Synopsis: Severe Weather Impacts the Plains

Synopsis: Severe Weather Impacts the Plains

Written By Lee Davis 

May 18th 2015

Area affected included: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Minnesota.

Radar at the time of the Elmer-Jackson, OK Tornado.

May 17th was a very active of Severe Weather, including large, long lasting tornadoes, damaging winds and large hail. The severe weather was predicted days before it happened. The National Weather Service (NWS) had issued SPC outbreaks with an Enhanced risk for the states of Oklahoma and Kansas. At the end of the day their were 32 reports of tornadoes. Thankfully no lives were taken by these powerful tornadoes. High Instability and moisture existed in the models but on the sounding plot there was no indication of low-level shear. Low level shear is necessary in the development of tornadoes.That changed eventually as the sounding began to indicate the increase in low level shear. 

The day started with storms moving up from Texas. The first tornado of the day was located near Silverton, Texas around 1:15pm CDT. As the day progressed storms began to form along the Texas/Oklahoma border. In Wyoming a tornado was reported at 1:30 pm in Park County. No injuries were reported in this storm. In Minnesota, two tornadoes occured around 4:30 and 6:00. Some damage was reported in these tornadoes, including a roof being lifted off its foundations. One of the tornadoes was reported as multi-vortex tornado and was located west southwest of Murdock. Later that evening another small brief tornado occurred Northwest of Murdock, MN. Earlier around 2pm CDT, a tornado was reported near Lelia Lake, TX. Around 6pm CDT, a storm dropped a tornado near the town of Elmer, OK. These storms formed quickly and became very dangerous. Immediately as the storms formed severe thunderstorms warnings were issued. Many of the storms packed a punch with destructive winds over 60mph and large hail, including baseball and softball sized. The National Weather Service conducted a damage survey for the tornadoes that occurred on May 16th 2015. The Elmer, Oklahoma tornado was rated an EF-2 at first. The tornado flattened several trees and caused damage to several barns and houses. The tornado continued for 35 miles. The tornado was reported as a wedge at first. On radar the tornado showed a large debris ball and high levels of rotation. In the photo above you can see the well defined hook echo. At the time of this radar scan the storm was at its peak intensity. In addition the radar showed a debris ball at the time of the scan. The storm moved between several towns including Tipton, Headrick and Manitou before lifting up near Snyder, OK.

Several more tornadoes were reported throughout the evening, many were small and short lived. Eventually the storms which had previously produced tornadoes, merged together and a line of storms began to move towards the metro of Oklahoma City,OK and Tulsa, OK. The severe threat continued but the the tornado threat had gone down considerably. Several super cell thunderstorms began to form east of the long line of thunderstorms. One or two tornado warnings were issued for these small super cells but none produced long lived tornadoes like the Elmer tornado earlier that afternoon.


This is not the first time this season that the states of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas have seen severe weather. This was just another example of the active severe weather season that has hammered the Plains this year. The severe pattern continues next week throughout the Plain states. Check back next week for our next blog!

Questioning Weather

  

There is one Question that is constantly brought into discussion of climate change.  Is it even real, or is it just fantasy in the imagination of these so-called scientist? Well, It is real. Also, against popular belief, the climate change can eventually lead to dangerous possibilities.

According to Professor William D. Nordhaus, people have been using his research to counter the research of people trying to prove climate change to be dangerous. Researchers are stating that according to the research of professor Nordhaus, no harm can come from climate change and there is no need to take any extra precautions. In the Wall Street Journal “A group 16 scientists ‘no need to panic about global warining’ which contained many of the standard criticisms of climate skeptics in a succinct statement.” Which leads me to believe, if the people who are supposed to help us decide something isn’t real solely for the purpose of not wanting to take precautions, how are we supposed to know.

Global Warming: Media Coverage of Climate Change

How significant is global warning? What does it really mean? How many people believe it exists? These questions have been asked about global warming and climate change for the better part of the last three decades. Media portrays global warming in differing ways. However these questions already have a definite answer with solid evidence to support its impact on our planet.

