Tornado alerts on the rise, but could too many warnings lead to alert fatigue?

With Saskatchewan experiencing an active severe weather season, with more than 100 tornado warnings already issued this year, some experts are questioning whether an increasing number of alerts could make people less likely to respond if a real threat emerges.

According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, 98 emergency alert messages have been issued in Saskatchewan this year through the national Alert Ready system as of June 30. Those alerts included 93 tornado warnings, three civil emergency alerts, one flash flood alert and one wildfire alert. That figure does not account for the dozens of tornado and severe weather alerts issued in the last two weeks, as storm activity has continued across much of the province.

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Those warnings are issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada and distributed through Alert Ready, Canada’s national public alerting system. Depending on the severity and type of event, alerts can appear on phones, television and radio broadcasts.

Environment Canada meteorologist Kayla Bilous said broadcast-intrusive alerts, the warnings that override phone settings and emit a loud tone, are reserved for the most serious weather threats.

“Specifically, when there is a tornado warning, that will trigger the broadcast-intrusive alert,” Bilous said.

Extremely severe thunderstorms capable of producing destructive winds or very large hail can also trigger those alerts, she added.

While the warnings are intended to save lives, some residents have voiced frustration over receiving multiple alerts for the same storm, or warnings about weather occurring far from their location.

Greg Johnson, a Saskatchewan storm chaser and operator of tornadohunter.com, believes there is a legitimate risk of “alert fatigue” if people receive too many warnings that don’t appear relevant.

“I think that the pendulum has swung so far towards having warnings out of caution that now nobody even pays attention to the things,” he said.

Johnson said part of the problem lies in how weather warnings are geographically issued in Canada.

Unlike the United States, where tornado warnings are often targeted to the projected path of a storm using polygon-based warning areas, Canadian warnings are generally issued for larger regions. That can result in people receiving tornado warnings despite being well outside the area of immediate danger.

Johnson recalled receiving a tornado warning while chasing a storm south of Prince Albert, even though he was approximately 80 kilometres away and under sunny skies.

“The warning says, ‘Get underground right now to keep yourself safe,’” he said. “Of course that doesn’t make any sense, because I’m looking around and I’m under blue skies and there’s no tornado anywhere nearby.”

He said he’s worried that repeated experiences like his could lead people to dismiss future warnings.

“If you get enough of those, then when something serious does happen, you’re no longer taking it as seriously as you need to,” he said.

Bilous said some of the confusion comes from how the Alert Ready system works through cellular networks.

When a tornado warning is issued, phones connected to towers within the affected coverage area receive the alert. As people move between towers, or if multiple towers cover a broader area around the storm, users can receive repeated notifications for the same warning.

“That’s why they receive multiple alerts for the same storm,” she said.

The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency noted that users of the SaskAlert app have options to reduce unwanted notifications. Residents can customize alerts based on specific communities, regions or use the app’s “Follow Me” feature to receive warnings based on their current location while travelling.

The agency said the customization tools are intended to help residents receive timely information about emergencies that affect them, while reducing alerts for areas that are not relevant.

Despite concerns about warning fatigue, Johnson said Canada’s severe weather warning system has improved significantly over the past decade. He noted that tornado warnings were once commonly issued only after a tornado had already been reported on the ground.

“There has been an incredible improvement,” Johnson said.

“It’s not perfect, and certainly there’s maybe this warning fatigue, but it is 1,000 times better than it was even 10 years ago.”

For their part, meteorologists and emergency officials continue to encourage residents to take every tornado warning seriously and seek shelter immediately when one is issued, even as discussions continue about how alert systems can better balance broad public safety with warning precision.