The worst is yet to come

I’ve lived in McCook since 1995 and this is the worst winter I can remember, at least in terms of cold temperatures, and the worst part of winter is bearing down on us this weekend.

Snow is due to start falling sometime today and continue through Sunday with moderate to heavy snow falling Saturday night and Sunday morning which will count for more accumulating snow. Then the coldest temperatures of the winter set in with the low Sunday morning predicted at around 10 below zero. I can’t remember 10 below zero in March ever and I’m sure some of you can’t either. The only good thing about the winter so far is that we dodged the blizzard predicted for us last weekend.

And that’s one of the things I want to call your attention to in this column. We get our official forecasts from the National Weather Service in Goodland, Kansas and the NWS nationwide has very specific protocol s for issuing watches and warnings. A watch is issued when conditions are favorable for dangerous or unpleasant weather to develop. In the spring and summer for example, tornado watches are issued in the United States for the possibility of tornados forming because the atmospheric conditions are favorable. It doesn’t mean tornados are occurring, it just means it’s possible for them to occur.

A tornado warning is only issued when a tornado has been sighted, either by trained personnel on the ground or hook echoes being indicated on radar. The National Weather Service adheres to these basic principles extremely well in spring and summer time adverse weather conditions.

It’s a totally different story however when it comes to winter watches and warnings and last weekend was a perfect example of this. Last Friday, a Blizzard Warning was issued for the three most southwestern counties in Nebraska which included Red Willow County for Blizzard conditions expected to occur on Saturday.

A warning should never be issued a day ahead of any weather event because it is not yet occurring and is not yet imminent. Friday was the time to issue a Blizzard Watch because conditions were favorable for a blizzard to develop but the NWS continues to drop the ball in issuing winter storm and blizzard warnings when the conditions are not yet present.

This causes confusion in the minds of the public because they aren’t sure what’s going to happen and people tend to overreact because of it. If you tried to go to Wal-Mart last Friday, chances are you either didn’t make it or were met with crowded aisles and long lines at the check-out stands because of the blizzard warning.

As it turned out, we didn’t have a blizzard on Saturday or anything even close to a blizzard. It snowed some but not enough to even collect on my car. It was a warning that wasn’t justified and, consequently, caused group behavior on the residents of the three counties mentioned when that behavior was not warranted.

We are likely to see a similar scenario this weekend if the forecast holds true through tomorrow and, if it does, it’s likely we’ll see blizzard warnings or winter storm warnings before those conditions are present and that’s not a good thing for any of us. I urge the NWS to issue watches instead of warnings until those conditions actually exist.

They can actually save lives by following the protocol already developed for them and save many people a lot of stress and strain before dangerous conditions actually develop.

Luckily, the sub-zero temperatures won’t be around for very long, maybe just one day, before a gradual warmup begins to occur which will take us into more March-like temperatures and weather conditions. I was talking to a fellow member of the Heritage Hills golf course at lunch the other day and he says there has been at least some snow on the course since November. That’s a long winter in anybody’s book and practically all of us are ready for a change.