 

When looking at how media portrays global warming the first thing that comes to mind is certain new programs portraying of the discussions about global warming. Every so often when the media begins a discussion about global warming it is always presented between two people with differing arguments. When looking into the topic of global warming and the research behind the topic I was astounded to find out that 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming exists. This statistic is a huge determination of the consensus of the scientific community. Discussions about climate change in certain news programs or even radio talk shows always presents a discussion between 2 individuals one discussing the existence of climate change and its immediate impact of it on our society and someone denying is existence completely. 1 on 1 discussion does not accurately represent the publics, or the Scientifics community’s opinion on the topic. When individuals view a form of media and witness two people discussing the two sides of an argument they subconsciously think that it is a 50 – 50 argument when clearly data about who believes each side of the argument says otherwise. With a 1-1 discussion the importance and global warming’s effects cannot be accurately represented. A better discussion would be 97-3 in favor of global warming’s existence. NASA’s climate sector presents multiple studies, which supports the opinion of the majority of the scientific community. 

Media in itself should not be the sole indicator of what the majority of the public believes. Rapid climate changes existence cannot be disputed and will remain to be a very important topic. Medias portrayal of the topic of science change gives their audience an inaccurate understanding of the topic and its significance. If there is to be any resonance with the audience of media it would be vital for media to have discussions that accurately represent the known data and the understanding of climate change.

           

How does the coverage of severe weather in the United States help or hinder people’s understand of global climate change?

Written by Lee Davis                                             

March 3^rd 2015

In the past several years, severe weather has increased throughout the country. Many experts have argued that the increase in this type of weather is the cause of Global Warming/ climate change. Global Warning is the increase in the earth’s atmospheric and oceanic temperature. Global warming is caused by several of things. Global warming is caused by landfills, humans, factories, and the production of electricity among others. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most frequent cause of global warming. People are unaware and uneducated about the Global Warming effect. The media covers severe weather well but are the new sources catching our attention about Global Warming?

When I began writing this blog, I realized that I don’t know that much about the Global Warming. I know what it is but I do not know as much as I would like to know about the topic. I had to do a little research on the topic to get caught up. I looked into some facts on Global Warming. Because of global warming, the sea level has risen 6.7 inches in the past decade. Oceans are warming, ice sheets are getting smaller, the arctic sea is defrosting and glaciers are disappearing. There is more CO2 today than in the past 800,000 years. Consequences of Global Warming include severe hurricanes, massive fires and the rapid melting of polar caps. Global warming also places coral in danger and increases the sea heights. These are all effects of global warming. These facts are mind blowing, and the climate is changing rapidly every day. What we do every day in our lives affects the climate of the world. But I don’t think the news give the viewers a good view of global warming and its effects.

The media’s coverage of global warming is very important, but the media’s coverage of severe weather is as well. News channels such as the weather channel and weather nation both have great severe weather coverage. Whenever a big severe outbreak occurs the Weather Channel or the Weather Nation is on it first. This coverage even includes live looks at the storms. Much is said about the storms and how they form but not a lot is said about the global climate change and how it changes our weather patterns. I found a chart on a New Jersey state PDF. The article titled “Insights into Media Coverage of Climate Change and Severe Weather Events in New Jersey, gives a several charts and info about global climate change and severe weather. The first chart in the document lists a large amount of things that are affected by climate change and how much the media covers these topics. Coastal Resiliency, heat emergencies, mental health, water supply, and economic impacts are several of the things listed in the chart. The most frequently covered topics are coastal Resiliency, utility infrastructure, relocation, economic impacts, insurance, seniors, and emergency preparedness. The article discusses the impacts of Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy was a major destructive category 3 hurricane which caused millions of dollars in damage throughout the east coast. The article says that “continued public interest in Sandy recovery efforts create unique opportunities for more extensive media coverage about preparing over the longer term for impacts like sea level rise and powerful storms”. The coverage of these storms before and after seemed to change people’s mind about climate change and put more focus on it. Millions were affected by this super storm in 2012, which got a lot of people’s attention.

            Many journalists distort reality with their writing, and think that global warming and climate change is caused by pollutants but this isn’t actually true. Several scientists have called out journalists calling them ignorant because of their lack of knowledge on the subject. Most people connect the word global warming and climate change with pollution because they live in a world where pollution is a major issue. Global warming and climate change does not come from one single thing; it is caused by a cluster of things. Many people watch and look at the news but don’t look into it further. If you look deep into the topic, several things pop out. Looking at several chart I found interesting information on the weather in the past decade. One thing is the massive constant increase in large downpour events in the last decade. Since the 1990s there has been a constant increase in downpour events. Another thing to look at is the winter weather. Total seasonal snowfall has decreased in some southern and western areas. Overall snow cover in the northern hemisphere has decrease in the past ten years due to higher temperatures.

