I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania — Amish country. My late mother was fond of noisily clanging pots and pans together to get us to come inside for dinner — or warn of an impending storm. Low-tech, yes, but it worked. Today we have a myriad of ways to get severe weather notifications. More than ever, there is no reason to miss a critical warning.

Emergency managers point out the need for “multiple safety nets”. The more sources of severe weather information, the greater the odds you will get word in time to take evasive action. Not becoming dependent on any one channel of information is key. …

Many days the news headlines sound like a movie trailer for The Apocalypse. For many years I’ve wondered if media and social media are merely doing a better/faster job of reporting weather extremes that have been fairly constant over time, or is a warmer, wetter, more volatile atmosphere loading the dice in favor of more meteorological mayhem? Billion-dollar weather disasters have roughly tripled since 1980. Don’t believe me? Compare a recent insurance bill from something you paid 20 or 30 years ago. All of us are paying a price for an uptick in extreme weather. Is this a cosmic coincidence? …

“A Category 5 Winter Storm?” NOAA Testing New Winter Rating Scale

Weather is democratic. An EF-3 tornado is just as destructive in Nashville as it is in Pittsburgh. A Category 2 hurricane threatening Tampa will have impacts similar to a Category 2 hurricane pinwheeling toward Houston.

But winter storms are a different beast altogether. Half a foot of snow will all but paralyze Dallas and Atlanta, but 6 inches of powder falling on Minneapolis or Denver in January? Just another Thursday. …

MIT Tropical Expert: “The Saffir-Simpson scale is deeply deficient and should be discarded.”

Science evolves over time. Our understanding of the natural world improves as new technology comes online, leveraging more granular, reliable, repeatable data sets. The science of meteorology, like every other science, is a moving target. The Fujita tornado rating scale was upgraded and enhanced in 2006 to better reflect observed wind damage. NOAA is launching WSSI, the Winter Storm Severity Index, a new, experimental winter storm rating scale with five categories. Sound familiar?

Is it time to rethink the Saffir-Simpson rating scale for hurricanes, which only predicts damage from wind? In recent years nearly 90% of tropical cyclone deaths in the United States were not the result of wind, but water: storm surge, extreme rains and inland flooding. …

Hurricanes are America’s deadliest natural disasters. They’re expensive, too. According to USA FACTS, adjusting for inflation, 7 of the 10 most expensive natural disasters have been hurricanes. Of those 7, 6 have happened since 2000.

Technological breakthroughs like weather satellites and computer models have lowered the death toll over time, but there are harrowing exceptions. In spite of timely warnings, Hurricane Katrina (2005) left 1,833 dead and Hurricane Maria (2017) killed 2,981 people. It may be counterintuitive, but most of the deaths occurred days or even weeks after the hurricane struck. “Statistics now show that more people are being killed or injured after the storm rather than during it” says meteorologist Dennis Feltgen, Communications & Public Affairs Officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. How is that possible? As the graphic above explains, hurricane survivors are often victims of heart failure and other medical maladies, vehicle accidents, fires and electrocution. …

True story. One of my previous weather-tech companies, EarthWatch Communications, created 3-D weather graphics for the 1993 movie blockbuster “Jurassic Park”. While filming special effects at Universal Studios, I had a chance to chat with Steven Spielberg. My brush with fame. What did we talk about? The weather, of all things. Spielberg described filming conditions on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai as Category 4 Hurricane Iniki approached during September of 1992. “Hotel staff led us down into the basement to ride out the storm” Spielberg explained. I remember being shocked by this. “The basement? In a tornado you want to be in the basement but during a hurricane you want to be on a higher floor to escape the storm surge” I said. The legendary film director’s eyes got big as we shook hands to say goodbye, but I remember being a little shaken by the encounter. …

“Hurricanes have killed more people in the last 50 years than any other natural cataclysm” according to MIT meteorology professor and tropical scientist Kerry Emanuel.

I’m an old Eagle Scout, and the motto: “Be Prepared” is as relevant today as ever. Get out in front of risk. Take steps (now) to avoid serious problems (later). That mindset certainly applies to the biggest, wildest, most terrifying storms on the planet. What have I learned tracking these fickle weather beasts over the course of 4 decades? Don’t count on the latest technology or the government to save you. At the end of the day NOAA, FEMA and the National Guard won’t protect you or your family. Take personal responsibility and have an action plan in place so you’re fully prepared for an inevitable parade of storms-with-names. …

America’s tornado drought is officially over. The last few years have been relatively quiet, with few large, violent tornadoes. In 2018 there were no tornado-related deaths in traditional Tornado Alley, stretching from Texas to Iowa. But so far in 2019, 31 Americans have lost their lives to tornadoes, nature’s most extreme, unpredictable and capricious wind storms. In the last 2 weeks at least 366 tornadoes have been observed east of the Rockies. Once again, the United States is living up to its reputation as the tornado capital of the planet.

Over the last couple weeks I’ve watched in morbid fascination as a remarkably consistent witch’s brew of meteorological conditions created tornado weather from Texas to Pennsylvania; at last count over 600 tornadoes so far in May — the most of any month since April 2011. That was the year of the Super-Outbreak and the catastrophic Joplin, Missouri tornado, which claimed 161 lives; injuring 1,150 more. …