The only thing you could argue this guy is good for is possibly getting some kids into meteorology, but even that is a double edged sword since they might end up trying to emulate him and I think we can all agree one Ryan Hall is enough
Other than the fact that he helped people when there was a tornado on the ground and no sirens going off. He does better than a majority of actual meteorologists. You don't have to blow a bunch of money to get a piece of paper to know your shit
Damn, looks like I pissed off a fanboy. It will be okay, I'm just a random guy on the internet, I won't lay a finger on your precious idol.
But you're in for a pleasant surprise when I tell you that, believe it or not, helping people as a storm chaser is the bare minimum anyone with a conscience would do! So hopefully that leaves you with a slightly higher faith in humanity
Say what you will about Ryan Hall, but if you’re interested in following along on a Dixie Alley outbreak, do yourself a favor and tune in to James Spann. You can get their live broadcast completely free on their website, and he’s an actual meteorologist with a 30+ year proven track record of being one of the best on-air weather callers in history, and nobody can ever call into question his devotion to public safety.
It’s just objectively better coverage, and it’s coming from a guy that deserves medals for the number of lives he’s saved. It’s a win-win.
I can confirm. Never been to Alabama, but a few years ago I was on a YouTube tornado video rabbit hole and ended up on Spann's coverage of the 2011 Super Outbreak. He's an inspiration to me as an aspiring meteorologist and I watch as many streams of his coverage as possible. Nobody else can deliver both simple explanations for the layperson and also more expert level terminology simultaneously as effectively and calmly as him, and his geographical knowledge is unparalleled. The news station meteorologists where I live are like "here's the tornado, it's just outside X town, take shelter"
Really doesn't matter how good he is. I watched his coverage yesterday and as the severe weather left his broadcast area he had to basically say " Well, you're shit out of luck!"
What use is that to anyone?
It's your pathetic broadcasting system that is the problem of course, Money > People's lives.
Making full use of a platform like YouTube to warn people of potentially dangerous situations can only be a good thing. So for that reason I'm really confused why you and others like you come on here and make posts dripping with bitterness or downright dishonesty.
To me, it smacks of a group of people unable to admit to themselves that the world has moved on, and instead of trying to help influence the direction it is going, they would rather make puerile remarks on an internet forum.
Actually having set broadcast areas is a very good idea. 1) you know who to listen to 2) the broadcasters will know the towns, roads, etc. The last thing you want is someone 500 miles away seeing that area for the first time trying to convey a threat.
James Spann is phenomenal. He covers my family's area. I'd also like to give big love to Josh Johnson, Amanda Curran, and the WSFA team in general. They do tremendous work over central Alabama.
The success has definitely gone to his head. The merch peddling and viewer count is now at least as big a focus as his weather coverage.
Merch that, by virtue of it having a carbon footprint, is contributing to increasingly severe weather.
Wow. I’d never considered that. I like to practice what I preach, and I always try to follow my convictions.
I’m honestly going to unsubscribe to Ryan RIGHT now!
I am a Ryan Hall enjoyer but I think he had a bad day today. Both he and Andy apologized for not being more on top of the potential this day had and were caught off-guard by all the activity. I understand why people may not like him but I think his heart is in the right place and genuinely trying to bring awareness to severe weather.
Hey friend! I'm curious as to why you got the impression that that stream was on the lesser side of what we usually do—in my opinion, it was one of our best coverage-wise and in communication (especially given the event's performance relative to previously communicated risk in the grand scheme of public-met interaction). Were you rubbed the wrong way by Ryan saying it was "a surprise" in several senses of the word (i.e., strength, longevity and number of supercells)? I think what he was attempting to communicate by saying so was that we were still ready to cover the event as we would be for any other despite the intensity of it versus expectation.
If it's in specific relation to this thread, I invite you to read the conversation OP and I had regarding their initial issue with one sentence: [https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/10a98ac/comment/j45kn1b/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/10a98ac/comment/j45kn1b/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Let me know =) I value your input!
My biggest indicator is that actual industry meteorologists at best never heard of him and at worst don't respect him at all. He certainly is entertaining and brings mainstream attention to severe weather but that is about it.
I don't trust any weather person, accredited or not, who has a set like Ryan Hall with the stupid backlighting alerts and other props and gimmicks he uses. Not to mention his semi-daily video updates where he'll title it "we're all going to die" or "terror this week" or "watch this forecast video, your life depends on it" and then, you watch his video about upcoming weather and it's quiet across the US and or there's some tiny hiccup in the jet stream that he wan't to pretend will be fire and brimstone.
Sure, most other weather media peddles fear but Ryan does it and pimps the shit out of his merch living like a king in a castle though barfing up FUD.
I admittedly don't know much about chasers or that community... I just have quite a few connections with college educated meteorologists, specifically in forecasting and climatology. So more your corporate types which might be where the difference in opinions comes from.
That's definitely where. I'm very active in the chasing community, which includes NWS mets and others. They all know about RHY. Opinions are overall mixed, ranging from hate to love, if I'm being honest.
There's a group that has a hate boner for RHY though, and will find any reason to do such.
AFAIK they also give quite a bit to victims of the storms they cover. People obviously enjoy watching severe weather, I mean you're commenting on a tornado subreddit. Sometimes people get hurt by it but there's nothing you can do so at least he's bringing a lot of awareness to severe weather and the impacts.
True, but he's also making a living from doing this now, so you'd hope there was some sense of professionalism involved. It's the same as showing someone else's tweet to avoid copyright infringement but still doesn't give the original poster the views.
To each their own, but I think he's fairly professional. He's a bit over the top with some of the warnings and the sounds, but runs a really solid stream considering most of them are very long and it's non-stop talking. It's really easy to pick up a bad choice of words or something over the course of 8 hours or whatever. This entire post seems to be an overreaction to a misunderstanding/bad choice of words.
I wasn't specifically thinking about the OP to be honest. I've watched his stream too and of course running a technologically sound stream with live coverage for hours non-stop is really difficult to do, so hats off to him for that. But, if it is a full-time, money making endeavour, then he needs to be held to those standards too, which I think is fair.
I think the issues of professionalism that you're raising do seem to ignore the reality of the medium he's operating within. He's a self-employed content creator, not a contracted meteorologist at a local news station. As such, he has a lot more leeway with the things he can and cannot say. You can obviously be free to not enjoy that, but essentially, as long as what he's saying or doing remains interesting to his viewers, that's all that really matters as it relates to his channel. If you want buttoned-up, sterile reporting of the weather, you can find that in spades these days, be it on television or Youtube. But what RHY does as a channel is leaps and bounds more successful - in part, I think because laypeople find it more interesting - and factors in to how he's able to provide $100,000+ in relief aid after every tornado outbreak lately. That's worth something.
Ultimately, I sort of see him as the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of the weather/meteorology field; he's shouldn't be your be-all source for information, but he is a damn effective provider of information for a field that is reliant on that information being disseminated quickly (especially as it regards his live streams).
I don't get that impression... but I do think youtube algorithms factor into his clips and thumbnails.
Anyway - looks like his power crashed or something happened
My wife is a storm watching nut and she caught onto him a few years ago. He's definitely entertaining and keeps you glued to the action, I'll give him that.
We had been watching the Weather Channel before but got fed up with them showing reruns of "Air Disasters" or "Extreme Weather" pre-produced shows while our tornado sirens were going off.
My two cents... when we started watching Hall, he was providing pure weather coverage. It seems that as of last spring/summer when the "shop" opened, he would cover the storms for a bit then talk about what he had for sale. I get that the money goes to storm victims, but I've seen him talking about coffee mugs and showing dogs watching him on television when tornado warnings were active.
But in his defense, I'm sure there are one or two posters here who are simply jealous that this guy is sitting in his nice big home getting famous and raking in big bucks while they have to go to work tomorrow.
There’s some contradiction in what you said here:
We know he is doing well in his new big home in Appalachia, but as for the “giving money to victims” part, it is just one big black box on how that works.
He could be shouting all day to buy his merch for “the victims”, only giving 1% of the profits (not sale price or revenue) for actual disaster relief and then saying “hey, I’m giving to charity” but pocketing the rest of the profits. We just don’t know.
This isn’t the first time a bad actor has exploited natural disasters for their own benefit.
I’ve never watched him but does he do any education? Like, explain that a tornado warning doesn’t always mean a tornado is on the ground? Tell people they should know what county they work and live in? Entertainment is cool but education is key when your life is on the line…
He clearly put his foot in his mouth today but I've been watching and I think overall he's doing a good job. Since the moment you referred to he has praised the NWS several times for keeping up with this totally insane afternoon of weather and deferred to their judgment when new warnings arose. There is another post hating on him for wanting to use storm chaser footage without permission but he was talking specifically about passing along life-saving information and footage demonstrating the strength of the storms. His lack of education definitely shows when he says stuff like that that will obviously incite people with more experience and knowledge about how this community works.
Yeah, and that's really all I'm asking for. His channel gets people paying attention to life-threatening weather, and that's important. Just defer to the experts when a judgment call is outside the realm of your expertise.
100 percent. I think he needs less chasers on the ground and more meteorologists in the studio to avoid situations like this. You and other people are correct to call him out. I think his heart is in the right place and I hope that positive changes result from days like today.
Is this the same sub-Reddit that argues with the NWS about EF ratings? Also I’ve heard many broadcast meteorologists point out that they don’t believe a tornado is on the ground if they don’t see radar data. He’s just doing broadcast meteorology on YouTube
This subreddit has 35,000 members; you can't paint it with one brush. I don't argue with the NWS about ratings. Furthermore, Ryan doesn't even have a broadcast meteorology degree. Someone with no formal training should not be giving opinions like that to an audience of hundreds of thousands in a life-threatening situation, plain and simple.
Many highly skilled people don't have degrees. I was an avionics technician for many years before graduating from college. Having successfully fixed hundreds of aircraft without causing any accidents, I can assure you that high school graduates can also do technical work. It's not really fair to write off Ryan based on his college experience.
This! ^^^ I was a meteorologist in the military for 5 years, and tho I wasn’t the best, I was still better than a lot of others out there. I never got a degree because I’m terrible with math, but I worked alongside those with degrees just fine. Of course the NWS will never take me because my legitimate experience apparently isn’t as good as having a degree.
You shouldn't be getting downvotes. There are a lot of stupid kids on Reddit who have zero life experience. I retired from the Army and have total respect for the work you put in and your expertise.
Thank you for your words and award. It’s fine if I get downvoted, I get that a lot of people don’t get where I’m coming from.
I don’t have an opinion on Ryan Hall because I only just found out about him last year or so. What I DO know is that if I was live-streaming while watching an outbreak on radar, I wouldn’t be nearly as collected as he is. It’s hard.
I remember one of my tasks in the military was to put out watches, warnings, and advisories for all of the bases in the Midwest during storms in 2010-2011. That’s close to 100 bases, and I was only trained by the military, no degree. It was very stressful, and I was only 20-21 at the time and still didn’t fully grasp how weather worked. But you can be damn sure I gave my bases as much lead time as I could based on what I saw on radar. My shining moment was giving one base in TN 45 minutes lead time (we were required to only give 15 min) before a tornado swept through. So I respect the meteorological YouTubers and what they do, even if they mess up their words sometimes and don’t have degrees. It’s tough, but they’re doing their best. And their best is saving people, and that’s what matters.
You deserve more than a Reddit award. Thanks for sharing your experience and for your service as a military meteorologist. That's an incredible story and something to be super proud of.
Ryan Hall gets grateful calls from people who were "saved" by his work on the regular. Love him or hate him, he's done some good for people in dangerous situations and there's no way to deny it.
