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.                                                                                ...

Today is the 13th anniversary of the horrific Joplin Tornado of May 22, 2011. I was not going to write about Joplin this year but there is so much incorrect information in the media today, I want to briefly summarize some of the vital points I covered in my Joplin book .  Here is a very brief outline as to why the death toll was so very high: It was an F-5 tornado; deaths are going to be relatively high regardless. I suspect about 30-40 would have been killed if everything had worked properly.  The NWS issued a tornado warning for areas just north of Joplin. Even though it didn't affect the city itself, officials in Joplin sounded the tornado sirens.  When people, upon hearing the sirens, turned on their televisions and radios for more info on the warning, they were told, "this warning does not affect Joplin, except for the far north part of the area." So, people went about their business. Three minutes later, the NWS issued a tornado warning that did  include Joplin...

There is an exceptional number of exceptional close-up videos of yesterday’s Palm Beach Gardens (PBG) Tornado. After seeing the ever-increasing number into this afternoon I thought, “Why weren’t they taking cover?” Based on a quick look yesterday, it appeared the tornado warning was timely. Unfortunately, it turns out it was not. Now that the National Weather Service’s (NWS) survey of this strong tornado (EF-2 intensity) is complete, it is important to note that the tornado warning was not issued until the tornado had been on the ground for two minutes. The NWS's goal is for the tornado warning to be issued 13 minutes in advance, so this warning fell far short. Fortunately, there were no injuries.    Of course, it is not possible to issue a tornado warning in advance of all tornadoes. Such is the state-of-the-science. But, there are many reasons to believe there could have been advance warning of the PBG tornado – about ten minutes’ worth. This is especially important as this...