Weather Whys; Tornado Forecasting

This is weather-wise. Tornados are among the most challenging weather events to forecast. Meteorologists watch a severe thunderstorm visually and on radar for evidence of rotation. One thing they look for is a low-hanging bank of clouds known as a wall cloud, which can spawn a tornado. But sometimes a tornado funnel just doesn't develop even though everything looks right for one. That kind of false alarm is troublesome, but it's worse if a storm shows no evidence of rotation or anything else that would warn of its severe nature and yet still produces a tornado. In some locations, tornado forecasting has improved significantly in recent years due in large part to the advent of Doppler radar. But occasionally there will be an event like the one that occurred in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 28, 1988, where a major tornado struck without warning. However, in the wake of such incidents, a lot of research is done to determine how to

avoid similar occurrences in the future. For instance, in the case of the Raleigh storm, a number of research papers have been written documenting features and characteristics of the storm, which, if they had been known, might have been used by forecasters to issue a timely warning. Meteorology is not an exact science, and occasionally, despite the best efforts of forecast personnel, tournadic storms will go undetected until it's too late. But the overall track record of the weather service when it comes to severe weather is really quite good. Weather-wise is produced with the assistance of the National Weather Service Forecast Office and the National Severe Storms Laboratory, both in Norman, Oklahoma, and the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, the Oklahoma Climateological Survey, and the School of Meteorology, all at the University of Oklahoma. Weather-wise is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. For weather-wise, I'm Drew Barlow.