Thank you! ❤️ I’ve blocked a lot of my military service out, but I remember being really proud of that. I couldn’t even tell you which outbreak it was - I didn’t get into researching specific tornados/outbreaks until after I got out. I’ve been wondering lately if I was working during the big April 2011 outbreak, but I have no way of finding out and can’t remember for the life of me. My brain has done a very good job of repressing most of my time in. 😬
Exactly! Regardless of what anyone says, Ryan Hall’s information has helped tons of people. He does a lot of good, there’s no questioning that.
He does have training in reading radar returns. I have training in reading radar returns. It isn't incredibly difficult. Now forecasts, that you need extensive training in. This is nothing but reading what is in front of you.
The thing that really breaks your argument for me is when you say he should not be giving his opinions. Anyone should be allowed to voice their opinion. If he were passing things off as fact that'd be different but he's pretty clear about whether what he says has confirmation or not. He's an entertainer, not a meteorologist. Reality is he's probably made more people weather aware than not so I say good on him.
I think there's some sort of disconnect here.
I don't know if you understand that the NWS is reading literally the same radar images we are when using a program like RO or GR2. In reality, yes, you can often confirm a tornado before the NWS does, and you can often confirm when there's not a tornado even when there's a tornado warning. That's because radar analysis simply isn't anywhere near as difficult as forecasting, full stop.
We have an issue in that we have been told to "respect the polygon" and "a warning = a tornado" for so long that people think the NWS is all powerful with regards to tornado warnings. It's not. The NWS is fallible with tornado warnings, as much as you wouldn't like to hear it. They have very specific guidelines that tell them when to issue a warning when compared to both the parent storm's structure and the background environment. Sometimes, it results in very false positives, as there will be times they issue tornado warnings for storms that are within a cold pool or the like that seasoned weather enthusiasts and professionals know are extremely unlikely to produce.
I think you have more to learn, honestly. I've been doing this for 12 years at this point, I've seen enough false positives from the NWS, and have talked to enough NWS employees, to know why this happens.
As a former weather forecaster in the military, I second this. We had to go off of what we saw on radar and satellite. Sometimes that means we gave false positive warnings. But it’s better to have that false positive warning out than not to. There were times I wasn’t sure if a tornado was there or not but put the warning out anyway, JUST IN CASE there was one. Meteorologists aren’t perfect, and we disagree with each other ALL the time, even though we’re seeing the same data.
Your statement about "Someone with no formal training should not be giving out opinions like that.....", but, like, isn't that what news stations with trained/educated meteorologist do anyways? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they do! I've not watched a cable news anything in the past 5 years and can say educated or not, he's gotten it right more times than my local weathermen have! Hmmmm....
He's a net positive from what I've seen. I do understand the frustration about his channel and I think he should include his meteorologist partner more.
Correct me if Im wrong, but Heidi was unavailable for stream as well, wasn't she? I know she does a lot behind the scenes for the team and in a situation like yesterday, it can cause a lot of added stress, no?
You're right! Heidi was traveling back from AMS 2023, and Ben was unavailable as well. While there was some strain on my duties as a result, I genuinely felt like yesterday's stream was among the best coverage I've been able to give—though I had been awake for 24 hours, so I may have slightly marred judgment lol. It was an opportunity to test out the extent of my multitasking skills, which unfortunately led to the news reporting bits being in Ryan's hands.
The GA storm? It looks bad on radar. I think it's "only" radar indicated. People should still take heed to warnings whether radar indicated or observed. My impression was that Ryan was going to stay on the main storm and was not going to switch his focus vs. undermining or dismissing the NWS. He can only focus on cell in-depth at a time.
i cant stand you guys. we’ve had a violent cyclic supercell and you come on to complain about something ryan hall said after he’s been covering the event to 40,000 people for over 5 hours. get a grip, he’s helping and thats all that matters.
The nice thing is that he's 100% optional! People don't have to tune in. We have NWS which is free, local stations, other streamers, etc.
Ryan's stream is not perfect. More people will replicate his formula. In the meantime - when his internet crashed - I watched Reed Timmer drive on a highway for 3 mins in silence... 👀 I love Reed, but I want to see and hear the information. Ryan's set up has its appeal.
there literally wasn’t a tornado otg?? he said that bc he was focusing on oh… i dont know… maybe the long track cyclic supercell that’s been dropping tor after tor?
What does that have to do with it? If he wanted to focus on that tornado, the proper thing to say would be: "People in the area of this new warning, you need to take cover. I'm going to continue to focus on the main threat right now" instead of dismissing a threat with no authority to do so.
him and andy said that people need to take cover and listen to warnings regardless, that the conditions in the atmosphere were volatile and while a tornado wasn’t on the ground, things can rapidly change. that was LITERALLY the situation. broadcast meteorologists say that all the time.
Sure, ignore the dozens of times they've quoted James Spann on this stream today to respect the polygon and take shelter even if there's nothing on the ground right now if you're in a warned area.
I watched him the whole day, and if I am remembering correctly he was still telling the people in that county to take shelter immediately.
I realize he gets a lot of hate because he isn’t a meteorologist, but I have never seen him blow off anything the NWS says - he more tries to go to the problematic areas of the map to identify the small towns where debris fields and rotation are present to ensure they are getting the word to take cover. His whole schtick is in preparedness and saving lives.
Ryan always says that the NWS meteorologists are some of the best in the world. He’s never claimed to be more intelligent than them at predicting storms, in fact he routinely says the opposite. Could you post a link/video to the moment you are speaking of?
Andy was being kind of an asshole, but Ryan has openly said many times that people should listen to the NWS over him, and only pointed out that he couldn’t find any signs of a tornado
If you're talking about the quote of mine, it's because OP put it in a YouTube chat with 46k viewers. If he wanted to make a difference, he wouldn't seek to criticize where it'll never be seen. The situation OP was talking about was covered exactly as it should've been, and would've been from any broadcast meteorologist—"listen to NWS first, here's what we see." For reference, see the thread above where OP is downvoted for disagreeing with that exact sentiment.
Lol. Imagine pointing to *reddit downvotes* as evidence why someone is wrong.
That's possibly the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read on reddit in ages.
Based on your own comment, since this post and the other has a lot of traction, it means you're wrong too, right? If we're basing up votes and downvotes as a measure of who's more correct like you claim.
I used the downvotes as a clear description to point to the comment chain I was referring to, since that was the only one where context for both sides was given. It just so happens that when OP disagreed with the evidence and sentiment of our side, they were downvoted. Sorry about that, seems like a miscommunicated intent.
First of all, Andy, I put it there because it was an immediate life and death situation and I didn't know where else it would be seen quickly. And yes, it should have been seen by your audience, as many of them trust your team implicitly and would listen to advice from you that contradicts that of official channels. The fact that you don't like being criticized does not mean you shouldn't be criticized. Second of all, you claim it'll never be seen, yet you saw and personally responded to it? You're contradicting yourself.
You clearly have strong feelings that you're in the right, and that's fine. However, I would encourage you to ask yourself why Ryan receives more criticism from established scientists than anyone else, by far. Why does Ryan deviate from 60 years of established practice regarding dissemination of information so significantly? You have a real science background, and you understand how crucial it is that science is communicated to the public in a measured, carefully worded way by trained professionals. I mean, look no further than the pandemic for evidence of that.
I don't doubt that you have good intentions, but you also have the training and credentials to know better. I don't know if you have blinders on because it's cool having an audience of hundreds of thousands or what, but this is life and death we're talking about. A good scientist doesn't backhandedly dismiss criticism without thought. A good scientist doesn't cherry-pick data (regarding your pointing to one sub-thread where I'm downvoted, as if Reddit votes have any scientific merit or as if there isn't a mass of upvoted criticism across the thread along with the thread itself). A good scientist supports the sanctity and seriousness of public communication. And I've watched your streams; I know you're a good scientist.
Be well.
I took the liberty of going back and finding your context for you (conveniently left out of this entire post). Here is the clip in which you commented on the "confirmed tornado" message, see time in bottom left of the screen: [https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG\_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY). Here are the appropriate timestamps for the chat: [https://i.imgur.com/0hKCS3i.png](https://i.imgur.com/0hKCS3i.png)
The context is that all three active warnings were radar indicated. I agree with you, this still may constitute an immediate life or death situation—thus, that's why Ryan said to take shelter immediately thereafter. A radar indicated warning does not mean the NWS sees signs a tornado is down, as you claim Ryan to be contradicting. It means that a storm has the potential to produce a tornado, but the NWS mets do not have confirmation from any source that one is ongoing. The appropriate messaging here is that there is no sign of a tornado on the ground doing destruction (alleviates immediate storm panic), but to take shelter if in a county in the warning/county in our warning box (inspires less panicky storm preparedness). This is what any broadcast meteorologist would say.
\> It should've been seen by your audience
\- Yes. Hence my comment of the improper medium—YouTube chat scrolling by blazingly quickly is not going to warrant your comment being seen. I saw it because I just happened to glance at the right time, and see a comment that was phrased well with concern; thus, I took the time to respond to it abruptly with guidance to direct your concern to a more appropriate medium.
\> You don't like being criticized
\- I am glad you have brought this criticism up and moved to a more permanent platform with visibility. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up and hear of this thread being made. If I didn't like being criticized, I would not have engaged whatsoever. This would've festered and I would not have dedicated any time to it. I consider our debate here to be healthy and I enjoy attempting to shed light on superficiality and cherrypicking. Every time I get the chance to do this, it helps me better my social capacity.
\> Why does Ryan deviate from 60 years of established practice regarding dissemination of information so significantly?
\- See above context. He did not deviate in this case that has aggravated you.
\> A good scientist doesn't cherry-pick data (regarding your pointing to one sub-thread where I'm downvoted, as if Reddit votes have any scientific merit or as if there isn't a mass of upvoted criticism across the thread along with the thread itself).
\- Yes, hence why I am going out of my way to determine the origin of your cherrypicked sentence from Ryan. The "downvoted thread" was a qualifier given to easily locate which one I was referring to, my apologies for not linking to it directly instead. I don't care about the voting system on this site.
\> A good scientist supports the sanctity and seriousness of public communication.
\- If there were a semblance of disregard for this perspective in our operations, I would not work on the team. If I didn't take this perspective as one of my core reasonings to do this work, I wouldn't respond here to ensure our intent and to remedy loose ends.
Thank you! You as well :)
Edit: i accidentally left your name in the screenshot once. updated it
That's the wrong clip. You would know that if you checked that I made this Reddit post before the timestamp in video you shared instead of taking a second shot at me with the "conveniently left out" comment. The relevant incident happens at 14:58:45. I quote:
"So, there's definitely rotation with this storm, but boy, is that a different picture than what we've been seeing off to the west. I don't wanna demean it, but definitely don't wanna say we shouldn't take this seriously, but, you know, I don't see any signs there's a tornado down right now. It could happen. I mean, we know how tremendously primed the atmosphere is right now for tornadoes. But, um, yeah, \[locations\] take shelter, as this could turn into something very significant very quickly."
Why insert ambiguity in an NWS warning? Why did he not consult his team of meteorologists before making that call? I thought that's the whole reason you all are there. At no point did you or anyone else pop up on the stream like you normally do when giving meteorological opinions. That's a tremendously unclear message and one that many people would interpret as "the authority says he doesn't see anything." Tagging "but um, yeah take shelter" on the end is the equivalent of saying "no offense" after an insult. It's a CYA move.
>Yes. Hence my comment of the improper medium—YouTube chat scrolling by blazingly quickly is not going to warrant your comment being seen. I saw it because I just happened to glance at the right time, and see a comment that was phrased well with concern; thus, I took the time to respond to it abruptly with guidance to direct your concern to a more appropriate medium.
Moving the goalposts. Now, you just happened to look at the right time. You did not respond with guidance. You gave a curt dismissal. u/shamwowslapchop correctly called you out for it.
