Should authorities in the Twin Cities change the way they warn people about tornadoes?

Since there are many people who now seem to pay no attention to anything that doesn’t arrive on a smart phone, let the authorities add an opt-in text message service or twitter feed to the warning sirens that serve the rest of us.

On the whole, though, let’s pay less attention to ginning-up the weather threats, and more attention to the climate. Maybe MPR can replace one of its weather forecasters with a scientists or two. We don’t really need minute-by-minute reports of what the latest weather prediction model says might happen.

Fewer false alarms from NWS would help with the complacency problem.

Although forecasts are getting quite good, they are still educated guesses in most cases. Unless a tornado is actually spotted, you really don’t know if one will appear when conditions are favorable, and if one does show, how fast will it develop and how severe will it be. So you put out a warning and leave it go at that. You can’t lead people by the nose to the basement. Nor can you account for every single method of possible notification. Because many people are ingenious at ignoring the obvious.

The sirens are designed only to alert people who are outdoors that they should seek shelter. They cannot be heard well from inside. A sleeping person, a person with poor hearing, a person listening to loud music? Unlikely to hear the sirens at all, let alone be able to respond to them.

I recently looked for a suitable indoor alert system and was unable to find one. The city’s information hotline folks basically told me to leave the television or radio on. I was hoping for something to tell me when I needed to turn them on. We have a better system for alerting residents of when their street will be cleaned or plowed.

In short: yes.

No. It seems most people go with their own observations to determine their immediate weather danger anyway. They have to see it, to believe it. Then there’s that thrilling rush of adrenalin storm chasers/watchers feel once the danger is confirmed. If seeing the danger is your weather warning strategy you’re honing survival skills that are thousands of years old. No new fangled technology for us.

Now that the jesting is over, we have purchased a weather warning radio. When it recently went off at 2:00 am we went down stairs and watched the red blob on the radar go right over-head. Before we had the radio we would have listened unconcerned to the booming of thunder and gone back to sleep. At least, we were awake to take action if we needed to.

Believe it or not, georges, not everything that inconveniences or annoys you is part of liberal plot.

Okay Georges. Here are my three points.

When it comes to tornadoes there now seem to be three types of people:

1) Those who heed the warnings and take cover.

2) Those who ignore warnings, out of ignorance or apathy/complacency.

3) Those who run outside with their cell phones to take videos to post on YouTube, seconds before they die.

There’s probably not much to do to change the behavior of group 1 or group 3. So maybe group 2 should be the target. In the N. Minneapolis tornado there were people who ignored the warning because they didn’t know they lived in the warning area, which was Hennepin County! That’s just pathetic. When I was a kid in Tornado Alley, and Civil Defense sirens were yet to be installed, police cars and fire trucks would drive through the neighborhood warning us. That might help, but in certain areas of the Cities, cops are so common residents might ignore them.

There’s just only so much you can do to protect people. But I wouldn’t waste time scrolling this kind of message on the TV. “From the WCCO Weather Center: The National Weather Service has announced a tornado warning for the following counties . .” followed by a list of the areas. When seconds count, that’s a waste of time. Get right to the message. TORNADO WARNING for . . . . TAKE COVER NOW!!

There is the old “Crying Wolf” principle, which can lead to apathy, or complacency, as Steve the C. rightly stated. But while tornado science improves, Doppler is not foolproof, and at night, tornadoes are hard to see. It still makes sense to err on the side of caution when it comes to the most powerful storms on the planet. As to missing TV shows, good, you’ll have fewer brain cells fried by the inane programming.

And if idiots taking videos get swept away, well, they’re probably the same ones driving and talking and texting, so the world will be safer for the rest of us.

Government wastes trillions of dollars a year on unconstitutional boondoggles. But one area where I believe we get a good value is the National Weather Service. Quit building $400 million F-22’s that can’t fly, and put the money into more radar and warning systems, to improve warning accuracy and increase the time for people to take shelter.