Super cell thunderstorm Oklahoma, USA 2008. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images ... [+]
Beware the long-range forecasts. Over the coming days, you’ll probably run into stories touting how experts are predicting an active severe weather season this spring. It’s scary to think that we could be in line for a barrage of dangerous storms in the coming weeks and months. Whether we’re in for a memorable season or a normal spring, it’s important to prepare for severe weather no matter what’s on the way.
Long-range weather outlooks have been in the news for a while now. Forecasts issued last fall called for decent odds of a mild winter across the southern half of the United States this season. It’s a La Niña year, after all, which usually helps stave off the worst of winter’s chill. That forecast mostly held up, with the tiny exception of a historic cold snap that sent Texas’ power grid to the brink.
There’s decent skill involved in seasonal outlooks. But they’re relied on to a fault in recent years as technological growth also grows our appetite for accurate forecasts that extend out longer than ever before.
The Climate Prediction Center's temperature outlook for Dec. 2020 through Feb. 2021, issued in Nov. ... [+]
For the most part, wintertime temperature forecasts issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center and organizations like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather were fairly similar. If you look at any of their maps—the CPC’s forecast is shown above—it would look like what you’d find in a meteorology textbook in a chapter describing La Niña’s effect on winter weather.
MORE FOR YOU
The seasonal outlooks seemed to hold true for most of the winter. The average temperature during the months of December and January came in slightly above-normal in Dallas, Houston, Little Rock, and Jackson, Mississippi. It didn’t become apparent that the south was in line for a historic cold snap in mid-February until about two weeks before it happened.
The fact that so much of the country fell under a historic and highly disruptive cold snap isn’t a knock on the overall soundness of seasonal weather forecasting. They’re skillful forecasts issued by meteorologists who know their stuff.
It is, however, a cautionary tale about how we should read and use these long-range outlooks. A year with low tornado activity could be the year that your neighborhood gets hit, while a historic season might come and go without dropping a tornado within driving distance of your town.
Uncertainty is unnerving. It’s natural to want to know exactly how warm or cold it’ll be in a couple of months, or how many tornadoes or hurricanes a season will produce. That’s why we expect meteorologists at local news stations to issue snowfall outlooks every fall, and it’s why organizations take a whack at predicting how much tornado activity we’ll see in the spring and how many hurricanes we’ll track in the summer.
Rushing to trumpet long-range outlooks calling for a rambunctious severe weather season is needlessly nerve-racking for folks who live in areas that see plenty of severe weather every year. There’s a lot of weather anxiety in areas that have been rocked by bad weather in the past. Meteorologists in places like Alabama and Oklahoma routinely talk about how they get near-daily calls from people who are scared to the core that every springtime rain shower will begin rotating and spawn a twister.
Tornadoes are going to happen this spring. There will be tornado outbreaks and some of the twisters could rank high on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. There’s not much added value in ominously warning that the season could be very active. You’ve either got to supplies to handle severe weather or you don’t. There are few extra preparations the average person can take to get ready for an above-average tornado season other than letting their nerves run wild.
Weather forecasts are getting better with time and there’s skill to seasonal outlooks. But it’s important to remember that these outlooks exist to spot trends over large areas. Forecasters can’t confidently predict months ahead of time that lots of tornadoes are possible in a certain area, or even that a historic cold snap will descend into Texas from the Arctic.
Forecasters expected a below-average hurricane season during the summer of 1992. They were right, it sure was quiet—the season didn’t see its first named storm until the end of August when Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida as a category five storm. The historic storm was one of only six named storms to form that year. A normal year sees about 12 named storms.
It’s best to prepare for severe weather no matter how bad of a season the long-range forecasts are calling for. The best thing to do is to check the Storm Prediction Center and local National Weather Service offices on a regular basis to keep tabs on what’s happening over the next couple of days. It only takes one storm causing harm to your family or damage to your property to make it a bad season for you.
#News | https://sciencespies.com/news/were-overusing-seasonal-weather-outlooks-and-its-driving-up-anxiety/
No comments:
Post a Comment