Official says tornado warning delays didn't hinder sheltering
By
Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Mar 11, 2022 5:35 PM EDT
|
Updated Mar 16, 2022 3:56 PM EDT
Dozens of volunteers with the American Red Cross have been out all this week in central Iowa conducting damage assessment and assisting residents impacted by March 5's tornadoes.
An emergency management official in a county hit hard by a tornado outbreak in Iowa last weekend said delayed tornado warnings did not hinder local response times. Nevertheless, the National Weather Service (NWS) is currently implementing procedural changes to avoid a repeat of the delays that communication platforms experienced amid a deadly outbreak of severe weather and tornadoes last weekend, according to an NWS spokesperson.
The communication delays lasted between two to seven minutes, primarily impacting weather.gov and Wireless Emergency Alerts from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. CST Saturday during the height of the storms.
Daryl Herzmann, a system analyst for the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, a branch of Iowa State University that archives weather data, told AccuWeather that on Saturday he had been watching issuances through the various data systems that he helps operate when he noticed something was off.
"There was one point in time where there was no tornado warning showing up on my display and I thought that was puzzling because I knew that there was a tornado on the ground at the time," Herzmann said.
He logged into the NWS Chat, where he saw the weather service was alerting members of the media and emergency management that they were noticing a dissemination delay with their products.
"I then started double-checking some things on my end," Herzmann said. "I have some diagnostics on data flow, so I was able to see that sure enough there was a latency."
The technological issue stemmed from one of the communications pathways experiencing a brief message backlog. This was traced to a network hub in Dallas-Fort Worth, where forecasters were using a satellite backup rather than their primary land-based connection since the latter was offline due to a damaged fiber optic cable, NWS director of public affairs Susan Buchanan told AccuWeather via email. She added that even with the technical difficulties, tornado warnings were issued and communicated to the public in advance of every tornado that touched down in Iowa on March 5.
"Our systems engineers quickly took action to identify and resolve the issue causing the communications delay as soon as it was detected," Buchanan said.
Buchanan listed a few factors that combined to contribute to the messages backing up: the Dallas-Fort Worth is not only a network hub but also a multi-unit facility that combines the forecast office and river forecast center, resulting in higher message output. However, since the fiber landline the office would normally use had the damaged fiber optic cable, the office instead had to switch to using a satellite backup connection, which has comparatively less throughput, or the ability to send data over a given amount of time.
Factor in the increase of messages within the hub cluster due to the severe weather and you've got an increase in messages outpacing the satellite connection's ability to relay them. It created a "choke point" for the outgoing products, as Herzmann explained.
Once the hub was taken out of the network, "warnings began flowing with no delay," Buchanan said, adding that the office was kept offline until its primary network was repaired.
Drone footage showed extreme tornado damage in Winterset, Iowa, after an EF3 twister hit. (Scott Graupner via Storyful)
Scott Graupner via Storyful
While this was being addressed, the NWS took measures to ensure the warnings got to the public in a timely manner, including activating the NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System to broadcast warnings once they were issued, forecasters issuing warnings early to compensate for the delay in communications and forecasters providing real-time decision support services through the NWS Chat and live-tweeting warnings.
National Weather Service forecasters were able to issue warnings with an average lead time, or the time interval between when a warning is issued and the tornado occurs, of 20 minutes. The national average is 10 minutes, according to Buchanan.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
"One short-term option under consideration would move to the earlier use of service backup in this type of situation, rather than use the satellite-based backup, to prevent message build-ups," Buchanan said.
She added that "service backup" occurs when another forecast office takes over forecast responsibilities for another office until it can operate properly once more.
"We are also considering other avenues by which we can quickly address this issue," she said.
The NWS has communication redundancy in place to compensate for technological mishaps, as was shown on Saturday, stressing the importance of quick communication when minutes, even seconds, can save lives during severe weather.
April 12 - April 13, 2020, served as a reminder of the importance of seconds when an outbreak of severe weather claimed the lives of at least 34 people across six states. The Phillips family in Moss, Mississippi, ran into a closet-sized "safe room" for shelter.
"I was in there about 20 seconds when it hit," Andrew Phillips told The Associated Press at the time. Other than that room, next to nothing of the family's house was left standing.
