Michigan Governor Wants NWS Staff Cutback Investigation After Surprise Tornadoes

One of the unexpectedly large and deadly
tornadoes that struck southern Michigan on
March 6. Political leaders are calling for
investigations as to whether Trump cuts
 to the National Weather Service are
causing forecast inaccuracies. 

 Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer's is asking whether federal budget cutbacks at the National Weather Service contributed to making this month's deadly tornadoes in the state a dangerous surprise. 

No tornado watch had been issued in Michigan before the storms, though tornado warnings were issued when radar images detected rotation and witnesses reported tornadoes forming. 

This, from Whitmer's office: 

"The National Weather Service exists to monitor conditions and inform Americans of severe weather in their communities. The fact that the (National Weather)Service did not issue a tornado watch is troubling, especially  with the loss of life in Michigan," Witmer spokeswoman Stacey LaRouche said in a statement.  

That statement continues:

"While tornadoes can be hard to predict, the federal government should investigate whether the failure to use a watch was related to federal cuts."

Also, Michigan U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin also sent letters to the National Weather Service offices in Marquette, Gaylord, Grand Rapids, Detroit and northern Indiana asking whether lack of staffing or resources could have affected whether a tornado watch was issued.  

While it's absolutely possible budget  and staff cuts have hindered the National Weather Service's forecasting prowess, there was also a pecific reason why a watch was not issued. 

This was a unique situation. The Nation Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center did not issue a tornado watch because the atmospheric setup suggested only the risk of isolated, likely weak and brief tornadoes. That's not normally enough to issue a tornado watch. 

A tornado watch is usually issued as a heads up for a large area that widespread, severe storms are likely to occur, noted CBS Detroit chief meteorologist Ahmed J. Bajjey. A watch means people should pay attention and be ready to take shelter if need be. 

And it turns out there was just isolated activity, which followed the "rules" on not issuing a tornado watch.   This one was different, though. Only one supercell thunderstorm produced the series of four tornadoes that spread death and destruction across southern Michigan on March 6.   

 The National Weather Service did issue tornado warnings when it became apparent the twisters were forming. A tornado warning means people should take shelter immediately. 

One good question is did forecaster miss clues ahead of time that southern Michigan would fall victim to intense, long-lasting tornadoes? It's probably worth investigating, not to shame the meteorologists involved, but to learn how to better forecast in scenarios similar to what Michigan endure on March 6, 

 It's been a year since sharp and unpredictable Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service and its parent organization NOAA began.

There's reason to believe the system is straining.

ANOTHER TORNADO FORECAST

While we're at it, we should look at another questionable tornado forecast. This was on Monday, when NOAA gave a moderate risk - the second highest of five alert levels - of tornadoes in the Mid-Atlantic states. Some of the tornadoes were forecast to be possibly strong.

We did see a few hundred reports of wind damage up and down the East Coast Monday, so part of the forecast came true. But there were hardly any tornadoes, and no strong ones. That's great news, of course. 

But the dire alerts that went out on Sunday that the next day would be a frightening scene of violent tornadoes frightened the public, in this case unnecessarily. 

In this case, forecasters didn't expect some early thunderstorms on the Carolina coast Monday morning that stole energy from the atmosphere in the mid-Atlantic states. The winds in the atmosphere also didn't turn out to be quite as conducive to tornadoes as first thought. 

Updated computer model runs Sunday evening began to back away from the idea of strong tornadoes and wind gusts over 75 mph. But by then the message had gotten out of the tornado risk. It was too late for the public to notice these first signs that the tornado risk was lowering. 

If the so-called DOGE cutbacks at NOAA had any negative effect on the forecast it would have likely come in one of two ways:  One, is National Weather Service offices were so short staffed that meteorologists didn't have the opportunity to note subtle signs that the tornado outbreak was not to be.

That is the more unlikely of the two scenarios. A more plausible explanation is that there are now too few balloon launches that capture the meteorological intricacies of the atmosphere. With not as much data being collected by the weather balloons, the computer generated forecasts might not be as accurate. This is another issue that deserves a lot more scrutiny. 

I don't know whether DOGE is to blame for the botched tornado forecast. But if the short-sighted Trump administration cutbacks are to blame, I fear the next time, the National Weather Service won't be able to forecast and anticipate a deadly tornado outbreak or other weather disaster. 

Meteorology is a complex science. So complex that weather forecasts will be wrong from time to time, no matter how fully staffed a particular National Weather Service office is. 

Michigan's governor and the state's two U.S. Senators will probably learn that the March 6 tornado forecasting didn't fall short.  Many of us first worried a year ago when the DOGE cuts were first happening that they would threaten the lives of Americans.

