Tornado Season Launches, But AccuWeather's Tornado Forecast Just Too Clever

AccuWeather is precisely predicting 1,075 tornadoes in the
United States this year, but such precise forecasts are not
realistic. Their map shows where they think the most tornadoes
will happen in 2019, but this is basically a
climatological map that shows where tornadoes
usually spin up in any given year. 

Tornado season is upon us, and it has gotten off to a rough start. The 23 deaths from tornadoes in Alabama Sunday was the most since 2013.

This coming weekend might not be much better.  Another large storm system, one that unleased a huge barrage of lightning and flood risks over southern California last night will head east into the Plains by Saturday.

As you can tell by the action in California, this storm has a lot of dynamics with it. If things come together right, we could have another tornaod outbreak.  It's too soon to say how extensive this  might be, but it bears watching.

After that, it's really impossible to say if the 2019 tornado season will stay busy and tragic, or will it mercifully sputter out, resuming the relatively slow trend of recent years.

I say the extended tornado forecast for the season is almost impossible, and so do many other experts. But not AccuWeather.

AccuWeather has released an oddly precise forecast for how many tornadoes will hit the United States during 2019.

This weather corporation says there will be 1,075 United States tornadoes in 2019, of which 525 will come between March 1 and May 31. These figures are pretty close to the average yearly number of tornadoes in the nation.

AccuWeather tells us the biggest concentration of tornadoes this year will be in tornado alley - duh!. That includes Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and northern and central Texas.  Those would hit later in the season, mostly in April and May.

Tornadoes are more likely early in the season in the deep south, so the recent outbreak in Alabama and Georgia fits the norm in that respect.  AccuWeather's tornado forecast indicates a relatively light twister year in the Southeast, so early, uncertain signs indicated they might be wrong there.

For their part, Texas meteorologists are skeptical of AccuWeather's tornado prognostication.  As the Dallas Morning News reports:

"....some meteorologists in Dallas-Fort Worth have been quick to dispute AccuWeather's forecast, pointing out that tornadoes are difficult enough to predict when they're hours, let along months away."

For instance, Fort Worth National Weather Service meteorologist Bianca Villanueva told the Dallas Morning News that AccuWeather cited increased moisture as a reason for their expectation that tornadoes will be relatively frequent in North Texas this spring.

Villanueva pointed out that many other factors go into producing tornadoes, such as instability and lift in the atmosphere. Just the presence of moisture doesn't really mean much.

KDFW-TV meteorologist Evan Andrews minced no words when he dismissed AccuWeather's forecast. He posted on Facebook:

"STOP POSTING CLICK BAIT," Andrews implored in all caps. He continued, in part: "Trying to predict what isn't predictable with anything remotely accurate (70% or greater) is an effort in futility."

John Allen, a Central Michigan University Assistant Professor of Meteorology and a severe weather expert, had a Twitter thread in which he said the AccuWeather tornado forecast didn't make it clear enough what factors led to the forecast. Plus - Allen was more polite than me on this - the prediction was basically a rehash of what is normal climatology in the spring. Plus, he said, the science isn't there yet to make forecasts as specific as AccuWeather's.

For its part, AccuWeather had this to say about the skepticism:

"AccuWeather is really proud of its 2019 tornado forecast. We have been in the prediction business for 57 years and have found that the powerful combination of utilizing all the tools and reliable indicators available, including the expertise of our over 100 expert meteorologists, results in predictions with the greatest accuracy."

Tornado forecasts are getting better, just like predictions for most kinds of weather. The alerts, watches and warnings for the outbreak last Sunday in Alabama and Georgia, for instance, came well ahead of the actual storms.

The death toll was high because tragically, even though people got the warnings, there was nowhere to run. Many of the victims were in mobile homes or houses lacking basements. There needs to be a better look at where and how we can put people like this out of harm's way when we know a tornado is heading toward them.

I'm all for even better tornado forecasts than the good ones we have now. But AccuWeather is getting ahead of itself. I'm also hoping to see a lot more energy expended on getting people to heed warnings, and when they do, making sure safe places are available to them.

Would Be Internet Weatherman Sets Wildfire To Increase Clickviews

Authorites accuse Johnny Mullins of setting a Kentucky wildfire
to bring attention to his weather-related social media.  

As I've noted earlier this month, the southeastern United States is plagued by dozens of wildfires that are taking advantage of a severe and deepening drought in that region.

Unfortunately, many of the wildfires have been started by arsonists.

It turns out that one of the wildfires was started by a would-be internet weatherman named Johnny Mullins who figured that starting a wildfire, and him reporting on it, would increase views on his Facebook page, says ArsTechnica.

