LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – After warning for days about violent storms that could rake the central U.S. with huge hail, high winds and strong tornadoes, forecasters will review whether the messages they sent were appropriate for severe weather that some considered a “bust” because the tornadoes that did develop were small.
Storms on Tuesday brought grapefruit-sized hail in Kansas and winds near 75 mph throughout the Great Plains and Missouri River Valley. But the tornadoes lacked all of the ingredients to produce monster storms.
“We had signals that it could be on the higher end,” said Bill Bunting, the operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. “But each system is different, and (this one) didn’t live up to our expectations.”
The center for the first time had said six days out that a severe weather “outbreak” was possible – raising questions on whether it was appropriate to sound a general alarm that far in advance.
“The one thing missing was what the hazards were,” said Kim Klockow, a visiting scientist at the National Weather Service who studies meteorology and human behavior. “It was always entirely possible there would be tornadoes and it was possible there won’t be.”