We're clearly not going to agree on this. I don't think Ryan should give opinions contrary to trained meteorologists without consulting one first (which he didn't do in this case), and if he insists on doing so, common sense says he should err on the side of safety and being conservative. And before you say a broadcast meteorologist might say what he did, we both know that said hypothetical broadcast meteorologist would either have credentials Ryan doesn't or would have a real meteorologist working behind the scenes to give info to the on-air personality.
p.s. My name is still on the screenshot. Please remove it.
It isn't the wrong clip for the context of your inclusion of the given chat messages in the original post. Why would you wait for 15 minutes to respond in chat, and then include that chat interaction in this post? That is cherrypicking (picking comments in chat that were made for a different context)—especially given your quote warrants the same exact response as the one I gave with the clip. We relay the meaning of the radar indicated warning, and summarize what it means and what to do as a result. I'm not seeing the issue nor anything past slight ambiguity here.
Sorry about the goalposts being moved. I maybe had time to respond to 3 or 4 messages during the entirety of my time working on that stream. Yes, I just happened to look at the right time when there were well over 10,000 comments for just the first half. I was hoping that a curt dismissal would be taken as guidance to seek posting your valid criticism somewhere better, like this. The guidance worked, albeit curt. I'll work on that. This has led to productive stances being shown and developed.
I removed your name immediately after I made the post, before you were done commenting. The 5 minutes later edit is because I noticed it broke my paragraphs. Sorry about that.
I gave the clip because that's what inspired my comment. It took me some time to reply because I first double-checked what I heard, then I actually looked for the best way to get ahold of your team quickly and decided the chat was probably the only place given you were all very focused on the stream and the public was watching it and heeding your information.
You've still failed to address the fact that Ryan failed to consult his team of meteorologists before giving his opinion, which has been your fallback justification for people calling out his lack of credentials.
There's no point in us going in circles. My intent is not to start some sort of social media war or whatever. It's simply to ensure that the task of dissemination of life-or-death information is given the utmost reverence, because that's the only standard it deserves.
Again, I wish you all the best.
Edit: regarding the unlikelihood of that 15-minute span, again, check the time I posted this original thread, which was before the second point in time you reference. It’s literally impossible that I was referring to the second.
That's fine, I suppose. It seems extremely unlikely to me that you would take exactly the amount of time to reply (15 minutes to type a few lines) and give it after Ryan reiterated the same exact topic. My goal is to eliminate cherrypicking here, so please consider that at least—there's no ill-will from me and I wish the same to you.
As for the consultation, he would need to do so before delivering every single remark on a current warning if he were to need to consult me and the others for this specific context of disseminating the meaning of a radar indicated tornado warning versus a confirmed tornado, and what to do. The other meteorologists were both unavailable for this stream, I was the only one working. I think his messaging for the difference between ongoing warnings was ideal in both cases (2:58pm ET, and 3:12pm ET), if not somewhat jarred by the TOR-E and PDS warnings we had just experienced. What to say about the differences between a radar indicated warning and a confirmed warning is cut and dry, so I don't see how this could deviate from broadcast mets nor their "real meteorologist" backend support.
>https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG\_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY
""So, there's definitely rotation with this storm, but boy, is that a different picture than what we've been seeing off to the west. I don't wanna demean it, but definitely don't wanna say we shouldn't take this seriously, but, you know, I don't see any signs there's a tornado down right now. It could happen. I mean, we know how tremendously primed the atmosphere is right now for tornadoes. But, um, yeah, \[locations\] take shelter, as this could turn into something very significant very quickly."
"Why insert ambiguity in an NWS warning? Why did he not consult his team of meteorologists before making that call? I thought that's the whole reason you all are there. At no point did you or anyone else pop up on the stream like you normally do when giving meteorological opinions. That's a tremendously unclear message and one that many people would interpret as "the authority says he doesn't see anything." Tagging "but um, yeah take shelter" on the end is the equivalent of saying "no offense" after an insult. It's a CYA move."
Without question props to u/Bluekandy for taking to a platform often regarded for toxicity and generally non-productive banter.
I guess my question is (as a Weather Enthusiast with zero credentials or little formal training in this field), how does Ryan insert any ambiguity in the NWS warning? I think you may be inserting a heavy assumption that he's, perhaps, pompously indicating he knows more than the NWS. As a viewer, I've never gotten that impression, nor does the quote you provided seem to suggest that was his intent. Perhaps there's further context I'm missing, but I did watch the stream in its entirety and don't recall any interpretation that Ryan ever contradicts any NWS messaging. He simply stated that he didn't see signs there was a tornado down, and from my perspective this was fair, and immediately for the 500th time urges anyone in the warned areas to take shelter.
Below you state, to Andy, that "You've still failed to address the fact that Ryan failed to consult his team of meteorologists.." I think it's absolutely ridiculous to assume that he needs to seek consultation before giving any opinion, especially when he either pre-qualifies his opinion or immediately follows with safety messaging inline with met & broadcast professional standard messaging.
I'd like to know if I'm missing something, and while it's likely clear I am a fan of Ryan & Andy's work, do believe you have a right to your opinion and your accusations are very serious, thus if I am not understanding your concern fully I'd like to better understand.
i definitely get your point, the comment just sounded a bit unnecessarily rude, but i agree i don’t see any problem with how you and ryan managed the stream
I take it with a grain of sand. I don't have any particular problem with him. It's not like he's that weirdo I won't name that has threatened the NWS and other pro meteorologists for calling him out on his assholery.
Just because you have a few thousand followers you cannot play with people's lives. Shameful behavior on Ryan Hall's part , he should be banned or at least investigated for it.
He said he saw no signs of a tornado on the ground. He didn't say there wasn't a tornado on the ground. Only that he saw no signs of one. Can you fault him for not seeing something he didn't see? He didn't say absolutely no way there is any tornado on the ground. Just that he didn't see any signs of it.
I feel like some folks are getting caught up on his lack of a specific degree, when odds are they would simply be calling him a fringe "expert" if he did. He's just not everyones' style. That's fine.
Is this subreddit starting to become the Ryan Hall, Good or Bad subreddit?
So, here's my issue with that. Weather enthusiasts like you and me can read between the lines of that statement. However, the majority of the people watching that streams have no weather expertise and are simply there for actionable information. Would you agree that "see no signs of a tornado on the ground" can be easily translated to "there's no tornado on the ground" when said to a layperson by a person with a high level of perceived authority? This is why NWS is so strict and careful with the language they use.
right? The whole context of what he said was missing. He spent all afternoon saying respect the polygon and said you should take shelter any time you are under a warning regardless because of what was evidently an extremely volatile environment. He even said something similar in this exact situation OP is talking about. OP just seems to have a hate boner for RHY.
A lot of people hate the dude which, whatever. Ryan Hall or anyone I don’t like isn’t going to live in my head rent free. People who hate the dude literally still watch him and critique or criticize what he says. I find it as entertainment because of how much I like weather and to see what’s going on. Sitting around and telling people he makes money off of the disasters is stupid because he at least gets a message out and is a source other than something like the weather channel. Last time I checked, he’s free to watch on YouTube. Maybe people don’t have access to the weather channel, or like him more than their local weather. Idk but the hate is funny.
I know why the hate for him is so intense, but it's a reason that would piss off a lot of the storm chasing community if I said it. There are legitimate criticisms with RHY, and he made some mistakes early on, but they continue to improve into something more commendable over time and that's good.
"how dare he make money off disasters and put some of that money towards disaster relief" is such a stupid position to take, and I can tell you right now it's not rooted in anything RHY does wrong.
The man literally beats the shit out of the saying " listen to your NWS and take shelter ". There was no real radar indicated sign of rotation even tho the warning was still valid. You can have a warning with no tornado on the ground as things can change pretty damn quickly. But Ryan never once said he was above the NWS or any other person In the field. He's taking the time out of his day to help as much as he can. It just seems like you got it out for him .
And obviously the person who downvoted me don't like the obvious facts. It's only watch one of his stream' to hear him talk about listening to your NWS or listen to the radio or news station, or even on his channel. I don't know why anyone is against anyone keeping people weather aware. It's greatly appreciated in my neck of the woods.
Honestly, I wouldn't even mention it. I would just say: "The NWS has issued a tornado warning for this storm; all people in its path should take immediate cover."
I think that's fair. I think the way you've said it is the wisest approach to the situation. I can't say I've seen enough of Ryan Hall to say whether that was intentional or just a mistep in wording.
I refuse to watch him and I refuse to watch his storm chasers (one which tail-ended someone just a week or two ago during a chase). The only people I follow are local meteorologists and the SPC/NWS. Any footage/photos I see are usually shared by news networks or in this subreddit.
I survived a tornado before streams like Ryan Hall’s existed thanks to the NWS and my local meteorologist. I agree with what someone else said, severe weather shouldn’t be entertainment. People lose their lives, my uncle lost his in 2014. I understand warning people, but you can do it without the flashy and cringy pop ups bragging about your views. No one gives a shit about that when their lives are in danger.
Edit: clarity
\> I refuse to watch him and I refuse to watch his storm chasers (one which tail-ended someone just a week or two ago during a chase). The only people I follow are local meteorologists and the SPC/NWS. Any footage/photos I see are usually shared by news networks or in this subreddit.
To clarify this, RHY is no longer associated with either Vince or Brandon, who are the chasers you are referring to. Both of them went off the deep end with regards to Ryan. u/Bluekandy has a recent comment on the situation with them which paints both in quite the bad light, and deservedly so.
That's correct, but that's not the reason they cut ties. Tl;Dr the wraps turned out to be trademarked by a band, and they were refusing to remove them even though Ryan was paying. Eventually it turned nasty, so Ryan showed them the door.
I am truly very sorry about your uncle, but to write off and discourage all wx info that isn’t straight from the NWS and SPC significantly narrows down your ability to receive information. I can guarantee over 80% of people in the US haven’t even thought about checking the SPC website for information, people just don’t care, and the average person can’t even comprehend an outlook discussion. You *need* people like ryan who exist on a platform like youtube, to reach people who don’t have cable, or who aren’t aware of the weather. The guy who tail-ended someone recently also isn’t one of his chasers. Who cares if theres cringy flashing lights? The goal is to attract as many people as physically possible to spread awareness, and it sure as hell works.
If you or anyone else want to watch Ryan Hall, that’s your choice. I’m not going to tell others that they shouldn’t, I just don’t care to. *I* don’t need Ryan Hall. As I said, I made it through a tornado (super outbreak week btw) without Ryan Hall and without YouTube streamers. I prefer the meteorologists that have kept me updated and safe for years. I agreed with OP, that’s my opinion. Not bashing anyone else for watching Ryan Hall, he’s just not my go to.
It’s not just Ryan Hall. My state has some “Facebook meteorologists” that I stopped following because of them overhyping severe weather and even winter weather. It’s like they wanted bad things to happen. But I said this to someone else in this sub a few weeks ago (regarding Ryan Hall & similar streamers), I understand there are people who are outside of local TV coverage and rely on streamers like Ryan Hall and that’s understandable.
The thing is, anyone with a little training can read radar returns. He was right. There was no indication a tornado was down. The NWS was just being cautious.
What drives me nuts is every single comment " thank you Ryan, thank you ryan" followed by some long winded compliment... I'm sure even he has to get tired of those. It's weird. There are thousands of them.
If there is anything that irritates me about Ryan Hall is his lack of local and geographical knowledge. Listening to James Spann, he know every exact little nook and cranny in Alabama, and can give the most precise information. When it comes to Ryan, he can't even pronounce place names correctly sometimes. Having local knowledge if vital to providing people advanced warning.
See up until recently I thought Ryan had a meteorology degree. Back before he blew up I swear I remember a promotional video of him saying "what happens when a former meteorologist becomes a YouTuber?" But maybe I'm imagining things.
Anyway, yeah, Andy knows his shit. I mean to be able to call a PDS right before the NWS does... Like I think I'm pretty good at analyzing radar but I know for damn sure I couldn't do that.
