Tornadoes in Hoco: The Shocking Truth

 

 

When I asked about tornadoes the other day it was not an invitation. Sheesh.

But here I am again thinking about them.

I am not an expert on tornadoes. In fact, one hundred percent of my childhood knowledge was dependent upon Ajax brand cleaner.

National Geographic Kids gives a great introductory description for beginners (like me.) it turns about the United States leads the world in the incidence of tornadoes. Go us, I guess.

All of this brings me back to good old HoCo. Are we experiencing tornadoes more frequently than in years past? If so, do we know the reason why?

It turns out that you can search history of tornadoes in Howard County, Maryland. One of the top hits will be a website called  “Tornado Path.” They have an app, too.

They have easy-to-read information, colorful charts, and a really cool logo.

You know what they don’t have? My wholehearted endorsement. And this is why:

When you click on “About” on the website, they don’t exactly tell you who they are. There’s a whole lot of impressive-looking lists but no names and accompanying experience or qualifications. That bugs me. But, to my mind, this is the worst part:

Here’s the shocking truth.

That’s the language of the street corner huckster, the Atlantic City carney, the infomercial warning at two am.

What doctors don’t want you to know.

Our amazing product trounces the competitors.

This easy trick confounds scientists.

Trust us and you’ll never need anything else.

I’m not saying that this proves definitively that Tornado Path is trash. But they are adorning themselves in the garment of trash. I’d need to do more research before I placed my trust in them.

This is important to me because I keep seeing people forward dubious arguments online using assorted numbers, charts, graphs, eye-popping colors and impressive layouts. (Recent HoCoLocal discussions about school renovations come to mind.) It is easy to think that this is a guarantee that the information you are seeing is factual and presented without slant - - especially if it backs up opinions you hold already.

But it matters who you trust. They need to earn your trust. You need to take the extra step to find out who they are: their experience and qualifications. I’m going to go a step farther and say if any HocoLocal advocate or initiative is reiticent about sharing any of that - -  then that is a big tell about their intent and whether they are trustworthy.

Back to tornadoes. Baltimore meteorologist Justin Berk is certainly spinning* possible excitement for Monday.

Capital Weather Gang is covering the same factual information but without the hype. To be honest, I don’t usually follow Mr. Berk but the post was shared by a friend with these words:

Heads up, friends. The weather continues to be severe and weird.

The way things have been recently, that felt like as succinct a forecast as we may get. Since it was accompanied by a forecast from a credentialed meteorologist, I was able to quickly see what my friend was driving at. 

Is this a post about tornadoes? Yes, and it’s also about something bigger and more important: how do you vet the information that comes at you every day? What are the key elements that engender trust or send you runnning?

Critical thinking skills: more powerful than a white tornado.

*sorry!

Village Green/Town² Comments