Amber Phillips stands outside the family's safe room, located on their property in Moss, Miss., following a tornado, Monday, April 13, 2020. While the rest of their home was obliterated in a matter of seconds Sunday afternoon, Andrew Phillips, his wife Amber and their kids, ages 2 and 6 months, survived the storm without a scratch inside the small safe room, which doubles as a closet. (Andrew Phillips via AP)
(Andrew Phillips via AP)
Among the several tornadoes to tear through Iowa on March 5 was an EF4 tornado with peak winds of 170 mph, the National Weather Service said Monday. It was on the ground for nearly 70 miles, leaving the longest path of destruction across the state since a tornado in 1984 tracked 117 miles across southern Iowa. It was also the first EF4 tornado in the state since Oct. 4, 2013, when an EF4 tornado tore through Woodbury and Cherokee Counties.
The EF4 tornado on Saturday tracked from the city of Winterset in Madison County to Newton in Jasper County, claiming the lives of at least six people -- four of whom were from the same family -- and injuring another five. In Lucas County, another death was reported from a separate tornado.
Tornado damage can be seen in Madison County, Iowa, on Sunday afternoon, March 6, 2022. (Twitter/Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds)
Twitter/Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds
Madison County Emergency Manager Director Diogenes Ayala told AccuWeather that the county had been aware that it was under a threat of bad weather. The Storm Prediction Center issued the first severe weather outlook for parts of Iowa five days ahead of the event, with an "enhanced risk" issued Saturday morning, Buchanan said. AccuWeather forecasters had also warned of the potential for violent weather days in advance.
The NWS office in Des Moines had also started briefing local officials three days in advance about the severe weather potential.
There was plenty of time to take cover, Ayala said, but "even if you had 50 minutes," that didn't change the fact that it was a dangerous EF4 tornado that touched down and tore a path of destruction.
"There are houses that are completely gone. Like they were never there," Ayala said. "We have a lot of damage. We have trees that will take decades to grow back to where they were. Lots of parks were affected. We have a lot of things that were affected by this storm."
The cold weather that followed the storms did little to help, the snow covering debris and prompting officials to temporarily postpone debris removal efforts on Monday.
As of Friday, the tally of confirmed tornadoes stood at 24 across Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
The NWS offices in Wilmington, Ohio, Davenport, Illinois, Little Rock, Arkansas and Des Moines confirmed an additional 11 tornadoes as of Wednesday night from the weekend outbreak.
For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.
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News / Severe Weather
Official says tornado warning delays didn't hinder sheltering
By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Mar 11, 2022 5:35 PM EDT | Updated Mar 16, 2022 3:56 PM EDT
Dozens of volunteers with the American Red Cross have been out all this week in central Iowa conducting damage assessment and assisting residents impacted by March 5's tornadoes.
An emergency management official in a county hit hard by a tornado outbreak in Iowa last weekend said delayed tornado warnings did not hinder local response times. Nevertheless, the National Weather Service (NWS) is currently implementing procedural changes to avoid a repeat of the delays that communication platforms experienced amid a deadly outbreak of severe weather and tornadoes last weekend, according to an NWS spokesperson.
The communication delays lasted between two to seven minutes, primarily impacting weather.gov and Wireless Emergency Alerts from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. CST Saturday during the height of the storms.
Daryl Herzmann, a system analyst for the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, a branch of Iowa State University that archives weather data, told AccuWeather that on Saturday he had been watching issuances through the various data systems that he helps operate when he noticed something was off.
"There was one point in time where there was no tornado warning showing up on my display and I thought that was puzzling because I knew that there was a tornado on the ground at the time," Herzmann said.
He logged into the NWS Chat, where he saw the weather service was alerting members of the media and emergency management that they were noticing a dissemination delay with their products.
"I then started double-checking some things on my end," Herzmann said. "I have some diagnostics on data flow, so I was able to see that sure enough there was a latency."
The technological issue stemmed from one of the communications pathways experiencing a brief message backlog. This was traced to a network hub in Dallas-Fort Worth, where forecasters were using a satellite backup rather than their primary land-based connection since the latter was offline due to a damaged fiber optic cable, NWS director of public affairs Susan Buchanan told AccuWeather via email. She added that even with the technical difficulties, tornado warnings were issued and communicated to the public in advance of every tornado that touched down in Iowa on March 5.
"Our systems engineers quickly took action to identify and resolve the issue causing the communications delay as soon as it was detected," Buchanan said.
Buchanan listed a few factors that combined to contribute to the messages backing up: the Dallas-Fort Worth is not only a network hub but also a multi-unit facility that combines the forecast office and river forecast center, resulting in higher message output. However, since the fiber landline the office would normally use had the damaged fiber optic cable, the office instead had to switch to using a satellite backup connection, which has comparatively less throughput, or the ability to send data over a given amount of time.
