An Overview of the National Weather Service Central Region Tornado Warning Improvement Project

Issuing timely, accurate tornado warnings is a fundamental responsibility of the National Weather Service. Data from the past few years suggests warning forecasters’ ability to detect tornadoes and issue warnings with positive lead time has plateaued, or even retrograded. As a result, the National Weather Service Central Region formed a team of meteorologists to address this issue. This presentation will outline the need for the team and describe the resources the team has developed and delivered to the field offices. The overarching goal of the team is to focus on the process of issuing tornado warnings and increasing consistency in the warning decision process. A portion of this goal is through inclusion of cutting edge research along with associated interrogation techniques and tools. This team has investigated the human element of issuing (or not issuing) tornado warnings. They have addressed the challenges associated with different types of tornadoes (landspouts, QLCS tornadoes, supercells) and developed training resources to combat these challenges. We are optimistic that our agency’s ability to issue timely and accurate warnings will improve by updating the warning forecaster’s conceptual model of tornadogenesis, defining the limitations of the WSR-88D radar to detect tornadogenesis, and increasing the confidence of the warning forecaster to make proactive decisions by serving as the conduit for the integration of the latest peer-reviewed research into operations (R2O).