Joplin, MO, 22nd May 2011 Tornado Investigation

[Tornado Tim]

Thought people might find this of interest:

NWS has released a very detailed assessment of the EF5 Joplin, MO Tornado on May the 22nd.
It reviewed what happened and what Joplin locals thought of the warnings and what they understood.

It outlines the what failed and what worked well on that day.
Since its quite detailed it will take a fair bit to read:
Open/Download from here: http://www.weather.gov/os/assessments/p ... ornado.pdf

It is a very good read, and has Radar images of the Tornado and how the local forecast center issued the warnings when and where.

Overall NWS did a very good job at issuing the Warnings before the Tornado hit, it was just how the warning was presented and how the Joplin public took those warnings.

With the roll-out of new warning sirens in the U.S will help the public with what the NWS puts out.
I think the roll-out of relatively new "talking" tornado sirens will very much help, as they have the potential to put out any other vital information the people in the warning should know about.
eg: "This Tornado is an extremely dangerous tornado and you need to be below ground to survive"...... or
"This is a radar indicated tornado and may already have tornado on the ground" etc......
The traditional "wheelen" Tornado siren doesn't put across this.

[spwill]

"talking" tornado sirens

This is a very good idea for that part of the world.

[Tornado Tim]

They are in place in some parts of the U.S:
in Test mode:

[NZstorm]

Thanks for the link, I will have a read when I get a chance. Given the extreme parameters on the day I have always thought Joplin was a bit under served by the NWS warning system.

[Richard]

Interesting report,thanks for posting

A couple of a sentences from that report that really show what can easily happen.

Similarly, familiarity with seasonal weather in southwest Missouri played a major role in risk perception and warning response. Most individuals commented that severe weather in southwest Missouri during spring is common; however, tornadoes never affect Joplin or themselves personally. ...

Similar to seasonal weather patterns, the perceived frequency of siren activation (false alarms) led an overwhelming number of participants to become desensitized or complacent to this method of warning. Many noted that they "hear sirens all the time [sirens] go off for dark clouds," they are "bombarded with [sirens] so often that we don‘t pay attention," "the sirens have gone off so many times before," "sirens are sounded even for thunderstorms," and "all sirens mean is there is a little more water in the gutter."

Mod Edit: Cleaned up non pre-existing grammatical errors in poster's quote.

[NZstorm]

Apparently people were still playing golf on the golf course after the tornado warning.

[spwill]

Top storm chaser Roger Hill was almost caught out by this Tornado.

[RODALCO]

I was on that tour 3 and some of my footage is on YouTube.

At the moment the US media is contacting me to allow some footage to be screened on US TV as I have recordings from the 3 minutes before everything turned to custard.

I will post the link later as my work computer doesn't allowe me access to YT.

Or

Look under my name RODALCO2007 and search for Joplin

Cheers

Raymond

[Manukau heads obs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CburjPYmSdo

[03Stormchaser]

Its an amazing piece of footage, esp seeing the buildings that minutes later would be flat eg home depot http://www.komu.com/images/news/joplin_home_depot.jpg so sad

What angers me is peoples comments under the video, Almost best they are turned off in some cases!