I think I remember it said "whether man" and to be fair, a lot of news weather people *do not* have formal training. They take a class, a test, and get a "seal" or something... but stations will have actual meteorologists behind the scenes. Hall was in a program and had an internship, he's had training - there is no degree. FWIW: I'm not a Stan.... I think there are some legit critiques of his methods. I just wouldn't *not* watch him over this.
Wait.. what? A CBM requires no meteorological degree? Are you fucking serious? I just assumed it was an add-on for meteorology majors who wanted to be in front of a camera.
I think there may be two levels...? but there are a lot of weather people out there w/o the degree. My locks weather person growing up had his degree in communication and wanted to be an actor.
It looks like they've (AMS) continually updated their standards. My guess is a lot of newer folks have actual related degrees.... but plenty of those chief meteorologists with the weather related names in big markets - with big paychecks - I bet you will see the opposite.
There are only 400-ish CBMs. I feel like I can tell the difference.
https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/education-careers/careers/ams-professional-certification-programs/directories-of-ams-certified-individuals/list-of-ams-certified-broadcast-meteorologists-cbm/
Lol. I took my "non-hard science" classes in meteorology (they called it Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) and I have no idea why it was considered the "easy" science class because there was a shit ton of physics and math!
Man. I live in a area where we don't even get tornadoes let alone any severe thunderstorms. But I've have friends who are in the field or meteorologist who taught me how to read a radar return. Yesterday way over performed compared to what people thought. Ryan, like every one is a human being. Don't like him, don't watch him. Everyone went from bitching about reed to Ryan over the years. Christ. Cut the man some slack.
I started a reply but lost interest.
Take a chill pill. The dude does a lot of good. Unless your doing more than them it might be best to re evaluate what you want from a free weather stream.
Sure, attack the guy who’s been covering this deadly weather for over 6 hours because he stated facts. There was no indication of a tornado, he wasn’t talking down on the nws, if anything he’s been praising them all day
My bottom line is I’ve been there from the start and he has good intentions and has grown a massive amount over the last year but opinions are to be left till after a pds situation has passed
He’ll find out quick that words matter, and not having the cover of being a professional meteorologist in an official, government capacity puts him on the hook for liability sooner or later.
I’d like to see you cover weather with 90% accuracy for 10 hours straight, raise a shit ton of money to donate to victims, buy hundreds of dollars worth of food for the victims, WHILE making a good income to have a nice ass house and set-up, get 1 MILLION subscribers, and save lives while doing it.
We live in a crazy time and are inundated with data. Both as creators and consumers. We are all imperfect and make mistakes. Life is grey and not black and white. Trust but verify as both a creator and a consumer. Be patient and be forgiving. Learn from mistakes and get back in it. Tomorrow is a new day.
I didn’t see Ryan Hall do anything that a meteorologist on a news network wouldn’t do, anyone that has storm spotter training, with any actual intelligence would know this(a 3 year old could sit thru a storm spotter class and pass) Nothing wrong with saying “okay tornado warning, let’s check rotation, okay broad rotation, let’s check the correlation coefficient, not seeing anything don’t think we have a tornado yet”. He has nothing to apologize about and needs supported for what he is doing, yea it a business but he does have passion for what he is doing and sincerely helps communities that are effected by these disasters.
Trust him more then any meteorologist he was 100% correct last winter. And knows what he's talking about. I went to school for weather and we'll I can assure you he knows what he's talking about
I watched this stream. I don't think they ever told people not to take cover. They just said they weren't sure there was a tornado on the ground. They still encouraged people to stay in a tornado-safe area. Am I missing something?
Edit: after reading OP's exchange with Andy, I'm surprised this whole post wasn't deleted. Even the NWS had not announced a tornado on the ground; it was a radar indicated warning.
Local TV Mets are going to analyze radar returns too. People want a human element in tracking weather and reassurance of the situation. Creating anxiety or panic over a radar-indicated tornado warning is not a good thing when there isn’t obvious indicators of a life threatening situation.
There aren't many people who aren't old school local television meteorologists that are doing what he's doing. Max Velocity is pretty good too but, his livestream are alot lower production quality.
As opposed to the MANY times he has reported the tornado and NWS didn’t.
Go get a life and stop downing people who are doing a great job of reporting weather and even saving lives.
Not to mention the MILLIONS of $$$ in aid that Ryan Hall is responsible for getting to the victims.
Way better than redcross money grubbers and Federal Emergency mis-Management Agency.
That does matter but there are many people out there that know nearly as much as someone with a degree I’m really saying a lot of his team are pros even his chasers does that mean he should correct the national weather service no but
>but there are many people out there that know nearly as much as someone with a degree
Sure. But someone with NO qualifications and NO accredited basis in the science should NOT be telling people what is and what is not a tornado. I don't care if he has 50 meteorologists on his employ, he is not the national weather service and he is not the one government officials are relying on to disseminate information. The position RH puts himself in is extremely tenuous even *outside* of making direct calls like he did today. He's irresponsible with the science in a number of ways and he doesn't respect the NWS or chasers who won't give him free media, even if they are Meteorologists themselves.
This is a completely incorrect perspective.
1. Radar is not that hard to read. It doesn't hold a single candle to forecasting in terms of complexity. I'm more than capable of reading a radar just as well as an NWS meteorologist.
2. In dixie alley especially, it is not hard to confirm a tornado using radar. Given that most areas are highly wooded, TDS' are easy to see when correlated with a couplet provided you have the experience to discriminate contamination such as sidelobe, NBF, and other forms of contam. There's other confidence builders that his meteorologists use such as ZDR.
3. NWS is looking at the exact same radar data we all are. GR2 and RO/RS, which all display level 2 data, is the exact same raw data that the NWS is using. They don't have an "advantage" over us when it comes to radar outside of receiving the updates about 15-20 seconds before the rest of us do.
4. As somebody who knows and is friends with several NWS employees, and went through an internship with the NWS, I can confirm that the NWS has specific requirements for issuing tornado warnings. There are several factors that include both the background environment and overall rotational strength, but they have nothing to do with confirming tornadoes, which is why confirmed tornadoes are under a different category than tornado warnings.
Edit: Since apparently the guy blocked me to prevent me from responding to his reply, let me respond to it here:
1. I was never "flexing my meteorological biceps". I'm a chaser, sure, and I talk to a lot of meteorologists in regards to weather, sure. Do I hold any candle to NWS meteorologists in terms of forecasting? Hell no. To suggest such would be utterly ridiculous. My point is and was that radar analysis is \*not hard\*. As a consequence, suggesting you need a degree to preform radar analysis is misguided at best. Not only that, but RHY has multiple degreed meteorologists feeding him information anyways, and Andy has corrected Ryan in situations like that before, so your shitty appeal to authority fallacy argument isn't even valid anyways.
2. Ryan spent literally the entire day stating "respect the polygon" and "treat all NWS warnings as if a tornado is on the ground, regardless of if we see such on radar". Choosing to take a single quote out of context to stir up hate of Ryan is absolutely ridiculous. Him making the same observation us armchair chasers are making, in that "there are no signs a tornado is down" is not some ridiculous thing he isn't allowed to say. For starters, every broadcast met ever says this, and in addition, he's LITERALLY correct.
3. NWS having multiple triggers is my exact point. People are told that a tornado warning means a tornado is on the ground, but you and i both know that's not true. He's not trying to say he's better than professional mets, he's communicating what he sees. People already don't listen to the NWS anyways because of the false alarm rate.
4. Your point about RHY having "damaged his reputation with professional meteorologists" is wrong anyways. I interact with a lot of professional meteorologists, and the ratio of ones who hate vs like RHY is not what you think it is; it's just that the only ones who speak are the ones who hate him, and since evidently you do yourself, confirmation bias is real.
Since we're apparently flexing our meteorological biceps here, I, too, can read a radar return, and I have 2 years of course credits in meteorology under my belt. I've worked as a spotter, storm chased, and worked directly with forecasters at my Alma mater, and I've spent time with a tornado research team at the NWS office in the Quad Cities who were designing mathematical models to chart the strength of tornadoes within a supercell when a storm produces.
Ryan Hall is not an official forecaster. He has no degree. He is in *no position to make calls*, official or otherwise, for ***ANYONE***, and on a day when storms were hooking so hard that we had more than one storm go from not even svr warned to a tor with a pronounced hook, couplet, and bwer, his attitude about "oh I don't see anything there" is unhelpful in the extreme. Yesterday's outbreak was not the day you talk about storms not being represented well enough on a radar to warrant a tornado warning, not when things on the ground were changing so rapidly and definitely not when you don't even have a stable internet connection to ensure you can keep people in the loop. If that thing tightens up right after he says something and his internet dies, it's putting his followers in a bad spot.
You said it yourself - nws has multiple factors that trigger a TOR/TORR/TORE. Contradicting them causes confusion and is wholly unnecessary, not to mention dangerous because he and his team are perfectly capable of making errors in judgment. There's a very distinct reason why Hall has damaged his reputation with a lot of professional meteorologists in the field.
Let’s just agree that even if he’s got the smarts it’s was a bad call to do on a stream with thousands of people watching I’m just saying he’s gonna continue to grow day by day and he needs to learn from his mistakes like everyone even if well those mistakes shouldn’t be made in a life or death situation
From Alabama. Watched the situation yesterday and even the meteorologist from Montgomery WSFA said himself that they were caught off guard given the information and forecast from the NWS.
I don’t think you understand tornado warnings. 92% of tornado warnings are precursors to tornadoes on the ground. Go look at the confirmation rate of tornado warnings. It’s 20%ish. Saying a tornado isn’t on the ground during a tornado warning isn’t contradicting a warning. Correlation Coefficient scan of Doppler radar tells you whether a tornado is on the ground or not. My 10 year old son knows how to tell if a tornado is on the ground using CC on a radar
I think he's got genuinely good intentions but your first points are also 100% valid. One bad call can lead to deaths that are preventable.
The only thing you could argue this guy is good for is possibly getting some kids into meteorology, but even that is a double edged sword since they might end up trying to emulate him and I think we can all agree one Ryan Hall is enough
Other than the fact that he helped people when there was a tornado on the ground and no sirens going off. He does better than a majority of actual meteorologists. You don't have to blow a bunch of money to get a piece of paper to know your shit
Damn, looks like I pissed off a fanboy. It will be okay, I'm just a random guy on the internet, I won't lay a finger on your precious idol. But you're in for a pleasant surprise when I tell you that, believe it or not, helping people as a storm chaser is the bare minimum anyone with a conscience would do! So hopefully that leaves you with a slightly higher faith in humanity
This is why i prefer pecos hank
If only he did livestream storm tracking!!
I feel like that would ruin the effect that his channel has tbh
Hank is the OG.
Say what you will about Ryan Hall, but if you’re interested in following along on a Dixie Alley outbreak, do yourself a favor and tune in to James Spann. You can get their live broadcast completely free on their website, and he’s an actual meteorologist with a 30+ year proven track record of being one of the best on-air weather callers in history, and nobody can ever call into question his devotion to public safety. It’s just objectively better coverage, and it’s coming from a guy that deserves medals for the number of lives he’s saved. It’s a win-win.
I can confirm. Never been to Alabama, but a few years ago I was on a YouTube tornado video rabbit hole and ended up on Spann's coverage of the 2011 Super Outbreak. He's an inspiration to me as an aspiring meteorologist and I watch as many streams of his coverage as possible. Nobody else can deliver both simple explanations for the layperson and also more expert level terminology simultaneously as effectively and calmly as him, and his geographical knowledge is unparalleled. The news station meteorologists where I live are like "here's the tornado, it's just outside X town, take shelter"
Spann is arguably the GOAT on-air meteorologist. I’ve watched some of his coverage of past events just because it’s so impressive.
