The downside of spring in the central US.

[Lessinath]

It's not even really spring yet. Sigh.

So in case your head has been inside of a box or outside of North America the last 48 hours, there has been some major severe weather (and the link is just one example). But it gets better.

Friday is supposed to have MORE severe weather, and the synoptic setup is indicating it may be much, much worse than 2/28 + 2/29. So this may end up being the second fourth large tornado outbreak of the year and it's only the beginning of march. Fun, isn't it?

[geodave]

Not to mention all the mud around here....

[Lessinath]

Oh yes, don't get me started on all the mud.

[BitBuster]

Severe weather? Central US? Not in Indiana!



Yesterday, it was in the 60's: sunny and warm. Today it was in the 50's, but still fairly clear. Then again, I don't follow the weather, and I've been indoors all day, so who knows...I'll probably go out to catch the bus and get blown away by a treacherous wind.

[Lessinath]

Severe weather? Central US? Not in Indiana!



Yesterday, it was in the 60's: sunny and warm. Today it was in the 50's, but still fairly clear. Then again, I don't follow the weather, and I've been indoors all day, so who knows...I'll probably go out to catch the bus and get blown away by a treacherous wind.

Well, it was mainly south of you. You may want to take a look at this. Moderate risk tomorrow for most of southern Indiana, and it will likely be upgraded to high risk tomorrow morning.

[BitBuster]

I'm not too worried about it. In the 22 years I lived in western Pennsylvania, there must have been hundreds of "severe storm warnings," reports of tornadoes, etc. How many of them came true? Well, let's just say that the lottery offers better odds than the weatherman does.

[Lessinath]

I'm sure that's what the people in Joplin, mo. thought until may of last year when they got hit, too. Ignoring storm warning is just flat out stupid, and the idea that "I haven't been hit before, so I can't ever be hit!" is far dumber than that. And if you're using "Did my house/block/small town get hit? y/n?" as your criteria you're doing it wrong anyways. Yes, this is very blunt, but if you ignore warnings you are knowingly putting your life in danger - and potentially others who are with you.

[BitBuster]

Well, it's a "boy that cried wolf" scenario as far as I'm concerned. It has nothing to do with "I'm lucky," it has to do with, "the people who issue these warnings just love to be hysterical, possibly to improve their ratings."

I mean, if you listened to every single warning that you're given, you'd never do anything. You'd be completely paralyzed. Sort of the way I no longer worry about getting cancer. You can apparently get it from everything under the sun...so I'll just go on using Teflon and walking outside without sunscreen and drinking tap water and whistling Dixie all the way down the Yellow Brick Road.

[Lessinath]

No, it has entirely to do with "you're lucky".

Warnings are not issued by anyone that "gets ratings" they're issued by the national weather service and it's just local stations who relay it. "boy that cried wolf" has nothing to do with it - if a storm has a tornado warning issued for it, it could literally produce a tornado at any second*. And if it happens to hit you, you'll be one of those people who cries "I HAD NO WARNING!" and looks like an idiot for it because the storm had a tornado warning issued for it 45 minutes beforehand and they just didn't care because "it will be like the last time when nothing happened". Unfortunately, this happens all the time - you're not unique in this respect, but it's still just as bad. Your "crying wolf" theory may get you killed, and has gotten people killed in the past.

Your second paragraph in its entirety is a shoddy excuse and you know it.

*A tornado warning can be issued when:

1. Rotation is detected in a thunderstorm by radar with at least a certain amount of longevity and strength to be considered a threat.

2. A rotating wall cloud is spotted and the report confirmed.

3. A funnel cloud is reported and confirmed.

4. A tornado is confirmed (duh).

What does this mean? This means that there will only ever be a tornado warning issued if the threat is actually there. They don't issue these things for fun or "ratings".

[BitBuster]

I stand corrected about the source of the warnings; do you happen to know what percentage of warnings actually result in tornados (and of those, how many actually claim lives)? I just can't believe, with all the storm warnings I used to hear back home, that a significant number were actually worth heeding. I certainly never read anything in the newspaper that talked about tornado victims (not that this proves anything, of course).

I really don't think that it is a "shoddy excuse." Even if only 5% of the things we're told cause cancer actually do, the odds are still pretty good that you're going to contract it eventually. Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? What if there was a 1% chance that they did, and, presuming that they did, a 1% chance of them using them against us? Sure, a "crying wolf" theory might get you killed...but so might a lot of other things.

I guess it comes down to how much you value your existence vs. how much you value the quality of your life (i.e., how willing you are to respond to warnings).