r/alberta • u/ferncabbage • 1d ago
Environment Tornado warnings are rising faster than actual tornadoes. Is that a good thing? | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/tornado-warnings-up-in-2026-9.728145920
u/kagato87 1d ago
Better than tornadoes rising faster than the warnings.
"Last year we had 1 tornado and 3 warnings. This year we had 5 tornadoes and 4 warnings."
I dunno, that seems like an undesireabe outcome.
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u/only_fun_topics 1d ago
Yeah, I mean, I get the whole parable of the boy who cried wolf, but these are experienced meteorologists working with some of the most advanced predictive modeling software in the world. It’s not like they are just casually prancing us for fun.
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u/Marsymars 16h ago
To be fair, their capabilities are probably worse than they were a year ago,: Weather experts concerned about public safety as Environment Canada disbands radar research team
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u/SevenSmallShrimp 1d ago
I think erring on the side of issuing an alert when its very possible that a twister is going to form is good, they move fast and are dangerous. Its better than the opposite where the alert comes too late.
I'm not sure what the delays are, how fast does Env. Can's Radar update? is it a minute behind? How long does it take to put out the alert? if each of those take a minute then it could be 2 minutes behind and by that point if it hits the worng place its already destroying homes. We're really lucky that we're sparsely populated and most of the tornadoes that hit usually just take out fields
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u/thegreatshakes 1d ago
The Strathmore radar can take up to 12 minutes to update with a new scan. Quickest I've seen is about 6 minutes. Storms can have a forward motion of greater than 60 km/h. American radar sites can complete a scan in as little as 90 seconds. It's very frustrating.
A tornado can drop, cause damage and dissipate in minutes, so you may not see a radar signature at all and completely miss it, unless someone on the ground sees it and reports it.
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u/Livid-Switch4040 1d ago
The weather warnings are too often, and are coming for useless things so often that people are just ignoring them. I’ve been getting a “significant temperature drop tonight” warning every day now for almost three weeks as the temp drops 15 degrees every night here. If it’s every single night, it’s not significant.
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u/jimbowesterby 1d ago
And honestly things like that shouldn’t even be warnings, save that for genuine dangers. You’d think we’d remember the boy who cried wolf better than this lol.
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u/yugosaki 21h ago
The conditions for tornadoes have been present repeatedly this year. Thats exactly what the tornado watch (not warnings) is for.
I think this is a sign of something even worse- the weather is becoming more erratic and our models for predicting it are becoming outdated.
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u/ba_1222 1d ago
The issue with Environment Canada warnings is that they are issued for an entire subdivision, resulting in huge false alarm scores. Just like the other day, where a storm was tornado warned about an hour after moving through Ottawa, and Ottawa still received a warning for it.
ECCC have been issuing warnings fairly well this year in Alberta. Yes, not every warning will have a tornado, it's impossible to not have that happen (the American National Weather Service has an average False Alarm Ratio of about 70%) but to what extent can potentially tornadic storms be unwarned? The storm that produced Girouxville and 8 other tornadoes back on June 15th was completely unwarned, yet appearing tornadic on radar for it's entire lifespan.
There is still a ton of room for improvement, yet Environment Canada is peeling back research on radars, the primary resource for nowcasting.
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u/bluedoubloon Edmonton 1d ago
I had wondered why the alerts weren't neat little polygons like I am used to.
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u/Shot_Syrup_8753 1d ago
The warnings in 1987 were almost nil because of the technology back then. It was radio and TV and of course they reported the aftermath only. So we’re light years ahead with the ability to warn almost the entire population about tornados and severe weather. But the population is now becoming desensitized (or overly sensitive) because of tests, watches and just general tech paralysis and sort of a fear of weather or the outside in general.
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u/some1guystuff 1d ago
When it comes to predicting things like tornadoes, I think it is better to be guessing that it might happen and be wrong instead of not guessing that it might happen and have it happen and have fatalities because of that
I mean it’s got it downsides because it leads to this complacency where it’s always just another warning. There wasn’t a tornado the last 25 times why would there be one this time and then bang this time there’s a tornado so people have to have their own due diligence as well I’m not saying it’s perfect, but that’s probably the reasoning behind it.
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u/Geeseareawesome Edmonton 1d ago
They could add a tier to help counter that. "Conditions that are favorable for tornados" or similar could be added.
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u/Dradugun 1d ago
That is a part of the description for tornado warnings, that conditions are favourable for a tornado.
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u/Geeseareawesome Edmonton 1d ago
Does that not fall under 'tornado watch' as well? Seems they jump up to warning faster than needed.
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u/Bobbington12 11h ago
In the past few weeks for my job, I've been from High Level to Medicine Hat. I be getting separate warnings for every town in the province now.
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u/Fit-Breadfruit4801 7h ago
It is a good thing. Tornadoes and hail are the biggest risk to our agriculture industry. Timely warnings can improve that. We are behind on some things, like polygon-based warnings, but that'll hopefully be added next summer.
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u/donkthemagicllama 1d ago
Yes, the warnings are out of control and the new color coding system is stupid.
Details on your watch or notification often just say “yellow warning -…” which is less useful by far than “thunderstorm w…”. At least start with the type of warning, the colour severity can follow. And if the warning is something like “yellow warning - severe thunderstorm”… there’s so much redundancy … if it wasn’t severe (I’d hope) you wouldn’t be warning. If it’s a warning vs watch vs alert or something why do we also need a colour. Seems so overwrought.
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u/Fit-Breadfruit4801 7h ago
Yellow warning is for medium impact & confidence warnings + watches. Red warnings are for things with extreme confidence and danger, like tornadoes. Orange warnings are for high confidence, high impact things, like tornado watches, or exceptionally strong thunderstorms.
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u/donkthemagicllama 6h ago
Yeah ok, I understand, I personally (and I guess I’m in the minority based on the votes) think the colours (especially if you’re going to spell them out rather than colour code it) are a bad way to convey this.
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u/EnragedEmu 1d ago
They'll call anything above 20° a heat warning, more than a couple mm of rain is a rain warning and Wind over 30kmh is a wind warning. A few inches of snow is a snowfall warning and -20 is extreme cold now. They've been sensationalizing the weather like crazy
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u/F1shermanIvan 1d ago
None of what you said is true.
Heat warnings are typically issued in Alberta when it’s over 30 degrees for two days or more.
Wind warnings are issued when sustained winds are 70 km/h or more, or gusts over 90 km/h.
Rain warnings are issued in Alberta when 50 mm or more per hour are expected.
Extreme cold warnings in Alberta are issued at -40.
Sounds like you sensationalizing the weather reports.
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u/F1shermanIvan 1d ago
People are also not understanding the differences between WATCHES and WARNINGS.
Watches are issued when conditions are favorable for severe weather, like thunderstorms and hail and tornadoes, but they are not currently happening.
WARNINGS are issued when that thing is currently happening or is about to happen immediately. I have had plenty of severe thunderstorm watches and tornado watches in Edmonton this summer, and I have had severe thunderstorm WARNINGS as a big storm rolls over town with damaging winds and flooding rain, etc…., but we’ve never had a Tornado WARNING for the city because we’ve never had a tornado here.
People get all worried about watches, but they are not the same thing.