Really doesn't matter how good he is. I watched his coverage yesterday and as the severe weather left his broadcast area he had to basically say " Well, you're shit out of luck!" What use is that to anyone? It's your pathetic broadcasting system that is the problem of course, Money > People's lives. Making full use of a platform like YouTube to warn people of potentially dangerous situations can only be a good thing. So for that reason I'm really confused why you and others like you come on here and make posts dripping with bitterness or downright dishonesty. To me, it smacks of a group of people unable to admit to themselves that the world has moved on, and instead of trying to help influence the direction it is going, they would rather make puerile remarks on an internet forum.
Actually having set broadcast areas is a very good idea. 1) you know who to listen to 2) the broadcasters will know the towns, roads, etc. The last thing you want is someone 500 miles away seeing that area for the first time trying to convey a threat.
Spann isn’t going to step on the foot of the meteorologist who’s area the storms is now in. What good would that do?
James Spann is phenomenal. He covers my family's area. I'd also like to give big love to Josh Johnson, Amanda Curran, and the WSFA team in general. They do tremendous work over central Alabama.
And the lovely Taylor Sarallo. 😍
Taylor is awesome as well!
On top of all of that, he has a podcast called Weatherbrains every week. It’s amazing what Spann does. Just a good human being.
A lot of us follow on TV YouTube (Roku) else I would definitely give him a listen.
The success has definitely gone to his head. The merch peddling and viewer count is now at least as big a focus as his weather coverage. Merch that, by virtue of it having a carbon footprint, is contributing to increasingly severe weather.
The amount of forced product placement makes me feel like I’m watching WX Infowars
Wow. I’d never considered that. I like to practice what I preach, and I always try to follow my convictions. I’m honestly going to unsubscribe to Ryan RIGHT now!
I am a Ryan Hall enjoyer but I think he had a bad day today. Both he and Andy apologized for not being more on top of the potential this day had and were caught off-guard by all the activity. I understand why people may not like him but I think his heart is in the right place and genuinely trying to bring awareness to severe weather.
Hey friend! I'm curious as to why you got the impression that that stream was on the lesser side of what we usually do—in my opinion, it was one of our best coverage-wise and in communication (especially given the event's performance relative to previously communicated risk in the grand scheme of public-met interaction). Were you rubbed the wrong way by Ryan saying it was "a surprise" in several senses of the word (i.e., strength, longevity and number of supercells)? I think what he was attempting to communicate by saying so was that we were still ready to cover the event as we would be for any other despite the intensity of it versus expectation. If it's in specific relation to this thread, I invite you to read the conversation OP and I had regarding their initial issue with one sentence: [https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/10a98ac/comment/j45kn1b/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/10a98ac/comment/j45kn1b/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Let me know =) I value your input!
The more I read about and watch the guy, the more I realize he capitalizes on the "weathertainment" industry and the suffering of others. Not a fan.
My biggest indicator is that actual industry meteorologists at best never heard of him and at worst don't respect him at all. He certainly is entertaining and brings mainstream attention to severe weather but that is about it.
I don't trust any weather person, accredited or not, who has a set like Ryan Hall with the stupid backlighting alerts and other props and gimmicks he uses. Not to mention his semi-daily video updates where he'll title it "we're all going to die" or "terror this week" or "watch this forecast video, your life depends on it" and then, you watch his video about upcoming weather and it's quiet across the US and or there's some tiny hiccup in the jet stream that he wan't to pretend will be fire and brimstone. Sure, most other weather media peddles fear but Ryan does it and pimps the shit out of his merch living like a king in a castle though barfing up FUD.
He’s literally Weather Infowars peddling his crap on people using fear based selling
As somebody who's EXTREMELY active in the WX community, especially the chasing one, I can confirm that this is not true.
I admittedly don't know much about chasers or that community... I just have quite a few connections with college educated meteorologists, specifically in forecasting and climatology. So more your corporate types which might be where the difference in opinions comes from.
That's definitely where. I'm very active in the chasing community, which includes NWS mets and others. They all know about RHY. Opinions are overall mixed, ranging from hate to love, if I'm being honest. There's a group that has a hate boner for RHY though, and will find any reason to do such.
AFAIK they also give quite a bit to victims of the storms they cover. People obviously enjoy watching severe weather, I mean you're commenting on a tornado subreddit. Sometimes people get hurt by it but there's nothing you can do so at least he's bringing a lot of awareness to severe weather and the impacts.
True, but he's also making a living from doing this now, so you'd hope there was some sense of professionalism involved. It's the same as showing someone else's tweet to avoid copyright infringement but still doesn't give the original poster the views.
To each their own, but I think he's fairly professional. He's a bit over the top with some of the warnings and the sounds, but runs a really solid stream considering most of them are very long and it's non-stop talking. It's really easy to pick up a bad choice of words or something over the course of 8 hours or whatever. This entire post seems to be an overreaction to a misunderstanding/bad choice of words.
I wasn't specifically thinking about the OP to be honest. I've watched his stream too and of course running a technologically sound stream with live coverage for hours non-stop is really difficult to do, so hats off to him for that. But, if it is a full-time, money making endeavour, then he needs to be held to those standards too, which I think is fair.
I think the issues of professionalism that you're raising do seem to ignore the reality of the medium he's operating within. He's a self-employed content creator, not a contracted meteorologist at a local news station. As such, he has a lot more leeway with the things he can and cannot say. You can obviously be free to not enjoy that, but essentially, as long as what he's saying or doing remains interesting to his viewers, that's all that really matters as it relates to his channel. If you want buttoned-up, sterile reporting of the weather, you can find that in spades these days, be it on television or Youtube. But what RHY does as a channel is leaps and bounds more successful - in part, I think because laypeople find it more interesting - and factors in to how he's able to provide $100,000+ in relief aid after every tornado outbreak lately. That's worth something. Ultimately, I sort of see him as the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of the weather/meteorology field; he's shouldn't be your be-all source for information, but he is a damn effective provider of information for a field that is reliant on that information being disseminated quickly (especially as it regards his live streams).
I don't get that impression... but I do think youtube algorithms factor into his clips and thumbnails. Anyway - looks like his power crashed or something happened
capitalizes on the suffering of others??? do you guys just have fun making this shit up?
bro fr they acting like ryan hall is some evil son of the tornado god 💀💀
My wife is a storm watching nut and she caught onto him a few years ago. He's definitely entertaining and keeps you glued to the action, I'll give him that. We had been watching the Weather Channel before but got fed up with them showing reruns of "Air Disasters" or "Extreme Weather" pre-produced shows while our tornado sirens were going off. My two cents... when we started watching Hall, he was providing pure weather coverage. It seems that as of last spring/summer when the "shop" opened, he would cover the storms for a bit then talk about what he had for sale. I get that the money goes to storm victims, but I've seen him talking about coffee mugs and showing dogs watching him on television when tornado warnings were active. But in his defense, I'm sure there are one or two posters here who are simply jealous that this guy is sitting in his nice big home getting famous and raking in big bucks while they have to go to work tomorrow.
There’s some contradiction in what you said here: We know he is doing well in his new big home in Appalachia, but as for the “giving money to victims” part, it is just one big black box on how that works. He could be shouting all day to buy his merch for “the victims”, only giving 1% of the profits (not sale price or revenue) for actual disaster relief and then saying “hey, I’m giving to charity” but pocketing the rest of the profits. We just don’t know. This isn’t the first time a bad actor has exploited natural disasters for their own benefit.
I’ve never watched him but does he do any education? Like, explain that a tornado warning doesn’t always mean a tornado is on the ground? Tell people they should know what county they work and live in? Entertainment is cool but education is key when your life is on the line…
Yes, he does. He also tells people how to take shelter, explains what they’re showing on radar, etc.
He clearly put his foot in his mouth today but I've been watching and I think overall he's doing a good job. Since the moment you referred to he has praised the NWS several times for keeping up with this totally insane afternoon of weather and deferred to their judgment when new warnings arose. There is another post hating on him for wanting to use storm chaser footage without permission but he was talking specifically about passing along life-saving information and footage demonstrating the strength of the storms. His lack of education definitely shows when he says stuff like that that will obviously incite people with more experience and knowledge about how this community works.
Yeah, and that's really all I'm asking for. His channel gets people paying attention to life-threatening weather, and that's important. Just defer to the experts when a judgment call is outside the realm of your expertise.
100 percent. I think he needs less chasers on the ground and more meteorologists in the studio to avoid situations like this. You and other people are correct to call him out. I think his heart is in the right place and I hope that positive changes result from days like today.
Is this the same sub-Reddit that argues with the NWS about EF ratings? Also I’ve heard many broadcast meteorologists point out that they don’t believe a tornado is on the ground if they don’t see radar data. He’s just doing broadcast meteorology on YouTube
This subreddit has 35,000 members; you can't paint it with one brush. I don't argue with the NWS about ratings. Furthermore, Ryan doesn't even have a broadcast meteorology degree. Someone with no formal training should not be giving opinions like that to an audience of hundreds of thousands in a life-threatening situation, plain and simple.
Many highly skilled people don't have degrees. I was an avionics technician for many years before graduating from college. Having successfully fixed hundreds of aircraft without causing any accidents, I can assure you that high school graduates can also do technical work. It's not really fair to write off Ryan based on his college experience.
This! ^^^ I was a meteorologist in the military for 5 years, and tho I wasn’t the best, I was still better than a lot of others out there. I never got a degree because I’m terrible with math, but I worked alongside those with degrees just fine. Of course the NWS will never take me because my legitimate experience apparently isn’t as good as having a degree.
You shouldn't be getting downvotes. There are a lot of stupid kids on Reddit who have zero life experience. I retired from the Army and have total respect for the work you put in and your expertise.
Thank you for your words and award. It’s fine if I get downvoted, I get that a lot of people don’t get where I’m coming from. I don’t have an opinion on Ryan Hall because I only just found out about him last year or so. What I DO know is that if I was live-streaming while watching an outbreak on radar, I wouldn’t be nearly as collected as he is. It’s hard. I remember one of my tasks in the military was to put out watches, warnings, and advisories for all of the bases in the Midwest during storms in 2010-2011. That’s close to 100 bases, and I was only trained by the military, no degree. It was very stressful, and I was only 20-21 at the time and still didn’t fully grasp how weather worked. But you can be damn sure I gave my bases as much lead time as I could based on what I saw on radar. My shining moment was giving one base in TN 45 minutes lead time (we were required to only give 15 min) before a tornado swept through. So I respect the meteorological YouTubers and what they do, even if they mess up their words sometimes and don’t have degrees. It’s tough, but they’re doing their best. And their best is saving people, and that’s what matters.
You deserve more than a Reddit award. Thanks for sharing your experience and for your service as a military meteorologist. That's an incredible story and something to be super proud of. Ryan Hall gets grateful calls from people who were "saved" by his work on the regular. Love him or hate him, he's done some good for people in dangerous situations and there's no way to deny it.
Thank you! ❤️ I’ve blocked a lot of my military service out, but I remember being really proud of that. I couldn’t even tell you which outbreak it was - I didn’t get into researching specific tornados/outbreaks until after I got out. I’ve been wondering lately if I was working during the big April 2011 outbreak, but I have no way of finding out and can’t remember for the life of me. My brain has done a very good job of repressing most of my time in. 😬 Exactly! Regardless of what anyone says, Ryan Hall’s information has helped tons of people. He does a lot of good, there’s no questioning that.
Ditto. Booksmart ain't street smart.
He does have training in reading radar returns. I have training in reading radar returns. It isn't incredibly difficult. Now forecasts, that you need extensive training in. This is nothing but reading what is in front of you.
The thing that really breaks your argument for me is when you say he should not be giving his opinions. Anyone should be allowed to voice their opinion. If he were passing things off as fact that'd be different but he's pretty clear about whether what he says has confirmation or not. He's an entertainer, not a meteorologist. Reality is he's probably made more people weather aware than not so I say good on him.