Reaching the media effectively is critical to sharing the most timely, accurate information about severe weather events or efforts to prepare for climate change. Facebook and twitter are great resources for any news source. People are constantly sending out information over social media. The problem with news organizations relaying information from social media is that it could be false or distorted. The problem is that no a lot of people know the connection of severe weather and climate change. It is a very scientific topic and very hard to discuss. Severe weather and climate change are directly proportional. Climate change causes more severe weather. I feel like climate change needs more attention because people lack information about it. A lot of people lack information about weather because they are not as interested as some people. News sources need to incorporate a bit of talk about climate change in their broadcast and explain the phenomenon of climate change/ global warming.

Severe Weather and Media Coverage

The weather, as you may or may not already know is very fickle. The way that the media produces a story, or hypes public opinion up, changes the way in which we perceive weather. Through my reading of the section: Social Media and Severe Weather: Do Tweets Provide a Valid Indicator of Public Attention to Severe Weather Risk Communication? it becomes clear that in our society of today social media plays a huge factor in weather communication. This helps to reason that the media around us today affects the way in which society views the weather as an important topic as it relates to climate change.

In the section it discusses the technical facts that help state the claim. The authors state that, “In 2011 alone, 1691 confirmed tornadoes in the continental United States were responsible for 550 fatalities, approximately 5400 injuries, and more than $10 billion of property and crop damage (NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center 2012).” This statement of fact is cited with a hyperlink source online that states another element of credibility. They use this fact and transition into the discussion that the social media website and app Twitter can actually be a beneficent factor in awareness of natural disasters. This is then back up with another piece of evidence, “This communication is effective if the target population 1) is exposed to the information, 2) pays attention to it, and 3) understands it. It is ineffective if the target population does not receive, attend to, or comprehend the information being conveyed (Lindell and Perry 2012). In other words, the difference between effective and ineffective communication hinges upon exposure, attention, and comprehension, all three of which are preconditions for protective action behavior (Lindell and Perry 2012).”

Taking all of this information into account may be overwhelming, trust me, you didn’t have to write about it. All joking aside, what does all of this mean about the way in which media coverage of weather affects the population’s view of climate change? The fact that was from Lindell and Perry really explained it better. The only way in which people understand things is when there is exposure to information. When I log on to Twitter on my phone at least 48% of my timeline is full of people being what I call “wanna be meteorologists”. That exposure to the information about today’s weather or this week’s weather makes me have some knowledge about it.

In the excerpt from the book has the appeal of all the rhetorical moves. It thoroughly cites all of the sources, as well as in text citations. It also helps to give another angle to the way in which we perceive the information that is on social media. Weather staying in the public’s focus is a good thing because it will help people to start seeing first-hand the effects of climate change.

            References

Ripberger, Joseph T., et al. "Social Media And Severe Weather: Do Tweets Provide A Valid Indicator Of Public Attention To Severe Weather Risk Communication?." Weather, Climate & Society 6.4 (2014): 520-530. Environment Complete. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.

Winter Storm Remus

This past week of weather for North Carolina has been, well peculiar. Just from a local standpoint, here in Boone we have experienced just about every type of weather. At the beginning of the week we were in the mid 50’s with a little bit of rain to start the day. Two days later we received class cancellations in the form of white flakes, some call it “snow.” Yesterday we had sunny skies and the high of 61 degrees.

 

It was called Remus, but we don't really care about the names, right? Well, regardless of the name, it wasn’t a correct forecast. They only called for less than an inch on Tuesday when in reality we got 3 inches. But the storms weren't over just yet, Thursday the Southeast was hit with a huge bash of snow.

As we can see from lack of preparation of the salt trucks, the media plays a huge part in being proactive. The way that a meteorologist predicts the forecast can be the deciding factor if town officials can be ready. "Conditions are still dangerous out there," said City Manager Ron Carlee of Charlotte, "Being out there a little bit earlier myself and seeing a number of the roads, my biggest concern right now is that people will be lulled into a disastrous sense of false security."

Today turned out much nicer than advertised. Sun broke through and temperatures west of the Blue Ridge soared. Meanwhile temperatures along the Blue Ridge remained rather cool. A front moves through tonight from the West with clouds returning and some light rain continuing into early Monday.

 -Jamison