The 24
August 2016 "Surprise" Tornado Outbreak: Part 2
Amos
Dodson,
National Weather Service Northern Indiana, Syracuse, IN
Todd Holsten, National Weather Service Northern Indiana
Jeff Logsdon, National Weather Service Northern Indiana
,
,
Abstract
Despite tremendous advances in our understanding and modeling of the
atmosphere, predictability, particularly for severe weather outbreaks, is not
perfect. Some events will still fail to be appropriately anticipated days, or
even hours, ahead of time. This presents a particular challenge given
increasing vulnerability to severe weather and the need for proper time to
prepare.
One such event occurred on 24
August 2016. A tornado outbreak across Ohio and Indiana produced 21 tornadoes.
The event was poorly forecast, stemming from a lack of coherent numerical model
guidance, but near term trends were effectively monitored and allowed
forecasters to rapidly shift focus into warning operations. There were no
fatalities and only one minor injury.
Several strategies were
utilized by the National Weather Service (NWS) Northern Indiana (IWX) to
provide effective impact-based decision support services (IDSS) during this
“surprise” event. As part of the IDSS prototype project in the central region
of the NWS, several coordination calls were made to emergency management for a
local county fair that was within 5 miles of one of the tornadoes. A local
volunteer also served as a virtual operations support team coordinator,
monitoring reports from chasers in the field and relaying relevant information
to the office in an efficient manner through NWSChat (i.e., collaboration
software). His timely relay of accurate storm information to the office, along
with pictures and video, provided for real-time verification and aided in
effective risk communication through impact-based warnings and IDSS.
An after-action review was
conducted with all emergency managers impacted by the event. This presentation
will discuss the recommendations and best practices related to effective
forecast and warning dissemination that were gathered from this review. Results
will be presented from an integrated warning team workshop that was hosted by
IWX to address the issues identified during this event. Finally, this
presentation will share the lessons learned to aid the entire weather
enterprise toward effective communication when unanticipated weather events
occur.