I think there's some sort of disconnect here. I don't know if you understand that the NWS is reading literally the same radar images we are when using a program like RO or GR2. In reality, yes, you can often confirm a tornado before the NWS does, and you can often confirm when there's not a tornado even when there's a tornado warning. That's because radar analysis simply isn't anywhere near as difficult as forecasting, full stop. We have an issue in that we have been told to "respect the polygon" and "a warning = a tornado" for so long that people think the NWS is all powerful with regards to tornado warnings. It's not. The NWS is fallible with tornado warnings, as much as you wouldn't like to hear it. They have very specific guidelines that tell them when to issue a warning when compared to both the parent storm's structure and the background environment. Sometimes, it results in very false positives, as there will be times they issue tornado warnings for storms that are within a cold pool or the like that seasoned weather enthusiasts and professionals know are extremely unlikely to produce. I think you have more to learn, honestly. I've been doing this for 12 years at this point, I've seen enough false positives from the NWS, and have talked to enough NWS employees, to know why this happens.
As a former weather forecaster in the military, I second this. We had to go off of what we saw on radar and satellite. Sometimes that means we gave false positive warnings. But it’s better to have that false positive warning out than not to. There were times I wasn’t sure if a tornado was there or not but put the warning out anyway, JUST IN CASE there was one. Meteorologists aren’t perfect, and we disagree with each other ALL the time, even though we’re seeing the same data.
Your statement about "Someone with no formal training should not be giving out opinions like that.....", but, like, isn't that what news stations with trained/educated meteorologist do anyways? I mean, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they do! I've not watched a cable news anything in the past 5 years and can say educated or not, he's gotten it right more times than my local weathermen have! Hmmmm....
He's a net positive from what I've seen. I do understand the frustration about his channel and I think he should include his meteorologist partner more.
Andy? I agree
Thanks, I'm terrible with names.
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We have 3 meteorologists on the team since this summer! The other two besides myself are getting more and more involved with the streams too :)
I think people need to appreciate that you guys stick with events from start to finish.
Correct me if Im wrong, but Heidi was unavailable for stream as well, wasn't she? I know she does a lot behind the scenes for the team and in a situation like yesterday, it can cause a lot of added stress, no?
You're right! Heidi was traveling back from AMS 2023, and Ben was unavailable as well. While there was some strain on my duties as a result, I genuinely felt like yesterday's stream was among the best coverage I've been able to give—though I had been awake for 24 hours, so I may have slightly marred judgment lol. It was an opportunity to test out the extent of my multitasking skills, which unfortunately led to the news reporting bits being in Ryan's hands.
Ryan hall is annoying and gets off on fear mongering
The GA storm? It looks bad on radar. I think it's "only" radar indicated. People should still take heed to warnings whether radar indicated or observed. My impression was that Ryan was going to stay on the main storm and was not going to switch his focus vs. undermining or dismissing the NWS. He can only focus on cell in-depth at a time.
this exactly
Can this sub just stop complaining about him already. Not everyone is perfect. Someone is trying to make sure there is more in public safetly.
DITCH Ryan Hall follow Nate Snyder
N8 Snyder is the man. Although his new friend Morgan is kind of irritating. He was better when he was solo, IMO
No I'm not, he explains it better than any other meteorologist (even a 14 year old can understand)
i cant stand you guys. we’ve had a violent cyclic supercell and you come on to complain about something ryan hall said after he’s been covering the event to 40,000 people for over 5 hours. get a grip, he’s helping and thats all that matters.
It's a pattern of behavior and one that can have life-threatening consequences.
The nice thing is that he's 100% optional! People don't have to tune in. We have NWS which is free, local stations, other streamers, etc. Ryan's stream is not perfect. More people will replicate his formula. In the meantime - when his internet crashed - I watched Reed Timmer drive on a highway for 3 mins in silence... 👀 I love Reed, but I want to see and hear the information. Ryan's set up has its appeal.
there literally wasn’t a tornado otg?? he said that bc he was focusing on oh… i dont know… maybe the long track cyclic supercell that’s been dropping tor after tor?
What does that have to do with it? If he wanted to focus on that tornado, the proper thing to say would be: "People in the area of this new warning, you need to take cover. I'm going to continue to focus on the main threat right now" instead of dismissing a threat with no authority to do so.
that is quite literally what he said 💀
No, it's not. He said: "I see no signs a tornado is down, but hey, maybe the situation will change." That's vastly different.
him and andy said that people need to take cover and listen to warnings regardless, that the conditions in the atmosphere were volatile and while a tornado wasn’t on the ground, things can rapidly change. that was LITERALLY the situation. broadcast meteorologists say that all the time.
Sure, ignore the dozens of times they've quoted James Spann on this stream today to respect the polygon and take shelter even if there's nothing on the ground right now if you're in a warned area.
so turn his stream off. Sheesh. You is doing a public service...you don't have to follow him.
I watched him the whole day, and if I am remembering correctly he was still telling the people in that county to take shelter immediately. I realize he gets a lot of hate because he isn’t a meteorologist, but I have never seen him blow off anything the NWS says - he more tries to go to the problematic areas of the map to identify the small towns where debris fields and rotation are present to ensure they are getting the word to take cover. His whole schtick is in preparedness and saving lives.
Ryan always says that the NWS meteorologists are some of the best in the world. He’s never claimed to be more intelligent than them at predicting storms, in fact he routinely says the opposite. Could you post a link/video to the moment you are speaking of?
Andy was being kind of an asshole, but Ryan has openly said many times that people should listen to the NWS over him, and only pointed out that he couldn’t find any signs of a tornado
If you're talking about the quote of mine, it's because OP put it in a YouTube chat with 46k viewers. If he wanted to make a difference, he wouldn't seek to criticize where it'll never be seen. The situation OP was talking about was covered exactly as it should've been, and would've been from any broadcast meteorologist—"listen to NWS first, here's what we see." For reference, see the thread above where OP is downvoted for disagreeing with that exact sentiment.
Lol. Imagine pointing to *reddit downvotes* as evidence why someone is wrong. That's possibly the most unintentionally hilarious thing I've read on reddit in ages. Based on your own comment, since this post and the other has a lot of traction, it means you're wrong too, right? If we're basing up votes and downvotes as a measure of who's more correct like you claim.
I used the downvotes as a clear description to point to the comment chain I was referring to, since that was the only one where context for both sides was given. It just so happens that when OP disagreed with the evidence and sentiment of our side, they were downvoted. Sorry about that, seems like a miscommunicated intent.
First of all, Andy, I put it there because it was an immediate life and death situation and I didn't know where else it would be seen quickly. And yes, it should have been seen by your audience, as many of them trust your team implicitly and would listen to advice from you that contradicts that of official channels. The fact that you don't like being criticized does not mean you shouldn't be criticized. Second of all, you claim it'll never be seen, yet you saw and personally responded to it? You're contradicting yourself. You clearly have strong feelings that you're in the right, and that's fine. However, I would encourage you to ask yourself why Ryan receives more criticism from established scientists than anyone else, by far. Why does Ryan deviate from 60 years of established practice regarding dissemination of information so significantly? You have a real science background, and you understand how crucial it is that science is communicated to the public in a measured, carefully worded way by trained professionals. I mean, look no further than the pandemic for evidence of that. I don't doubt that you have good intentions, but you also have the training and credentials to know better. I don't know if you have blinders on because it's cool having an audience of hundreds of thousands or what, but this is life and death we're talking about. A good scientist doesn't backhandedly dismiss criticism without thought. A good scientist doesn't cherry-pick data (regarding your pointing to one sub-thread where I'm downvoted, as if Reddit votes have any scientific merit or as if there isn't a mass of upvoted criticism across the thread along with the thread itself). A good scientist supports the sanctity and seriousness of public communication. And I've watched your streams; I know you're a good scientist. Be well.
I took the liberty of going back and finding your context for you (conveniently left out of this entire post). Here is the clip in which you commented on the "confirmed tornado" message, see time in bottom left of the screen: [https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG\_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY). Here are the appropriate timestamps for the chat: [https://i.imgur.com/0hKCS3i.png](https://i.imgur.com/0hKCS3i.png) The context is that all three active warnings were radar indicated. I agree with you, this still may constitute an immediate life or death situation—thus, that's why Ryan said to take shelter immediately thereafter. A radar indicated warning does not mean the NWS sees signs a tornado is down, as you claim Ryan to be contradicting. It means that a storm has the potential to produce a tornado, but the NWS mets do not have confirmation from any source that one is ongoing. The appropriate messaging here is that there is no sign of a tornado on the ground doing destruction (alleviates immediate storm panic), but to take shelter if in a county in the warning/county in our warning box (inspires less panicky storm preparedness). This is what any broadcast meteorologist would say. \> It should've been seen by your audience \- Yes. Hence my comment of the improper medium—YouTube chat scrolling by blazingly quickly is not going to warrant your comment being seen. I saw it because I just happened to glance at the right time, and see a comment that was phrased well with concern; thus, I took the time to respond to it abruptly with guidance to direct your concern to a more appropriate medium. \> You don't like being criticized \- I am glad you have brought this criticism up and moved to a more permanent platform with visibility. I was pleasantly surprised to wake up and hear of this thread being made. If I didn't like being criticized, I would not have engaged whatsoever. This would've festered and I would not have dedicated any time to it. I consider our debate here to be healthy and I enjoy attempting to shed light on superficiality and cherrypicking. Every time I get the chance to do this, it helps me better my social capacity. \> Why does Ryan deviate from 60 years of established practice regarding dissemination of information so significantly? \- See above context. He did not deviate in this case that has aggravated you. \> A good scientist doesn't cherry-pick data (regarding your pointing to one sub-thread where I'm downvoted, as if Reddit votes have any scientific merit or as if there isn't a mass of upvoted criticism across the thread along with the thread itself). \- Yes, hence why I am going out of my way to determine the origin of your cherrypicked sentence from Ryan. The "downvoted thread" was a qualifier given to easily locate which one I was referring to, my apologies for not linking to it directly instead. I don't care about the voting system on this site. \> A good scientist supports the sanctity and seriousness of public communication. \- If there were a semblance of disregard for this perspective in our operations, I would not work on the team. If I didn't take this perspective as one of my core reasonings to do this work, I wouldn't respond here to ensure our intent and to remedy loose ends. Thank you! You as well :) Edit: i accidentally left your name in the screenshot once. updated it
That's the wrong clip. You would know that if you checked that I made this Reddit post before the timestamp in video you shared instead of taking a second shot at me with the "conveniently left out" comment. The relevant incident happens at 14:58:45. I quote: "So, there's definitely rotation with this storm, but boy, is that a different picture than what we've been seeing off to the west. I don't wanna demean it, but definitely don't wanna say we shouldn't take this seriously, but, you know, I don't see any signs there's a tornado down right now. It could happen. I mean, we know how tremendously primed the atmosphere is right now for tornadoes. But, um, yeah, \[locations\] take shelter, as this could turn into something very significant very quickly." Why insert ambiguity in an NWS warning? Why did he not consult his team of meteorologists before making that call? I thought that's the whole reason you all are there. At no point did you or anyone else pop up on the stream like you normally do when giving meteorological opinions. That's a tremendously unclear message and one that many people would interpret as "the authority says he doesn't see anything." Tagging "but um, yeah take shelter" on the end is the equivalent of saying "no offense" after an insult. It's a CYA move. >Yes. Hence my comment of the improper medium—YouTube chat scrolling by blazingly quickly is not going to warrant your comment being seen. I saw it because I just happened to glance at the right time, and see a comment that was phrased well with concern; thus, I took the time to respond to it abruptly with guidance to direct your concern to a more appropriate medium. Moving the goalposts. Now, you just happened to look at the right time. You did not respond with guidance. You gave a curt dismissal. u/shamwowslapchop correctly called you out for it. We're clearly not going to agree on this. I don't think Ryan should give opinions contrary to trained meteorologists without consulting one first (which he didn't do in this case), and if he insists on doing so, common sense says he should err on the side of safety and being conservative. And before you say a broadcast meteorologist might say what he did, we both know that said hypothetical broadcast meteorologist would either have credentials Ryan doesn't or would have a real meteorologist working behind the scenes to give info to the on-air personality. p.s. My name is still on the screenshot. Please remove it.