According to ArsTechnica:

"According to Jenkins Police Chief James Stephens, the 21-year-old Mullins now faces a charge of second degree arson or setting a fire in Letcher County (Kentucky.) The chief told the Associated Press on Friday that Mullins said he started the fire he was charged with 'because he enjoyed the attention he got from the Facebook stuff.'"

Few, if any other online weather geeks and meteorologists would resort to something like starting a wildfire, but, as ArsTechnica points out, bad, dramatic or dangerous weather brings attention to meteorologists and weather geeks, including me. You get more viewers, more clicks, and increases TV ratings.

That leaves us feeling conflicted. Obviously, few people want to see death and destruction from severe weather. But to be honest, it's that very severe weather that helps bring meteorologists' and weather weenies their paychecks. It's ghoulish, to say the least.

I'm not sure what to do about it. Other than not setting wildfires to make people read our Facebook pages.  

Hurricane Hype On Internet Is Blowing At Catagory Five Now

The two X's on the Natonal Hurricane Center map
show where two tropical disturbances are
that could develop into tropical storms or hurricanes
Despite some hype on the internet, it's
impossible now to determine whether these
will pose any threat to the United States.  

Anybody with a passing interest in the weather, and the Atlantic hurricane season might be forgiven for being horrified and scared.

For the past couple of days, people have been posting pictures of computer forecast models that show, variously, major hurricanes eight to 14 days from now destroying Miami, New Orleans, Houston, North Carolina, New York  and/or New England.

Why all the scares?

They are coming right on schedule. We're entering the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season and there indeed some tropical systems out there to watch.

There's three of them at the moment. One is struggling Fiona, which was downgraded to a tropical depression from a tropical storm overnight, and two other disturbances way out over the eastern Atlantic that might develop.

It's impossible to tell whether any of these systems will affect the United States.. Even the sad remnants of Fiona might or might not affect the United States. Plus Fiona could regenerate or stay just a cluster of thunderstorms, who knows? 

There are many computer models that try to hit at where these tropical disturbances will go and whether they will grow into hurricanes.

But data for the computer models is scant. Garbage in, garbage out, which means the models are all over the place as to what will happened to these storms a week or two or more down the road.

So you get the hype. One computer model this weekend had a major hurricane moving up the East Coast a couple weeks from now, then, Poof! The next run of that same computer model that came out 12 hours later had no sign of a hurricane near us.

The computer models, understandably, don't have any idea what these systems will do toward Labor Day weekend. Neither does any human.  So just chill.

You get views and Internet clicks if you show the computer models with major hurricanes along the coast of the United States. If you show a photo of a computer model with no threats, then, sorry, no clicks for you!

The way to handle things this time of year is, yeah, keep track of advisories from the National Hurricane Center and other reputable weather forecasting organizations. If a hurricane does threaten the United States, we'll get three or four days warning of possible impending trouble, and you'll hear about it.

Otherwise, ignore the clickbait.

Weather Clickbait: How Major Media Get You To Read Their Weather Stories

Are scary weather headlines making you nervous?
Could be intentional, to make you click on web sites.  

Some people call it "clickbait." It's a way to encourage people to hit a link on your web site to drive up the number of views, and thus the perceived value of the web site to advertisers.

On one hand, you want to encourage people to read your stuff. That's why you're there, doing the weather dance on this Internet thingy here.

On the other hand, people get a little  way too strident with scary headlines meant to scare everyone about the weather, and to get those coveted clicks.

You got that as the nation was hit by an abrupt Arctic cold wave this week. Yeah, the cold snap was impressive, but it wasn't the worst ever. At least in most places. Just kind of a shock to the system after a relatively mild autumn.

But you gotta get those eyeballs reading. so you come up with the wildest headlines you can.

There seems to be some rules to this clickbait madness.

For one, you have to use the word "millions" as much as possible. I guess people are drawn to that word, and if you say "millions" will be affected, millions of people will latch on to your web site. Never mind that few of these millions will be all that affected by your weather drama.

Some examples.

The headline at NBC news Monday morning as a cold wave arrived was "Hello Winter! Millions Brace For Snow Ahead Of Arctic Blast."

At CBS news Monday morning, the weather wasn't the lead story like it was over at NBC, but they had it on their home page: "Eye Opener: Millions of Americans In Path of Massive Arctic Blast."

CBS loves "millions." In July, they informed us that "Severe Weather Affects Millions In Northeast."

At the Weather Channel, they use "millions" a lot, like on this October 14 headline about some bad thunderstorms and a tornado threat: "Severe Weather Outbreak: Millions Threatened, Damage Reported."

