Is the National Weather Service Beyond Repair?

Since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, I have advocated and worked hard for a National Disaster Review Board that would improve disaster forecasting and response in much the same way as the National Transportation Safety Board has improved transportation safety. 

However, Congress has shown little interest in the concept of a Disaster Review Board. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) becomes stunningly worse by the month. Over recent weeks, I have wondered if the NWS, in its present form, is beyond repair. 

Since the early 2010's these pages have documented the long list of forecasting and warning issues of the National Weather Service. Friday evening (July 3), in southern Nebraska, was one that was so bafflingly bad it makes me wonder whether the opportunity to repair the NWS has passed.

During the evening, supercell thunderstorms developed in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas. There was a severe thunderstorm watch that forecast "a tornado or two" in the area and the SIGTOR (a measure of whether the atmosphere was able to produce significant tornadoes) had sufficient value of 1. This should have alerted the Hastings, NE NWS office, which services the area, to be on the lookout for tornado development. 

At 6:44, I published this post on Twitter/X. I had a bad feeling about the situation and wanted to provide residents with a "heads up."

Over the next few minutes, the rotation began to rapidly organize and a "hook echo" (a signature of a tornado) formed. 

This was my version of a tornado warning. Note: so there is no confusion, I reserve the terms "watch" and "warning" to the NWS. If the tornado touched down at 7:02pm, 11 minutes in advance. 

In my opinion, the NWS should have issued a tornado warning by this time. In addition to the rotation and hook, the supercell was taking a "right turn" (in this case, toward the south) which is another sign of a tornado development.

The rotation (below) in the storm was strong and getting better organized by the moment. Still no tornado warning from the National Weather Service even though others on Twitter/X were noticing and telling their followers of the tornado likelihood.

At 7:04, I published the warning message below. I was convinced a tornado was in progress. A brief video of the tornado is here. 

The NWS has just issued a tornado warning (it came out at 7:03 but the software had not had time to process and plot it). While their warning said it was based on radar, via storm chaser communications, a tornado in progress had just been reported to the NWS at Hastings. 

Storm chaser reports said the tornado was a multi-vortex storm, implying it was strong. Fortunately, it did not hit anything significant enough to get an accurate intensity reading. I have searched the NWS Hastings web page and its Twitter/X feed and I cannot find a post-storm survey. I suspect it will go into the books as "intensity unknown."

I provided my readers, if the tornado indeed was on the ground at 7:02 with 11 minutes "lead-time." The NWS was about -1 minute. "Ideal," per the peer-reviewed literature, is approximately 13-15 minutes. The NWS's official lead-time goal is 13 minutes. From 2005 to 2010, that 13 minute goal was routinely attained. Its tornado warning program has deteriorated to 1994's level -- or worse. 

There are tornadoes that unwarnable (there might have been one at Hartford, KS yesterday morning). That isn't the case with any of the storms I have documented. This storm was metaphorically shouting out for a tornado warning. It was another example of a storm that is used on college radar course case histories. Worse, we were getting more real-time information from chasers in the field than we were from the NWS. As the storm evolved, I was receiving comments from chasers/meteorologists and NWS meteorologists expressing astonishment no warning was issued. 

In fact, it appears the NWS has morphed from a tornado warning agency to a tornado reporting agency. 

I'd love to tell you this was the only time this has happened but it has become depressingly common. Here is a write-up of a fatal tornado at Matador, TX without a warning while it was being broadcast live on television.

June 21, 2023, screen capture from report on inadequately
warned Matador, TX Tornado. "They" refers to the NWS office at Lubbock, TX.

Earlier this year, we had an NWS office issue more than 20 tornado warnings based on a type of "false radar indication" known as a "side lobe."

If they cannot issue an advance tornado warning on storms like Friday's, I worry that recommendations from a NDRB will fall on deaf ears as the task of rebuilding the NWS has become too great. 

Rather than focusing on outstanding, accurate and timely storm warnings to the public, today's NWS is focused on what it calls "IDSS" -- their Impact-Based Decision Support Services. They closed their school to teach their meteorologists the science/art of interpreting radar and issuing storm warnings in favor lessons to teach IDSS. Instead of taking care of the public -- which by their tax dollars pay for the NWS -- they want to do the "glamorous" work of supporting World Cup, NASCAR, outdoor concerts, and other events that should be handled by private sector meteorologists. 

And, to answer a question I have been asked many times, yes, I have sent letters and have had multiple communications with NOAA and NWS senior management. 

I don't know what the solution might be when the organization has forgotten its primary mission.