#32 – What’s going on outside?

Forecasting the weather is one discipline that has changed dramatically due to modern technology. But even with all our advances, disasters such as the Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the recent Southeast tornadoes happen with surprising regularity. It appears we can get the broad idea of what the weather is doing, but the devil is in the details.

Doppler radar, Meteorological Satellites, global seismographs and the use of modern computational power have all increased the ability of predicting weather phenomena. One of the issues with all these wonderful technologies is our ability to get the information we have to the people that need to hear it. In the case of the Asia tsunami, scientists knew a huge earthquake had happened and that a tsunami was likely. Unfortunately there was no easy way to get that information out to people in the path of the tsunami in time to make a difference.

The case of Hurricane Katrina is even more interesting. Who in the US did not know a big hurricane was going to hit the Gulf Coast? The hurricane was followed for days before it hit land a second time. What many didn’t believe is what the computer models had told for several years. A big hurricane could weaken the levees in New Orleans and flood most of the city.

The recent Alabama tornadoes that killed eight students and 7 others were clearly predicted by the National Weather Service. In fact, the students at the high school in question were in tornado warning position when the tornado hit. What went wrong? What more could technology have done? Maybe build stronger schools? I’m not sure. The power of tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes can’t be discounted. Knowledge of their coming isn’t enough. Being in the right place at the right time transcends the technology to predict natural disasters.