There are a number of amateur and non-amateur weather geeks and weather nerds out there. You add that to the numerous websites that have free access to forecasting models and you're bound to hear some crazy gossip about much snow we are going to see in two weeks.
Yes, two weeks from today is Thanksgiving Day. That's also fourteen days away. There' very low confidence on anything a model churns out that far in advance. It's just not that trustworthy. So beware of internet posts showing charts and graphs depicting snow like this one:
It’s really important that anyone who is in charge of the safety of an institution — a university campus, for example — maintain an updated, working knowledge of how weather warnings work. Tweets sent today by Indiana University today could lead one to believe that its campus safety staff could benefit from some education in that area.
At 1:19 p.m. EST, the Indianapolis office of the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a tornado warning that included a portion of southern Monroe County, Indiana. The warning came with a polygon that clearly showed that the IU campus was not included.
Polygon associated with Nov. 5 tornado warning near Bloomington, IN. The National Weather Service issued the warning only for the area inside the red polygon.
In addition, the text of the warning indicated that “a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located 12 miles northwest of Bedford, moving east at 30 mph.” In other words, the storm was not moving toward Bloomington or the IU campus (which is why NWS meteorologists drew the polygon as they did).
Six minutes after the NWS issued the warning, IU sent a tweet at 1:25 regarding what it called a “tornado warning for Bloomington.”
Dr. Kirkpatrick knew what he was talking about. Those sending tweets on behalf of IU demonstrated ignorance of the National Weather Service’s “storm-based warning” system. When the NWS implemented that system a decade ago, it replaced the county-wide warnings to which IU’s tweet refers, with warnings based on polygons that indicate where the actual risk is.
In subsequent tweets, Dr. Kirkpatrick attempted to point that out, as well as the fact that IU’s original tweet was ambiguous. IU’s response:
But is warning people who are not at risk really better than warning only people who are truly at risk? Is doing so truly “safe,” or does it exacerbate existing challenges with getting people to respond appropriately to warnings?
The people at any institution like IU, who are in charge of disseminating public safety information, would do well to take full advantage of the informational resources that exist among their own faculty. Doing so could lead to better weather safety communications in the future.
The long range looks pretty boring right now. The pattern continues to be a very zonal west to east pattern with fast moving rain storms coming and going. High temperatures will trend in the 50's with low's in the upper 30's to 40's. for the next ten days to two weeks. This will likely be the pattern until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving we might have a better chance at seeing some snow.
#BOTS!
The Tornado Warning did last until 7:30mp last night; well past the initial Tornado Watch which ended at 7:00pm. I was right. The initial watch should have been extended to 7:30p as I posted below.
The cold front and the line of storms ahead of it will impact the Monroe County area from 6:30pm to 7:30pm. I would extend the Tornado Watch for another hour but it's not up to me. Meteorologist have the frontal passage (FROPA) arriving at 7:00pm.
There's been some partial clearing with sunlight. That means a little more daytime heating. More heat means more fuel for stronger storms. Also the dewpoint is back up to 63.
This is classic. It appears to be forming near I-70 and moving south east. Tornado Watch ends at 7:00pm if it is not extended. So, three and a half hours to go.
