Writer decodes the frontier of weather forecasting

SALISBURY— Technological advances make it possible for people to get more information about what’s happening with the weather. It’s up to those individuals what they do with it.

That was one takeaway from a discussion between Thomas E. Weber, author of “Cloud Warriors: Deadly Storms, Climate Chaos—and the Pioneers Creating a Revolution in Weather Forecasting” and his former colleague at The Wall Street Journal (and current editor of The Lakeville Journal) John Coston at the Scoville Memorial Library Sunday, Sept. 7.

Coston asked about the personal safety aspect of weather forecasting.

Weber said when he started the book he expected to get a lot of material about computer models.

But he soon met a social scientist from the University of Oklahoma who was interested in why people keep getting killed in natural disasters when the warnings keep getting better.

“It’s about how people process warnings,” Weber said, noting that the library talk was originally scheduled in August but postponed because of flash flood warnings.

Weber, who lives in New York City but was at his second home in Columbia County, New York, said that on Saturday, Sept. 6, he started getting ominous weather reports, including a tornado warning.

“Here we go again,” he said. “Every time I go near this library…”

Coston asked about advances in forecasting, with time frames expanded from a few days to a few years.

“We are getting much better information,” Weber replied, with longer time scales that make it possible to advise about the possibility of drought, for instance.

“We’re starting to see that information change lives, especially in developing countries.” Better information allows for relief supplies to be brought into affected areas in advance, not after the “bad thing” happens.

Closer to home, Weber was enthusiastic about his home weather station, a device called a Tempest.

“It’s not the fancy one,” he added.

But it’s advanced enough to detect lighting when it is still 30 miles away.

So on Saturday, Sept. 6, he was at his Columbia County home watching the storm getting closer, until he could see it with his eyes.

“It gives us a little extra awareness.”

Such devices are also connected to the internet, and data from them is added to the overall flow of information. “All of this local data feeds into forecasting.”

He also advised buying a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration radio, which is not dependent on the internet at all and provides constant updates and warnings from the national Weather Service.

Weber said that the danger of unusual or extreme heat needs to be more widely understood.

“A day or two of unusually high temperatures causes tremendous stress on the human body,” he said.

People who take common medications for conditions such as high blood pressure should be aware of the dangers of heat and dehydration.

He said the common measures of heat — the projected daily high temperature and the “heat index” — are now joined by measurements taken with a device called a wet bulb globe thermometer, which factors in not just temperature and humidity but the effect of direct sunlight.

He said that school administrators are starting to set limits on high school sports practices, for example, using the wet bulb globe thermometer readings.

Weber spent considerable time discussing “optimism bias,” which gets back to the question of how people react to warnings.

He said people often get used to emergency sirens, with a common observation being “that thing goes off all the time and nothing bad happens.”

“A siren is a pretty blunt instrument,” he said. The siren covers a large area and doesn’t offer any information other than there is a potential problem.

But there is more information about weather conditions than ever — and more ways to get it.

Weber said he was introduced to a phone app called “Radarscope” by stormchasers, who swore by it.

“Never have we had more direct access to information.”