Click here to see the East Elementary 5th graders saying hello…Mr. O’Neill and Mrs. Kramer invited me back to East Elementary in Waukon! I’ve been lucky enough to visit there for a good number of years. The students are always great…they ask some very interesting questions that sometimes catch me by surprise. We talked about the Earth and our solar system…compared the planets…and looked at some HUGE stars. We talked about severe weather season, hail, tornadoes and damaging wind. On top of that, I got to stay for lunch (it was Taco Day…yum). Thanks again to the fine folks in Waukon. You made my day a great day.

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Click here to see the Orchard Hill students saying hello!Thanks to the folks at Orchard Hill School in Cedar Falls! I got to visit with the second graders on Monday, April 23. We learned about the different phases of the Moon. We talked about the seasons and how they change…and what that means for our weather. The students were good listeners and they all had lots of good questions and stories.

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Severe weather warnings have improved a lot over the past decade. There are, however, still many limits on what we as weather forecasters are able to do. We still rely on storm spotters for “ground truth”…that is, actual confirmation on the severe weather. There will still be many false alarms! Below is an article that addresses some of these concerns…

Could Better Tornado Warnings Lead to Complacency?April 16, 2012By Sean Murphy, The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY – Forecasters who issued dire warnings ahead of last weekend’s tornado outbreak in the Midwest deemed the effort a success Monday, largely because dozens of tornadoes hit yet caused only a handful of deaths. But they expressed concern about future public complacency.

The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center issued a rare high-risk warning days ahead of the storms, sternly urging residents across several states to prepare for “life-threatening” weather. State officials and residents in communities where tornadoes hit praised the effort, noting only six lives were lost.

But many of the tornadoes touched down in rural areas, mostly in Kansas. Forecasters worried that could result in people tuning out future warnings because they were not in this outbreak’s path.

“The bottom line is there really is no such thing as a perfect forecast. There are always going to be areas that aren’t struck, especially in tornado outbreaks,” said Greg Carbin, the center’s warning coordination meteorologist. “But the penalty function for missing a significant event is so high, that there’s probably a tendency to err on the side of caution.”

It was only the second time in the National Weather Service’s history that the agency labeled an approaching storm system as “high risk” more than 24 hours in advance. The other time was in April 2006, when nearly 100 tornadoes raked across the southeastern U.S.

Both times, the early predictions were on target.

The storm center determined that 75 tornadoes touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska during a 24-hour period beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday. Six people died as a result of an overnight tornado that hit Woodward, Okla., about 140 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. No other deaths were reported.

Residents said the warnings helped. Frank Owens and his wife, Treva, had packed their storm shelter with supplies in advance and spent the day watching local TV forecasts.

“I heard them say we had nine minutes, and that’s when I hit the cellar,” Owens said.

Meteorologist Rick Smith said he hopes that for residents who prepared and were spared, that their work doesn’t lead to complacency.

“I don’t want people to think preparedness efforts are ever wasted,” Smith said. “The weather radios people bought, the plans people reviewed on Friday and Saturday, it’s not like you’re never going to use those again.

“If you didn’t use them on Saturday, you should be thankful and glad.”

In Kansas, the National Weather Service issued new warnings with strong language: “You could be killed if not underground or in a tornado shelter. Many well-built homes and businesses will be completely swept from their foundations.”

Some experts cautioned that using language that is too strong could have the opposite of its intended effect. Jeff Lazo, director of the Societal Impacts Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said people could actually go into “fear control.”

“Instead of responding to a threat, they just kind of tune it out,” Lazo said. “It’s not necessarily a rational response. It’s more of an emotional response. There comes a point where someone’s just going to grab a six pack and go to the roof because they don’t think they’re going to survive it.”

But the new warnings appear to have helped in Kansas. A tornado struck the Wichita, Kan., area at night and tore through a nearby mobile home park, yet no one was killed.

“It’s moving into the south side of a major metropolitan area after dark. This is when we want to pull out all the stops to really get people to visualize the potential of what could happen so they take the action to protect themselves from that level of threat,” said Mike Hudson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Kansas City.

Hudson said researchers plan to study how people reacted to the heightened warnings and whether that was responsible for many of them leaving the mobile home park and taking shelter elsewhere.

“They key point of it was that in that mobile home park alone, people did go ahead and take the proper actions to protect themselves,” he said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Click here to see the Eisenhower Third Graders saying hello!Thanks to the fine folks at Eisenhower Elementary School in Dubuque! I got to visit with the third graders on Friday, April 20th. We learned about the different phases of the Moon. We talked about how important the Sun is when it comes to what kind of weather we’ll have. We saw how much damage Nature can do and how important it is for us to pay attention to the weather in order to stay safe.

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The Storm Prediction Center did a great job forecasting the severe weather outbreak in the Plains on Saturday. A full week in advance the folks at SPC outlined the areas that were likely to have severe storms. Turns out they were pretty darn great!

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Heavy precipitation is forecast to be North of Iowa over the next few days…also note the extreme rain forecast over the Lower Mississippi Valley!

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PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DES MOINES IA
422 PM CDT SUN APR 15 2012

…FINAL DAMAGE SURVEY RESULTS FOR CRESTON…

…CRESTON TORNADO RATED AS A STRONG EF2…

THE FOLLOWING IS A FINAL ASSESSMENT FOR THE DAMAGE THAT OCCURRED OVER
CRESTON ON APRIL 14, 2012.

* EVENT DATE: APRIL 14, 2012

* ESTIMATED START TIME: 6:55PM

* EVENT TYPE: (EF2) TORNADO

* EVENT LOCATION: NORTHWEST CRESTON

* PEAK WIND: 130 MPH

* AVERAGE PATH WIDTH: APPROXIMATELY 600 YARDS THROUGH CRESTON

* PATH LENGTH: 14 MILES

* INJURIES: 10 (PRELIMINARY)

* FATALITIES: 0 (PRELIMINARY)

* DISCUSSION/DAMAGE: THE TORNADO BEGAN ABOUT ONE AND A HALF MILES
EAST OF CROMWELL AND TRACKED NORTHEASTWARD THROUGH THE FAR
NORTHWEST PORTION OF CRESTON. THE CRESTON MEDICAL CLINIC AND
SOUTHWESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE SUSTAINED EF2 DAMAGE…WITH THE
WORST DAMAGE OCCURRING TO THE GREEN HILLS EDUCATIONAL CENTER.
THE TORNADO CONTINUED TRACKING NORTHEAST AND DAMAGED A FEW
FARMSTEADS NORTHEAST OF CRESTON. THE TORNADO DISSIPATED TEN MILES
NORTHEAST OF CRESTON.

&&

FOR REFERENCE…THE ENHANCED FUJITA TORNADO SCALE CLASSIFIES
TORNADOES INTO THE FOLLOWING CATEGORIES:

EF0…WIND SPEEDS 65 TO 85 MPH.
EF1…WIND SPEEDS 86 TO 110 MPH.
EF2…WIND SPEEDS 111 TO 135 MPH.
EF3…WIND SPEEDS 136 TO 165 MPH.
EF4…WIND SPEEDS 166 TO 200 MPH.
EF5…WIND SPEEDS GREATER THAN 200 MPH.

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Final numbers show that the entire state had a remarkably mild winter season. These are the maps showing temperature and precipitation for the months December 2011, January and February 2012…also known as Meteorological Winter.

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