Factor in the increase of messages within the hub cluster due to the severe weather and you've got an increase in messages outpacing the satellite connection's ability to relay them. It created a "choke point" for the outgoing products, as Herzmann explained.
Once the hub was taken out of the network, "warnings began flowing with no delay," Buchanan said, adding that the office was kept offline until its primary network was repaired.
Drone footage showed extreme tornado damage in Winterset, Iowa, after an EF3 twister hit. (Scott Graupner via Storyful)
While this was being addressed, the NWS took measures to ensure the warnings got to the public in a timely manner, including activating the NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System to broadcast warnings once they were issued, forecasters issuing warnings early to compensate for the delay in communications and forecasters providing real-time decision support services through the NWS Chat and live-tweeting warnings.
National Weather Service forecasters were able to issue warnings with an average lead time, or the time interval between when a warning is issued and the tornado occurs, of 20 minutes. The national average is 10 minutes, according to Buchanan.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
"One short-term option under consideration would move to the earlier use of service backup in this type of situation, rather than use the satellite-based backup, to prevent message build-ups," Buchanan said.
She added that "service backup" occurs when another forecast office takes over forecast responsibilities for another office until it can operate properly once more.
"We are also considering other avenues by which we can quickly address this issue," she said.
The NWS has communication redundancy in place to compensate for technological mishaps, as was shown on Saturday, stressing the importance of quick communication when minutes, even seconds, can save lives during severe weather.
April 12 - April 13, 2020, served as a reminder of the importance of seconds when an outbreak of severe weather claimed the lives of at least 34 people across six states. The Phillips family in Moss, Mississippi, ran into a closet-sized "safe room" for shelter.
"I was in there about 20 seconds when it hit," Andrew Phillips told The Associated Press at the time. Other than that room, next to nothing of the family's house was left standing.
Amber Phillips stands outside the family's safe room, located on their property in Moss, Miss., following a tornado, Monday, April 13, 2020. While the rest of their home was obliterated in a matter of seconds Sunday afternoon, Andrew Phillips, his wife Amber and their kids, ages 2 and 6 months, survived the storm without a scratch inside the small safe room, which doubles as a closet. (Andrew Phillips via AP)
Among the several tornadoes to tear through Iowa on March 5 was an EF4 tornado with peak winds of 170 mph, the National Weather Service said Monday. It was on the ground for nearly 70 miles, leaving the longest path of destruction across the state since a tornado in 1984 tracked 117 miles across southern Iowa. It was also the first EF4 tornado in the state since Oct. 4, 2013, when an EF4 tornado tore through Woodbury and Cherokee Counties.
The EF4 tornado on Saturday tracked from the city of Winterset in Madison County to Newton in Jasper County, claiming the lives of at least six people -- four of whom were from the same family -- and injuring another five. In Lucas County, another death was reported from a separate tornado.
Tornado damage can be seen in Madison County, Iowa, on Sunday afternoon, March 6, 2022. (Twitter/Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds)
Madison County Emergency Manager Director Diogenes Ayala told AccuWeather that the county had been aware that it was under a threat of bad weather. The Storm Prediction Center issued the first severe weather outlook for parts of Iowa five days ahead of the event, with an "enhanced risk" issued Saturday morning, Buchanan said. AccuWeather forecasters had also warned of the potential for violent weather days in advance.
The NWS office in Des Moines had also started briefing local officials three days in advance about the severe weather potential.
There was plenty of time to take cover, Ayala said, but "even if you had 50 minutes," that didn't change the fact that it was a dangerous EF4 tornado that touched down and tore a path of destruction.
"There are houses that are completely gone. Like they were never there," Ayala said. "We have a lot of damage. We have trees that will take decades to grow back to where they were. Lots of parks were affected. We have a lot of things that were affected by this storm."
The cold weather that followed the storms did little to help, the snow covering debris and prompting officials to temporarily postpone debris removal efforts on Monday.
As of Friday, the tally of confirmed tornadoes stood at 24 across Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
The NWS offices in Wilmington, Ohio, Davenport, Illinois, Little Rock, Arkansas and Des Moines confirmed an additional 11 tornadoes as of Wednesday night from the weekend outbreak.
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For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch the AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeather Now is now available on your preferred streaming platform.
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