Tornado Warnings and Public Action

Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings in Europe

Article history: Received 7 December 2007 Received in revised form 29 August 2008 Accepted 20 September 2008 This study summarizes the current severe thunderstorm warning and forecast operations in different European National Hydro-Meteorological Services (NHMSs), and, in doing so, suggests ways for countries developing their own warning service to learn from experiences in other countries, as ...

Tornado Warnings and Tornado Fatalities : The Case of May 22 , 2011 Tornado in Joplin , Missouri

Multidisciplinary Analysis of an Unusual Tornado: Meteorology, Climatology, and the Communication and Interpretation of Warnings*

On 22May 2008, a strong tornado—rated EF3 on the enhanced Fujita scale, with winds estimated between 136 and 165 mi h (61 and 74 m s)—caused extensive damage along a 55-km track through northern Colorado. The worst devastation occurred in and around the town of Windsor, and in total there was one fatality, numerous injuries, and hundreds of homes significantly damaged or destroyed. Several char...

Predictors of compliance with tornado warnings issued in Joplin, Missouri, in 2011.

Joplin, a city in the southwest corner of Missouri, United States, suffered an EF-5 tornado in the late afternoon of 22 May 2011. This event, which claimed the lives of 162 people, represents the deadliest single tornado to strike the US since modern record-keeping began in 1950. This study examines the factors associated with responses to tornado warnings. Based on a post-tornado survey of sur...

The Boy Who Cried Bubble: Public Warnings against Riding Bubbles

Attempts by governments to stop bubbles by issuing warnings seem unsuccessful. This paper examines the effects of public warnings using a simple model of riding bubbles. We show that public warnings against a bubble can stop it if investors believe that a warning is issued in a definite range of periods commencing around the starting period of the bubble. If a warning involves the possibility o...