We had three bouts of severe thunderstorms on Monday (4/20). One round went through the Southside Hampton Roads cities prompting warnings at about 2:30 PM. Another more widespread area of dangerous storms set off numerous warnings between 5:00 and 6:30 PM. The final storm generated a tornado northwest of Smithfield at about 7:55 PM.
While the first two rounds of severe weather affected a greater number of people, I’d like to discuss the last one here.
We were under a Tornado Watch from 2:50 PM until 10:00 PM. A Tornado Watch is issued by the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center out of Norman, Oklahoma. A Watch is issued over a broad time frame and a wide expanse of land…basically stating that there is the possibility of damaging thunderstorms which could get strong enough to generate tornadoes. When a tornado is indicated by radar or there is a reliable sighting, the local National Weather Service office in Wakefield, VA issues a Tornado Warning.
Of course, that Tornado Warning was issued for Isle of Wight County at about 7:55 on Monday evening. Radar was clearly indicating a tornado…and by 8:05, we had several reports of a tornado on the ground at Mill Swamp Rd. near the Moonlight area of Isle of Wight County. This area is about 3 miles northwest of Smithfield. The storm generating this tornado was moving northeastward toward the James River, eventually Fort Eustis, and a densely-populated area of Newport News and York County (Denbigh, Oyster Point, Grafton, etc.).
Moonlight is a rural, sparsely-populated area. There just weren’t as many structures and people which could be targeted by the tornado. Thankfully, a few trees knocked down and a scary storm seemed to be the worst of the problem here. But what to do when the storm (& possible tornado!) crosses the river and into the tens of thousands of people and structures in Newport News?
We went on the air immediately at 7:55 to let our viewers know that a possible tornado was on the ground and headed northeastward. As it became apparent that the possible tornado was in fact a tornado on the ground, we stayed on the air until the storm weakened around 8:20. With the storm moving northeastward into Newport News, the danger was imminent to a highly-populated area.
We walk a fine line when breaking into programming for severe weather announcements. The FCC requires that we properly notify the public of any severe weather threat. We truly agonize about what kind of notification is appropriate to each individual threat. In this case, there was a tornado on the ground headed toward tens of thousands of people. The threat was clear and imminent…and we stayed on the air, “covering” the first 20 minutes of programming.
Not only is there a legal responsibility to broadcast warnings over the public airwaves, there is a moral aspect to this, as well. We really are acting in the public interest with this type of situation; we simply don’t want to see anybody get hurt!
For those of you angry over missing the beginning of “Chuck” on NBC, I am truly sorry. Unfortunately, there is no technology which is capable of “beaming” a warning to only those homes which are in the path of a tornado; TV stations can only do “blanket coverage” and not just to individual areas.
When severe weather is in the area, we try our very best to not break into the show you might be watching…going so far as to do weather updates only during commercial breaks. Oftentimes, we can “crawl” the information across the bottom of the screen. We’ll be discreet when we can. But when a storm with a proven track record for damage is headed for your home, we will be staying on the air to tell you all about it.