Gaps in weather radar coverage leave Delta and Black Belt more vulnerable, but it's not necessarily driven by race

Chart by meteorology student Jack Sillin shows radar coverage and black population. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Severe storms and tornadoes in the Southeast left at least five people dead yesterday, some rural, Jan Wesner Childs reports for The Weather Channel. That makes all the more relevant a recent storm of another kind on Twitter about rural—and racial—disparities in weather warning systems. 

Cornell University meteorology student Jack Sillin, who grew up in the rural South, kicked off a debate March 19 after tweeting that the National Weather Service's radar network leaves many rural Black communities uncovered, and thus less likely to get advance warning of tornadoes and severe storms. "Overlaying demographic data with radar coverage data, it's hard not to notice how the areas most underserved by NEXRAD are also majority Black," Sillin tweeted.

Marshall Shepherd, a meteorology professor at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, writes for Forbes that Sillin's observation is fair and revealed "a convergence of science, geography and history that is worth a discussion." Rurality is the main factor in coverage gaps, and "in the South, this will bring a large Black population into play. In the West, it is likely to disproportionately impact Hispanic or Native American populations. Of course, these gaps will affect White populations in these regions too. It is important to shatter the narrative that highlighting one group’s challenge minimizes another group."

Sillin replied to Shepherd in an email that however the disparitiescame about, "The gaps are still frustrating, impactful, and consistent with a long legacy of underinvestment in these communities."