Tiff Between Storm Chaser and National Weather Service Raises Social Media Worries

Storm spotters and chasersare invaluable to help the National Weather
Service warn people of dangerous weather, but how
do they weed out non-credible sources, and how
do they encourage reputable spotters? 

Saturday, a weak tornado briefly touched down in the eastern Texas panhandle.

Compared to some tornadoes, this one wasn't much of a storm, as it didn't cause much damage in the rural area it hit.

However, there was a much bigger storm concerning this twister in the form of a social media tempest between a reputable storm chaser who saw the tornado and the Amarillo National Weather Service office, which didn't believe the report.

The dispute touched off a Twitter  storm among the storm chasing and meteorological community, though everybody, including the storm chaser and the Amarillo NWS office,  kissed and made up during the day Sunday.

But the dispute highlights the double edged sword that is storm reporting via social media.

Reputable storm chasers can be invaluable. They provide "ground truth," - observing what is actually going on in terms of severe storms and tornadoes, whether or not meteorologists are also picking up the action on radar.

However, the National Weather Service is also plagued by trolls - people who falsely report severe weather and tornadoes, trying to invoke panic or at least weather warnings, in spots where no threatening weather is actually occurring.

I guess that's fun, but what do I know about the mind of a troll?

The National Weather Service is loathe to pass along storm reports that might be false, because nobody wants to cause false panic, and nobody wants the National Weather Service crying wolf. That would mean people would dangerously ignore legitimate tornado or other weather warnings in the future.

On Saturday, storm chaser Dick McGowan spotted that relatively brief tornado in the eastern Texas panhandle.  Back at the National Weather Service office in Amarillo, the storm that wss producing the twister McGowan saw didn't look all that impressive on radar.

Certainly nothing that would produce a tornado, or so the Amarillo National Weather Service office meteorologists though. The NWS office dismissed McGowan's report.  The NWS responded to McGowan: "There are no storms where you are. This is NOT a valid report."

Meteorologists there apparently assumed it was an Internet troll at work, trying to stir up needless panic.

So no tornado warning.

It turns out McGowan was right. There was a tornado and he had a photograph to prove it.

McGowan is a reputable storm chaser,  (check out his Twitter feed) and has developed the expertise to parse whether any given storm is dangerous or not. The one he saw Saturday was dangerous, since it did produce a tornado.

Sometimes, a so-so looking storm will briefly organize into something that can produce a tornado, and all the fancy dancy Doppler radars and velocity analysis and doohickies don't pick up on this.

Apparently, the storm McGowan saw did just that.

That's why "ground truth" from actual observers is still important. 

The National Weather Service issued a mea culpa Sunday. The office released a statement (which you can see in full on the image in this post; click on it to make it bigger and easier to read.)

The statement said the National Weather Service in Amarillo values all the storm reports it receives and works hard to confirm the legitimacy to the report.

Amarillo also said this in the Facebook post:

"Unfortunately, many NWS offices have recently been the target of erroneous storm reports and this impacts our ability to discern questionable reports. We would like to extend an invitation to the storm chaser and spotter community to help us find a way that we can filter these reports, and to better handle storm reports that we may receive in the future in a timely manner."

Trained spotters can telephone National Weather Service offices directly, but of course cell service is iffy in rural areas, and in the middle of nasty storms, things get even more iffy in the cell phone department.

I would be very interested to see if there are any blanket proposals coming on how or whether the National Weather Service can accept social media storm reports, and whether they can be very quickly verified as legit or possible hoaxes.

Readers, if you have any ideas, sent them along.

Meanwhile, there were a couple tornadoes Saturday in eastern Texas that everybody immediately agreed actually occured.

One of them was captured on video by a motorist in Willis, Texas.  I love the reaction of the people in the car who happened upon the tornado, then followed it as it moved roughly in the direction they were driving: