is by creating an independent National Disaster Review Board. Please write your congresspersons as it is easy to do via their websites. You can contact the White House here. 

Thank you!!