Tornado Forecasting: Do We Have to Politicize Everything?! - Updated

Governor Whitmer: If you wish to be helpful, get on the bandwagon for a National Disaster Review Board which would investigate situations like this with an eye to making improvements in the way we forecast and react to disasters. 

Friday's forecast for southwest Michigan was poor. There were unforecast major tornadoes. While I don't like it, it happens. I've certainly made my share of poor forecasts over a 50+ year career. The forecaster(s) involved likely feels like kicking themselves and is resolving to do better in the future. 

That stipulated, there were no cuts in tornado watch forecasters at the National Storm Prediction Center where tornado watches are issued which, by the way, is not in Michigan but in Norman, Oklahoma. President Trump had nothing to do with it. I suspect Governor Whitmer already knows it. Attempting to politicize a poor weather forecast is beyond the pale. 

I also fault the Detroit News for playing along. They didn't even contact the National Weather Service for comment!

Since Hurricane Sandy (2012), I have been working hard to create a National Disaster Review Board, modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It will -- over time -- engender major improvements in how we handle disasters -- but only if politicians restrain their grandstanding and allow it to work. 

The D.C. establishment has done a wonderful job of withholding post-accident comments -- such as after the January 2025 American Airlines/Army Helicopter crash at Reagan National -- and letting the NTSB do its work. Now that we have a bill before the House that might finally make a Disaster Review Board happen, I'm going to appeal to politicians' better instincts and ask them to get behind an actual solution. 

Addition: The Detroit Free Press News (later) offered these quotes from the Storm Prediction Center:

“Bill Bunting, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said forecasters issued outlooks earlier in the day indicating the potential for severe storms and tornadoes in southwest Michigan. But a tornado watch was not issued because the conditions that produced the tornadoes were highly localized and difficult to detect in advance. “This was very, very constrained in space and time — a very small area,” Bunting said. Tornado watches typically cover large regions — often 25,000 to 30,000 square miles — and remain in effect for four to eight hours, he said.” further down: “Bunting said the Storm Prediction Center reviews every major weather event to improve forecasting, but noted the challenge of predicting extremely localized storms. “It's a big challenge … to forecast these extremely localized events,” he said.”

Hat tip: Roger Edwards