The worst weather use of the word "millions," as pointed out by The Vane, was a Tweet sent out by NBC News in June: "Severe Storms, Destructive Winds and a Gustnado Threaten Millions Today."

Considering that one gustnado, which is a small swirl of wind within a strong wind gust at the beginning of a thunderstorm, is a weak thing that at worst would cause minor damage in a neighborhood, could hardly threaten millions.

I guess they were trying to promote another weather buzz word, so those are so popular. That's why every cold wave involves a "polar vortex." More on that in a minute.

Last Saturday, AccuWeather hit a trifecta of clickbait terms, including the word "millions"  with its cold weather forecast story: "Polar Vortex To Blast 200 Million People With Arctic Air."

AccuWeather, in addition to using "million" also used the word "blast," which always works in clickbait style headlines, and "Polar Vortex" which since last winter has been THE go to word to describe a cold wave that would drive clicks to your web site.

A Google search this morning for "polar vortex" got me more than 13 million links. Hey, millions! "Millions to Read About Polar Vortex When Doing a Google Search" is my clickbait headline of the day.

For the record, the Polar Vortex is a big swirl of low pressure up in the Arctic. It's always there, as far as anyone can tell it's always been there, it moves around a lot, and it waxes and wanes in strength.

Sometimes the Polar Vortex gets closer than usual to the United States, or a piece of it breaks off and actually enters the United States. This happens occasionally in some winters, and that's what happened last January when the nation had a severe, but not unprecedented cold wave.

However, everybody seized on the term Polar Vortex as if it were the ultimate villain from a cheap monster movie, because the media discovered the term is clickbait.

Now, every time it gets slightly cool in any part of the country, we learn the POLAR VORTEX IS INVADING AGAIN!!!!! AAAYYYYEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, despite the headlines. You aren't going to die. But maybe you should take a jacket with you if you go out.

A lot of the media has learned to seize on normal meteorological terms and bring them to the public. There's really nothing wrong with that. If people are interested in learning about meteorology, then they should learn about it. It's all good.

Unless the misuse the word and confuses the public. We get that sometimes with a cool, clickbaiting term derecho. It is a neat word to say:  "deh-REY-cho."

It sounds like the romantic lead in a 1950s western set in West Texas. Kind of like the Cisco Kid.

No doubt, derechos are nasty.  They're big, huge fast moving, long lasting lines of severe thunderstorms.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center defines a derecho precisely as a "swath of wind damage extending for more than 240 miles, including wind gusts of at least 58 along most of its length, and several, well-separated 75 mph or greater gusts."

They can be as bad as tornadoes, so it's time to batten down the hatches when a derecho is forecast to hit you.

The problem is, some weather forecasters started calling fairly localized, marginally severe storms derechos. So if somebody gets hit by this so-so storm, and they heard it was a derecho, they'll note the storm didn't turn out to be all THAT bad.

Then, if a derecho approaches the next time, people might not take shelter as readily.

Yes, mis-using weather terms as clickbait can actually kill people.

Naming storms and weather events is clickbait, too. The Weather Channel has famously noted that, as they give monikers to winter storms.

The snowstorm that hit the Upper Midwest this week was named "Astro" by the Weather Channel.

I'm surprised when the storm was forecast, the headlines on all the web sites wasn't "Ruh-Roh, Reorge," something Astro the dog on the Jetsons would say when something bad was about to happen. 

The trouble is, how do you define when to name a winter storm? With tropical storms and hurricanes, it's easy. If it's a warm core storm that originated in the tropics and has sustained winds of at least 39 mph, you give the tropical storm or hurricane a name.

It's easy to keep track of them that way.

But a winter storm isn't as confined, or as easily definable as a tropical storm or hurricane.

A snow flurry that deposits a quarter inch of snow on the Florida Panhandle might qualify as a scary winter storm there. Here in Great White North of Vermont, if we get a quarter inch of snow, the entire state yawns in abject boredom.

Finally, can we please, PLEASE, stop giving the suffix "apocalypse" or some form of that word.

Every snowstorm is a "snowocalypse"  Every heavy rainstorm is a floodocalypse. Every nasty windstorm is a galocalypse, or something.

What's next?  if the forecast calls for a sunny, pleasant day, will that be the sunocalypse?

As I write this, there's a light rain shower going on outside, the wind is gusting to 20 mph and the temperature is starting to drop as a cold front arrives. Nothing horrific out there.

But I need clickbait. How's this for the an alarming headline I could use to describe today's weather:

"Millions Threatened By Weather Blogger Being Blasted By Vermont  Rainshowertemperaturedropocalypse He Named Bob That Feels Like A Derecho In His Imagination!!"

Yeah, that needs work.