BLACKSBURG, Va. – Floods are one of the most common severe weather events in Southwest Virginia, but they can also be some of the hardest to predict.
“It depends on where we see those thunderstorms pop up as to where we see those highly localized impacts,” said Craig Ramseyer, an associate professor at Virginia Tech.
He said they don’t get a clear picture of these storms until about 48 hours beforehand.
“Typically, maybe a day or two out we have a general idea of the region, or maybe a county or two that’ll be impacted,” Ramseyer said.
They mainly rely on data from weather balloons and ground stations for those predictions.
“That’s a really big piece of this is mathematical modeling. It’s all math as I tell my students,” he added.
But sometimes terrain like that of Southwest Virginia can make it difficult to get an accurate reading.
“We may be getting a pretty accurate signal in some parts of the area, but other places that signal could be blocked,” Ramseyer said.
These scientists don’t just study and predict storms—they also work on finding the best ways to clearly and effectively communicate warnings to keep people safe.
“We could have the best forecast in the world, but if the public doesn’t understand the info, there’s not a lot of value in the forecast,” said Virginia Tech Professor Liesel Ritchie.
Ritchie said getting people to understand these alerts comes down to public education.
“We need to be aware of and educating people about the hazards of their region,” she said.
One big part of the research looks at how warnings are written.
“Decades of research have gone into how do we best word the language, so people pay attention? How do we work with emergency managers to localize the language in those?” Ritchie said.
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