1990, it looks as if more tornadoes have been identified. i m curious, is that because our technology is better and there s more cameras and more people are identifying tornadoes than ever, or is this an increase that is real? that s an increase that is due to non-meteorological things. we put greater emphasis on collecting reports than we used to, there is more availability to cameras and all that. if we restricted our watching to ef-1 tornadoes, that number has been limited to one per year. it seems like we have general conditions, but we re still a long way to being pinpoint. how would you describe that advancement when it comes to trying to foreshadow tornado conditions? we re really good at the warning scale which is 15 to 20
get out. they have to understand when a public official tells you to get out, you should get out. i doubt a revision to the warning scale is going to motivate somebody. remember, neil, there s no 100% of communications out there, it s never going to convince 100% of the people to leave. each person doesn t leave because of certain reasons. i think it s really important for us to just have better communication with the individuals who want to stay behind and warn them through the warning systems that we have currently. i don t think we need more. yeah, they get the nightmarish vision of people stuck in traffic. they say i might as well stay home because i can wait there as well. unfortunately, again, this type of storm, if you look at
severe thunderstorms happening in this area. in this case, actually last wednesday. so five days before the tornado occurred there were forecasts that mentioned the possibility of severe weather outbreaks in the south central plains of the united states on monday. and by friday, they were talking about the possibility of strong tornadoes occurring in this region. so we ve had a we ve been able to advance our ability to sort of do the long range preparatory forecasting from just two to three days up to six to seven days now. on the warning scale, the time where we start to put say this particular thunderstorm is either making a tornado or is about to make a tornado, we this was a case where all of the science we have and all of the short range numerical models that help us prepare forecasters to make the best warning decisions they can were indicating early in the morning that there was a likelihood of if a storm formed in the oklahoma city metropolitan area, that it was likely to