The same organization that can predict global warming ten years from now.

Via WECT:

A tornado touchdown in New Hanover County, may have left its mark in a matter of minutes, but the aftermath of that will be talked about for a long time, to come.

“It’s personal damage on our honor, when we miss an event,” said Tim Armstrong, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service, in Wilmington. “Our radar did not do a very good job of indicating the threat.”

911 alerted the National Weather Service at 2:31, Thursday afternoon, to calls coming in from the Ogden area. The frustration for a lot of residents, is there was no warning of imminent danger.

“We were watching storms that were producing hail from Wilmington to Burgaw, but those are the not the storms that produced the tornado,” said Armstrong. “It was just the smallest of pop up cells.”

The tornado was considered an EF1, with winds estimated at 95 mph. It traveled a path for about a mile and three quarters, touching down, going back up, and touch down, several times.

The tornado, no wider than a football field, left behind downed trees, and power lines.

“We have all this technology, it’s just not perfect,” said Armstrong. “The lesson is to remind people and ask for more reports in the field. If you see a spinning cloud, or a funnel cloud, send us a tweet or give us a call. Ultimately, those will be incorporated to help us do a better job, next time, to get those warnings out.”