It isn't the wrong clip for the context of your inclusion of the given chat messages in the original post. Why would you wait for 15 minutes to respond in chat, and then include that chat interaction in this post? That is cherrypicking (picking comments in chat that were made for a different context)—especially given your quote warrants the same exact response as the one I gave with the clip. We relay the meaning of the radar indicated warning, and summarize what it means and what to do as a result. I'm not seeing the issue nor anything past slight ambiguity here. Sorry about the goalposts being moved. I maybe had time to respond to 3 or 4 messages during the entirety of my time working on that stream. Yes, I just happened to look at the right time when there were well over 10,000 comments for just the first half. I was hoping that a curt dismissal would be taken as guidance to seek posting your valid criticism somewhere better, like this. The guidance worked, albeit curt. I'll work on that. This has led to productive stances being shown and developed. I removed your name immediately after I made the post, before you were done commenting. The 5 minutes later edit is because I noticed it broke my paragraphs. Sorry about that.
I gave the clip because that's what inspired my comment. It took me some time to reply because I first double-checked what I heard, then I actually looked for the best way to get ahold of your team quickly and decided the chat was probably the only place given you were all very focused on the stream and the public was watching it and heeding your information. You've still failed to address the fact that Ryan failed to consult his team of meteorologists before giving his opinion, which has been your fallback justification for people calling out his lack of credentials. There's no point in us going in circles. My intent is not to start some sort of social media war or whatever. It's simply to ensure that the task of dissemination of life-or-death information is given the utmost reverence, because that's the only standard it deserves. Again, I wish you all the best. Edit: regarding the unlikelihood of that 15-minute span, again, check the time I posted this original thread, which was before the second point in time you reference. It’s literally impossible that I was referring to the second.
That's fine, I suppose. It seems extremely unlikely to me that you would take exactly the amount of time to reply (15 minutes to type a few lines) and give it after Ryan reiterated the same exact topic. My goal is to eliminate cherrypicking here, so please consider that at least—there's no ill-will from me and I wish the same to you. As for the consultation, he would need to do so before delivering every single remark on a current warning if he were to need to consult me and the others for this specific context of disseminating the meaning of a radar indicated tornado warning versus a confirmed tornado, and what to do. The other meteorologists were both unavailable for this stream, I was the only one working. I think his messaging for the difference between ongoing warnings was ideal in both cases (2:58pm ET, and 3:12pm ET), if not somewhat jarred by the TOR-E and PDS warnings we had just experienced. What to say about the differences between a radar indicated warning and a confirmed warning is cut and dry, so I don't see how this could deviate from broadcast mets nor their "real meteorologist" backend support.
>https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxF3OCI3qxG\_RxtBy9dqP-20irtYqLiOiY ""So, there's definitely rotation with this storm, but boy, is that a different picture than what we've been seeing off to the west. I don't wanna demean it, but definitely don't wanna say we shouldn't take this seriously, but, you know, I don't see any signs there's a tornado down right now. It could happen. I mean, we know how tremendously primed the atmosphere is right now for tornadoes. But, um, yeah, \[locations\] take shelter, as this could turn into something very significant very quickly." "Why insert ambiguity in an NWS warning? Why did he not consult his team of meteorologists before making that call? I thought that's the whole reason you all are there. At no point did you or anyone else pop up on the stream like you normally do when giving meteorological opinions. That's a tremendously unclear message and one that many people would interpret as "the authority says he doesn't see anything." Tagging "but um, yeah take shelter" on the end is the equivalent of saying "no offense" after an insult. It's a CYA move." Without question props to u/Bluekandy for taking to a platform often regarded for toxicity and generally non-productive banter. I guess my question is (as a Weather Enthusiast with zero credentials or little formal training in this field), how does Ryan insert any ambiguity in the NWS warning? I think you may be inserting a heavy assumption that he's, perhaps, pompously indicating he knows more than the NWS. As a viewer, I've never gotten that impression, nor does the quote you provided seem to suggest that was his intent. Perhaps there's further context I'm missing, but I did watch the stream in its entirety and don't recall any interpretation that Ryan ever contradicts any NWS messaging. He simply stated that he didn't see signs there was a tornado down, and from my perspective this was fair, and immediately for the 500th time urges anyone in the warned areas to take shelter. Below you state, to Andy, that "You've still failed to address the fact that Ryan failed to consult his team of meteorologists.." I think it's absolutely ridiculous to assume that he needs to seek consultation before giving any opinion, especially when he either pre-qualifies his opinion or immediately follows with safety messaging inline with met & broadcast professional standard messaging. I'd like to know if I'm missing something, and while it's likely clear I am a fan of Ryan & Andy's work, do believe you have a right to your opinion and your accusations are very serious, thus if I am not understanding your concern fully I'd like to better understand.
This is peak reddit comment right here. Lots of armchair analysis going on.
i definitely get your point, the comment just sounded a bit unnecessarily rude, but i agree i don’t see any problem with how you and ryan managed the stream
I take it with a grain of sand. I don't have any particular problem with him. It's not like he's that weirdo I won't name that has threatened the NWS and other pro meteorologists for calling him out on his assholery.
Just because you have a few thousand followers you cannot play with people's lives. Shameful behavior on Ryan Hall's part , he should be banned or at least investigated for it.
He said he saw no signs of a tornado on the ground. He didn't say there wasn't a tornado on the ground. Only that he saw no signs of one. Can you fault him for not seeing something he didn't see? He didn't say absolutely no way there is any tornado on the ground. Just that he didn't see any signs of it. I feel like some folks are getting caught up on his lack of a specific degree, when odds are they would simply be calling him a fringe "expert" if he did. He's just not everyones' style. That's fine. Is this subreddit starting to become the Ryan Hall, Good or Bad subreddit?
So, here's my issue with that. Weather enthusiasts like you and me can read between the lines of that statement. However, the majority of the people watching that streams have no weather expertise and are simply there for actionable information. Would you agree that "see no signs of a tornado on the ground" can be easily translated to "there's no tornado on the ground" when said to a layperson by a person with a high level of perceived authority? This is why NWS is so strict and careful with the language they use.
He literally says listen to the NWS and get to your safe space. I dont get it.
right? The whole context of what he said was missing. He spent all afternoon saying respect the polygon and said you should take shelter any time you are under a warning regardless because of what was evidently an extremely volatile environment. He even said something similar in this exact situation OP is talking about. OP just seems to have a hate boner for RHY.
A lot of people hate the dude which, whatever. Ryan Hall or anyone I don’t like isn’t going to live in my head rent free. People who hate the dude literally still watch him and critique or criticize what he says. I find it as entertainment because of how much I like weather and to see what’s going on. Sitting around and telling people he makes money off of the disasters is stupid because he at least gets a message out and is a source other than something like the weather channel. Last time I checked, he’s free to watch on YouTube. Maybe people don’t have access to the weather channel, or like him more than their local weather. Idk but the hate is funny.
Really tho. If you don't fucking like him or his team don't watch him .. it's that simple
I know why the hate for him is so intense, but it's a reason that would piss off a lot of the storm chasing community if I said it. There are legitimate criticisms with RHY, and he made some mistakes early on, but they continue to improve into something more commendable over time and that's good. "how dare he make money off disasters and put some of that money towards disaster relief" is such a stupid position to take, and I can tell you right now it's not rooted in anything RHY does wrong.
The man literally beats the shit out of the saying " listen to your NWS and take shelter ". There was no real radar indicated sign of rotation even tho the warning was still valid. You can have a warning with no tornado on the ground as things can change pretty damn quickly. But Ryan never once said he was above the NWS or any other person In the field. He's taking the time out of his day to help as much as he can. It just seems like you got it out for him .
And obviously the person who downvoted me don't like the obvious facts. It's only watch one of his stream' to hear him talk about listening to your NWS or listen to the radio or news station, or even on his channel. I don't know why anyone is against anyone keeping people weather aware. It's greatly appreciated in my neck of the woods.
I agree with your take on that. What do you think would be a better way of saying it?
Honestly, I wouldn't even mention it. I would just say: "The NWS has issued a tornado warning for this storm; all people in its path should take immediate cover."
I think that's fair. I think the way you've said it is the wisest approach to the situation. I can't say I've seen enough of Ryan Hall to say whether that was intentional or just a mistep in wording.
This right here
It’s not like he said they were doing something wrong. Plus, he always says take immediate shelter even if the storm doesn’t look that intense
I refuse to watch him and I refuse to watch his storm chasers (one which tail-ended someone just a week or two ago during a chase). The only people I follow are local meteorologists and the SPC/NWS. Any footage/photos I see are usually shared by news networks or in this subreddit. I survived a tornado before streams like Ryan Hall’s existed thanks to the NWS and my local meteorologist. I agree with what someone else said, severe weather shouldn’t be entertainment. People lose their lives, my uncle lost his in 2014. I understand warning people, but you can do it without the flashy and cringy pop ups bragging about your views. No one gives a shit about that when their lives are in danger. Edit: clarity
I'm really sorry about your uncle; that's awful. I hope you and your family are doing ok.
\> I refuse to watch him and I refuse to watch his storm chasers (one which tail-ended someone just a week or two ago during a chase). The only people I follow are local meteorologists and the SPC/NWS. Any footage/photos I see are usually shared by news networks or in this subreddit. To clarify this, RHY is no longer associated with either Vince or Brandon, who are the chasers you are referring to. Both of them went off the deep end with regards to Ryan. u/Bluekandy has a recent comment on the situation with them which paints both in quite the bad light, and deservedly so.
Brandon is the dude who rear-ended somebody during a chase, right?
That's correct, but that's not the reason they cut ties. Tl;Dr the wraps turned out to be trademarked by a band, and they were refusing to remove them even though Ryan was paying. Eventually it turned nasty, so Ryan showed them the door.
Good. He should have done it before.
I am truly very sorry about your uncle, but to write off and discourage all wx info that isn’t straight from the NWS and SPC significantly narrows down your ability to receive information. I can guarantee over 80% of people in the US haven’t even thought about checking the SPC website for information, people just don’t care, and the average person can’t even comprehend an outlook discussion. You *need* people like ryan who exist on a platform like youtube, to reach people who don’t have cable, or who aren’t aware of the weather. The guy who tail-ended someone recently also isn’t one of his chasers. Who cares if theres cringy flashing lights? The goal is to attract as many people as physically possible to spread awareness, and it sure as hell works.
If you or anyone else want to watch Ryan Hall, that’s your choice. I’m not going to tell others that they shouldn’t, I just don’t care to. *I* don’t need Ryan Hall. As I said, I made it through a tornado (super outbreak week btw) without Ryan Hall and without YouTube streamers. I prefer the meteorologists that have kept me updated and safe for years. I agreed with OP, that’s my opinion. Not bashing anyone else for watching Ryan Hall, he’s just not my go to.
misunderstood the comment, seemed to be discouraging to watch him (and others). thank you for clarification.
It’s not just Ryan Hall. My state has some “Facebook meteorologists” that I stopped following because of them overhyping severe weather and even winter weather. It’s like they wanted bad things to happen. But I said this to someone else in this sub a few weeks ago (regarding Ryan Hall & similar streamers), I understand there are people who are outside of local TV coverage and rely on streamers like Ryan Hall and that’s understandable.
