2008 Severe Weather Warnings

I ran across an interesting blog that listed the top 20 National Weather Service offices by number of severe weather warnings issued in 2008. I was immediately struck by the office at the top of the list mainly because Starkville is served by this office. Jackson issued 181 more severe weather warnings that any other office in the country. I have noticed a tendency for Jackson to issue a large number of warnings, but I never imagined it would be this high. Two thoughts immediately come to mind -- was this an active severe weather year that justified the high number of warnings or are they over warning? The later really concerns me for a multitude of reasons, but I can only hope this is not the case.


Unquestionably, it was an active year for severe weather in Mississippi in 2008. In fact, preliminary data suggests that last year may have been the most active tornado year in recorded history for Mississippi. A total of 108 tornadoes would surpass the previous record of 99 set in 2005. However, I wanted to look more closely at the breakdown of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings issued last year. Of the 315 tornado warnings issued by the Jackson WFO, only 72 actually verified (23 percent). Unfortunately, that equates to a very high false alarm rate of 77 percent. Additionally, 21 percent of tornadoes that occurred in Jackson's CWA were not warned for last year. 823 severe thunderstorm warnings were issued by Jackson and 436 were verified (53 percent). A higher percentage (35%) of severe thunderstorms were not warned for.

These numbers could lead to a lengthy discussion about warnings. However, the simple fact is that we still do not know enough about severe weather, including tornadogenesis and tornado environments. While new advancements in technology have increased our understanding, we are still a long way from being able to accurately warn severe weather. Other issues are involved in the warning process besides meteorology, but more research and more advances in technology can only help the cause. I am a strong believer that more severe weather research needs to be conducted outside of Tornado Alley. There are several pieces of literature that suggest tornado environments in other areas of the country are significantly different than the Great Plains. How can forecasters in Jackson, Mississippi accurately forecast and warn for tornadoes based upon an understanding of characteristics of Great Plains tornado environments?