The basic idea of forecasting which areas are more likely to have a tornado is useful to some people, but jacking up the radius to fifty miles and putting it on TV is ratings-boosting BS. The National Weather Service has similar products, although they don’t show up in the ordinary forecasts, and they use a much smaller radius that produces much smaller-looking numbers.
People want the hype, though. My county is always looking for money for more tornado sirens, even though they don’t really do anything for safety in actual tornado country, let alone our county where there have been maybe ten tornadoes in thirty years, with eight being little EF0s that just twisted some cornstalks for 15 seconds.
To put a cherry on top of the BS, I’d like to remind everyone that The Weather Channel colluded with Rick Santorum to attempt to get the National Weather Service to stop giving out free weather information.
I voted BS, but on reflection I want to round that out. I lived smack in the middle of far too many tornadoes for a few years. Here’s what I used TOR-CON for: a rough barometer of how big and bad the storms headed my way were likely to be. Secondarily, whether those storms (which can have fronts that span states) might be capable of spawning tornadoes somewhere on the front. IOW, I never took it as an indication that I, in middle Missouri, needed to spend the night in my basement, I had the National Weather Service radio system set up for that. I took it as an indication that we were going to get some pretty spectacular lightning (or not) and that I might need to pay a little more attention (or not) to the weather for the next several hours using other sources.
Another piece of data, basically, and never a decisive one.
There is no friggin’ depth to which Santorum wont’ stoop. I know I hated the guy but this takes the cake.
As a former St. Louis resident this matches my thinking. It was BS in specific, but as an index of how big/bad the next few hours might be it’s a useful rule of thumb. OTOH, the NWS thunderstorm & tornado watch areas do the same thing.
The Storm Prediction Center’s convective outlook for Tuesday showed a really high region of risk centered around middle Georgia. There were over 20 tornadoes in Georgia that day.
Convective index is a real thing and quite useful.
There’s just no reason for TWC to do a possibly less reliable version. They should just show SPC’s and leave it at that.
That was AccuWeather, a PA company that was a big contributor to Santorum. The Weather Channel might have contributed indirectly through an industry group, but the biig backer was AccuWeather.
TWC does some dumb stuff and I hate their founder, but they do great work. They don’t nerf the science behind the forecasting and almost all of the on-air staff are degreed meteorologists, including some PhD’s.
One of the great things about the Internet is that science-based, non-commercial weather info (including alerts and radar) is readily available through the National Weather Service.
All the for-profit services (to varying extents) depend on hyping weather and their product, generally to scare people rather than inform them. What’s most important to them is boosting ratings and site visits (which is why, in addition to avoiding the Weather Channel and its ilk, I seldom if ever watch TV weather reports. I get the feeling those people cry tears of regret whenever severe weather is in short supply).
Which is exactly why they invented what I call “weather reality TV”. To have something to scare people with when the sun is shining and the birds are tweeting and all is right with the world.