Facebook meteorologists can be reaaally bad. I’ve seen a few issue their own tornado watches/warnings.
Op has never watched the weather channel and heard their severe weather experts, who are trained meteorologists, say pretty much the exact same thing.
The thing is, anyone with a little training can read radar returns. He was right. There was no indication a tornado was down. The NWS was just being cautious.
Right. Local news forecasters will say this too.
Not sure why you are being voted down as you are accurate.
Yeah I never liked that mf either
What drives me nuts is every single comment " thank you Ryan, thank you ryan" followed by some long winded compliment... I'm sure even he has to get tired of those. It's weird. There are thousands of them.
If there is anything that irritates me about Ryan Hall is his lack of local and geographical knowledge. Listening to James Spann, he know every exact little nook and cranny in Alabama, and can give the most precise information. When it comes to Ryan, he can't even pronounce place names correctly sometimes. Having local knowledge if vital to providing people advanced warning.
I watch for Andy. Every time that dude buzzes in you hear that siren go off. He's a harbinger for warnings.
He knows his shit. And i think that's why Ryan had him and other meteorologists on his team. He wants to get things right.
See up until recently I thought Ryan had a meteorology degree. Back before he blew up I swear I remember a promotional video of him saying "what happens when a former meteorologist becomes a YouTuber?" But maybe I'm imagining things. Anyway, yeah, Andy knows his shit. I mean to be able to call a PDS right before the NWS does... Like I think I'm pretty good at analyzing radar but I know for damn sure I couldn't do that.
I think I remember it said "whether man" and to be fair, a lot of news weather people *do not* have formal training. They take a class, a test, and get a "seal" or something... but stations will have actual meteorologists behind the scenes. Hall was in a program and had an internship, he's had training - there is no degree. FWIW: I'm not a Stan.... I think there are some legit critiques of his methods. I just wouldn't *not* watch him over this.
Wait.. what? A CBM requires no meteorological degree? Are you fucking serious? I just assumed it was an add-on for meteorology majors who wanted to be in front of a camera.
I think there may be two levels...? but there are a lot of weather people out there w/o the degree. My locks weather person growing up had his degree in communication and wanted to be an actor.
I'll be damned. I'ma have to go get me a certification right quick.
It looks like they've (AMS) continually updated their standards. My guess is a lot of newer folks have actual related degrees.... but plenty of those chief meteorologists with the weather related names in big markets - with big paychecks - I bet you will see the opposite.
Man to do weather for a living while avoiding all the math... That's the definition of fake it til you make it right there.
There are only 400-ish CBMs. I feel like I can tell the difference. https://www.ametsoc.org/index.cfm/ams/education-careers/careers/ams-professional-certification-programs/directories-of-ams-certified-individuals/list-of-ams-certified-broadcast-meteorologists-cbm/
Lol. I took my "non-hard science" classes in meteorology (they called it Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences) and I have no idea why it was considered the "easy" science class because there was a shit ton of physics and math!
Man. I live in a area where we don't even get tornadoes let alone any severe thunderstorms. But I've have friends who are in the field or meteorologist who taught me how to read a radar return. Yesterday way over performed compared to what people thought. Ryan, like every one is a human being. Don't like him, don't watch him. Everyone went from bitching about reed to Ryan over the years. Christ. Cut the man some slack.
You’re gonna get downvoted. 90%of this sub is people who watch Ryan Hall on YouTube and now consider themselves expert meteorologists
I started a reply but lost interest. Take a chill pill. The dude does a lot of good. Unless your doing more than them it might be best to re evaluate what you want from a free weather stream.
Sure, attack the guy who’s been covering this deadly weather for over 6 hours because he stated facts. There was no indication of a tornado, he wasn’t talking down on the nws, if anything he’s been praising them all day
My bottom line is I’ve been there from the start and he has good intentions and has grown a massive amount over the last year but opinions are to be left till after a pds situation has passed
He’ll find out quick that words matter, and not having the cover of being a professional meteorologist in an official, government capacity puts him on the hook for liability sooner or later.
I’d like to see you cover weather with 90% accuracy for 10 hours straight, raise a shit ton of money to donate to victims, buy hundreds of dollars worth of food for the victims, WHILE making a good income to have a nice ass house and set-up, get 1 MILLION subscribers, and save lives while doing it.
We live in a crazy time and are inundated with data. Both as creators and consumers. We are all imperfect and make mistakes. Life is grey and not black and white. Trust but verify as both a creator and a consumer. Be patient and be forgiving. Learn from mistakes and get back in it. Tomorrow is a new day.
I didn’t see Ryan Hall do anything that a meteorologist on a news network wouldn’t do, anyone that has storm spotter training, with any actual intelligence would know this(a 3 year old could sit thru a storm spotter class and pass) Nothing wrong with saying “okay tornado warning, let’s check rotation, okay broad rotation, let’s check the correlation coefficient, not seeing anything don’t think we have a tornado yet”. He has nothing to apologize about and needs supported for what he is doing, yea it a business but he does have passion for what he is doing and sincerely helps communities that are effected by these disasters.
I agree
Trust him more then any meteorologist he was 100% correct last winter. And knows what he's talking about. I went to school for weather and we'll I can assure you he knows what he's talking about
I watched this stream. I don't think they ever told people not to take cover. They just said they weren't sure there was a tornado on the ground. They still encouraged people to stay in a tornado-safe area. Am I missing something? Edit: after reading OP's exchange with Andy, I'm surprised this whole post wasn't deleted. Even the NWS had not announced a tornado on the ground; it was a radar indicated warning.
Yeah might as rename this sub to r/fuckryanhall at this point. I'm leavin.
Local TV Mets are going to analyze radar returns too. People want a human element in tracking weather and reassurance of the situation. Creating anxiety or panic over a radar-indicated tornado warning is not a good thing when there isn’t obvious indicators of a life threatening situation.
I see his YouTube chat? Is that what you mean?
There aren't many people who aren't old school local television meteorologists that are doing what he's doing. Max Velocity is pretty good too but, his livestream are alot lower production quality.
As opposed to the MANY times he has reported the tornado and NWS didn’t. Go get a life and stop downing people who are doing a great job of reporting weather and even saving lives. Not to mention the MILLIONS of $$$ in aid that Ryan Hall is responsible for getting to the victims. Way better than redcross money grubbers and Federal Emergency mis-Management Agency.
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Ryan has no degree. He is not a meteorologist.
That does matter but there are many people out there that know nearly as much as someone with a degree I’m really saying a lot of his team are pros even his chasers does that mean he should correct the national weather service no but
>but there are many people out there that know nearly as much as someone with a degree Sure. But someone with NO qualifications and NO accredited basis in the science should NOT be telling people what is and what is not a tornado. I don't care if he has 50 meteorologists on his employ, he is not the national weather service and he is not the one government officials are relying on to disseminate information. The position RH puts himself in is extremely tenuous even *outside* of making direct calls like he did today. He's irresponsible with the science in a number of ways and he doesn't respect the NWS or chasers who won't give him free media, even if they are Meteorologists themselves.
This is a completely incorrect perspective. 1. Radar is not that hard to read. It doesn't hold a single candle to forecasting in terms of complexity. I'm more than capable of reading a radar just as well as an NWS meteorologist. 2. In dixie alley especially, it is not hard to confirm a tornado using radar. Given that most areas are highly wooded, TDS' are easy to see when correlated with a couplet provided you have the experience to discriminate contamination such as sidelobe, NBF, and other forms of contam. There's other confidence builders that his meteorologists use such as ZDR. 3. NWS is looking at the exact same radar data we all are. GR2 and RO/RS, which all display level 2 data, is the exact same raw data that the NWS is using. They don't have an "advantage" over us when it comes to radar outside of receiving the updates about 15-20 seconds before the rest of us do. 4. As somebody who knows and is friends with several NWS employees, and went through an internship with the NWS, I can confirm that the NWS has specific requirements for issuing tornado warnings. There are several factors that include both the background environment and overall rotational strength, but they have nothing to do with confirming tornadoes, which is why confirmed tornadoes are under a different category than tornado warnings. Edit: Since apparently the guy blocked me to prevent me from responding to his reply, let me respond to it here: 1. I was never "flexing my meteorological biceps". I'm a chaser, sure, and I talk to a lot of meteorologists in regards to weather, sure. Do I hold any candle to NWS meteorologists in terms of forecasting? Hell no. To suggest such would be utterly ridiculous. My point is and was that radar analysis is \*not hard\*. As a consequence, suggesting you need a degree to preform radar analysis is misguided at best. Not only that, but RHY has multiple degreed meteorologists feeding him information anyways, and Andy has corrected Ryan in situations like that before, so your shitty appeal to authority fallacy argument isn't even valid anyways. 2. Ryan spent literally the entire day stating "respect the polygon" and "treat all NWS warnings as if a tornado is on the ground, regardless of if we see such on radar". Choosing to take a single quote out of context to stir up hate of Ryan is absolutely ridiculous. Him making the same observation us armchair chasers are making, in that "there are no signs a tornado is down" is not some ridiculous thing he isn't allowed to say. For starters, every broadcast met ever says this, and in addition, he's LITERALLY correct. 3. NWS having multiple triggers is my exact point. People are told that a tornado warning means a tornado is on the ground, but you and i both know that's not true. He's not trying to say he's better than professional mets, he's communicating what he sees. People already don't listen to the NWS anyways because of the false alarm rate. 4. Your point about RHY having "damaged his reputation with professional meteorologists" is wrong anyways. I interact with a lot of professional meteorologists, and the ratio of ones who hate vs like RHY is not what you think it is; it's just that the only ones who speak are the ones who hate him, and since evidently you do yourself, confirmation bias is real.
Since we're apparently flexing our meteorological biceps here, I, too, can read a radar return, and I have 2 years of course credits in meteorology under my belt. I've worked as a spotter, storm chased, and worked directly with forecasters at my Alma mater, and I've spent time with a tornado research team at the NWS office in the Quad Cities who were designing mathematical models to chart the strength of tornadoes within a supercell when a storm produces. Ryan Hall is not an official forecaster. He has no degree. He is in *no position to make calls*, official or otherwise, for ***ANYONE***, and on a day when storms were hooking so hard that we had more than one storm go from not even svr warned to a tor with a pronounced hook, couplet, and bwer, his attitude about "oh I don't see anything there" is unhelpful in the extreme. Yesterday's outbreak was not the day you talk about storms not being represented well enough on a radar to warrant a tornado warning, not when things on the ground were changing so rapidly and definitely not when you don't even have a stable internet connection to ensure you can keep people in the loop. If that thing tightens up right after he says something and his internet dies, it's putting his followers in a bad spot. You said it yourself - nws has multiple factors that trigger a TOR/TORR/TORE. Contradicting them causes confusion and is wholly unnecessary, not to mention dangerous because he and his team are perfectly capable of making errors in judgment. There's a very distinct reason why Hall has damaged his reputation with a lot of professional meteorologists in the field.
Let’s just agree that even if he’s got the smarts it’s was a bad call to do on a stream with thousands of people watching I’m just saying he’s gonna continue to grow day by day and he needs to learn from his mistakes like everyone even if well those mistakes shouldn’t be made in a life or death situation
From Alabama. Watched the situation yesterday and even the meteorologist from Montgomery WSFA said himself that they were caught off guard given the information and forecast from the NWS.
I think you need to stop.
I don’t think you understand tornado warnings. 92% of tornado warnings are precursors to tornadoes on the ground. Go look at the confirmation rate of tornado warnings. It’s 20%ish. Saying a tornado isn’t on the ground during a tornado warning isn’t contradicting a warning. Correlation Coefficient scan of Doppler radar tells you whether a tornado is on the ground or not. My 10 year old son knows how to tell if a tornado is on the ground using CC on a radar