I'm ready for a full analysis of whether that has been the case.  

Vermont Surrounded By, But So Far Untouched By Tornadoes This Year (But We've Had Spinny Things)

It's been a busy year for tornadoes in the Northeast so far, but Vermont has been spared any of them. 

Strong winds and torrential rain from a thunderstorm
in Hinesburg, Vermont on June 23 that carried a tornado
warning. No known twisters touched down that day. 

We've had some close misses, but no twisters have been confirmed in the Green Mountain State this year. 

The latest close misses came on Tuesday. 

TUESDAY TWISTERS

The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine confirmed that a tornado touched down in Lyme, New Hampshire Tuesday. Lyme is just across the Connecticut River from Thetford, Vermont. 

The NWS office will release more details on that tornado later today, but did say it was a high end EF-1 with top winds of 110 mph with a path length of 1.8 miles long. 

Video from WPTZ showed the tornado's rapidly rotating wall cloud engulfing a mountain in Lyme. 

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service office in Albany, New York, has so far confirmed three tornadoes Tuesday in New York, not that far from the Vermont border.

A brief EF-1 touched down in Oxbow Lake, New York, with winds of 100 mph. Another, even more brief EF-0 tornado with winds of 85 mph touched the ground a little northwest of Warrensburg, New York.

A slightly larger EF-1 tornado with top winds of 100 mph and a path length of about a mile hit Wells, New  York. 

These tornadoes hit a little to the west of Lake George. The same parent thunderstorm that spawned these three twisters also launched another much larger tornado further to the west onto Rome, New York.

The Rome tornado was an EF-2 with winds of 135 mph and a 5.25 mile long path, says the National Weather Service office in Binghamton, New York.  That office will investigated two additional areas of severe storm damage in the region. At least one of those storms, this one in Canastota, New York, killed one person, and the damage is consisted with what you'd expect in a tornado.

We expect confirmation one way or another later today. 

That tornadic storm in New York eventually ended up in southwestern Vermont.  The NWS office in Albany investigated a concentrated areas of snapped off and uprooted trees along Route 30 in Rupert, Vermont. That damage was caused by a microburst carrying 95 mph winds, and not a tornado, meteorologists concluded. 

OTHER VERMONT SPINNY THINGS

Vermont has had other close calls with tornadoes this year.

Last week, at the start of our severe flash flooding on July 10, thunderstorms with tornado warnings blossomed in New York, west of Addison County, Vermont.

Those storms entered Addison County, carrying severe thunderstorm but not tornado warnings. A funnel cloud was spotted in Bridport, and damage was reported in the town. The National Weather Service office in South Burlington investigated.

The funnel must not have touched down, as no damage was found where it was located. The tree damage near Pratt's Store in Bridport was three or four miles from the funnel position, so it had to be straight line winds that caused the problem. 

I was downstream from that storm in New Haven, Vermont, and I spotted some suspicious, apparently rotating clouds, but those clouds clearly showed no signs of touching down as a tornado. The same storm moved on to neighboring Monkton, where videographers spotted a wall cloud, which is often a precursor to a tornado. But again, nothing touched down. 

Monkton seems to be Vermont's version of tornado alley this year, though no actual tornadoes touched down there. However, on June 23, two separate storms, each rotating and having tornado warnings associated with them, passed near Monkton.  A funnel cloud was photographed near Monkton, but nothing touched down. 

A tornado did touch down in Dublin, New Hampshire, a little east of Keene that day. 

Finally, on June 9, I spotted a cold air funnel over St. Albans, Vermont. This type of funnel is really not tornadic, and almost never touch down. They are a function of garden variety storms interacting with cold air aloft.   They are almost always no biggies, but fun to watch.

It is of course, possible a tornado or even a couple might have hit somewhere in Vermont this summer. Tornadoes in this neck of the woods are often incredibly brief and cause little damage. Perhaps there was one in the deep woods somewhere far from anybody's house, so it went unnoticed. 

 Or maybe somebody did notice some fallen trees, but thought it was caused by a typical summer windstorm. The National Weather Service doesn't do random investigations looking for damage. If storm damage is reported to them, they'll often investigate to determine whether it was a microburst, straight line winds or a tornado. They'll also assess how strong the winds were and how big an areas those winds covered.

Those investigations both satisfy our curiosity and help meteorologists make better forecasts in the future. They can observe the conditions that led to the damage, and that can help improve forecasts going forward. 

No severe weather, or any kind of majorly inclement weather is in the forecast through at least Monday, so we're good to go with no spinny thing threats for the foreseeable future.