Last week, I reported on the National Weather Service’s terrible miss of an obviously strong tornado that did damage in the Whitman, Nebraska area. 

In this report, I am going to provide additional information pertaining to that event and tell the story of a fatal NWS tornado warning miss near Detroit last month. 

Whitman, Nebraska, Tornado Warning Miss

You can read my initial report here. Since then, I have learned the issue was neither the nationwide outage of some National Weather Service (NWS) data that was in progress nor was there a problem with any system at the North Platte NWS Office. There appears to be an issue regarding the ability of some NWS meteorologists to properly evaluate radar.  As we have reported the last few years, that is not a unique issue.   

Unfortunately, the National Weather Service, as usual, has gone into defensive mode and has not issued a statement about this fiasco even though some of us expected one. The NWS simply will not provide objective information when a failure occurs. It seems to believe it is not accountable to anyone or any organization, unfortunately.

Livonia, Michigan, Fatal Tornado Warning Miss

A tornado struck the Detroit suburb of Livonia -- without warning -- on June 5 at 3:30pm. Unfortunately, a child was killed by a falling tree. Residents were quoted as saying:

Three members of Congress, including Representative Debbie Dingell, have asked the National Weather Service for a response, which the NWS has not yet provided, even though the tornado was nearly a month ago. Below is what the local NWS has said, so far:

The NWS is wrong that a warning can't have been issued. I forcefully disagree with the explanation pertaining to the radar.... as you will see below.

Here is my analysis of the Doppler wind radar. It was possible for a warning to have been issued. 

The radar, from the get-go, was being operated in the wrong mode. During thunderstorms, it should be operated on 80 to 180 second mode -- always! Unfortunately, it was being operated on 240 second mode which is not able to capture the rapid changes that can occur with tornadoes and downbursts (the nearby Detroit Terminal Doppler Radar, which is the primary radar for downbursts, went down ten minutes before the tornado occurred). 

Here is the wind data from the NWS Doppler. The tornado began at 3:30pm. At 3:25 (not shown), the first indications that rotation might form were visible. If it wasn't already, the radar should have been set on faster scanning at that time.

At 3:29 (below), there was rotation (circled) but it was not concentrated. However, if a meteorologist wants to have an advance warning, this was the time. When we see rotation increasing, that is the best way to provide advance notice. 

At 3:33, it is clear there is a tornado in progress by the red/green touching and increasing in indicated wind speed. Because meteorologists have no way of knowing how long a tornado might last, there is no doubt a tornado warning should have been issued at this time, if one wasn't out already. 

The red/green are still touching at 3:37, but it was a less organized presentation than above. I would interpret this as the tornado weakening. 

At 3:41, there is still rotation but it is broad. So it is unlikely a tornado is still occurring. The next data interval, 3:45, shows no significant rotation in the area. 

If the NWS radar had been operated with more rapid updates or if the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar -- which scans at 1 minute intervals -- had been operative, it may have been possible to get out a warning before the death occurred.