Do Local Officials ruin your credibility?

[BrandonWhittington]

I have done a massive amount of research on the event of March 28, 2007. My county that I live in, people do a lot amount of spotting. Whether it be the fire department, or sheriff department. The problem with this, is the fact that the county officials give a huge number of FALSE-REPORTS to the NWS office every year......The problem arrives that the NWS has to determine if the reports are true or false. Its like the Little boy who cried wolf.

On March 28th, I made some reports to the NWS about a possible tornado trying to form, and I feel that they assumed it was another false report. NO ONE is to Blame for this.

I feel that the county is hurting the crediblity of the actual credible chasers and spotters. I think that there needs to be a lot more training for county/city officials. This is just my opinion....... I would like to hear others thoughts on this matter........

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I would think most emergency officials would identify their occupation when doing a call in to the NWS. I bet part of the reason the NWS may not always give a lot of credibility to a report coming from a "storm chaser" is because there are so many people out there that refer to themselves as "storm chasers" that really don't know anything about storm structure or meteorology. I would think 90% of self proclaimed "storm chasers" are the kind of chasers that see a warning or watch and jump in their car and go. If a lot of the "storm chasers" out there are calling in false reports (and identifying themselves as a chaser) because they really don't know what they are looking at and/or doing, then naturally the mets at the NWS aren't going to give much credibility to your report unless it confirms something they already suspect.

 

[cedwards]

while there may be nothing we can do to prevent locals calling themselves "storm chasers" when calling in reports, We as experienced chasers (or mobile spotters) can give more credibility to our reports easily.
Give an accurate descriprion of the situation. Tell them your location and the direction you are looking. Make your report very brief, but specific and accurate.
A lot of the credibility they give to your call may come from the way you talk about the situation.

 

[Andrew Herron]

The best way to give a report that will be taken seriously is to either know the guy you're talking to at the NWS, or use Skywarn.

 

[rdale]

I made some reports to the NWS about a possible tornado trying to form, and I feel that they assumed it was another false report.

If that's all your report consisted of - that would be why it was ignored...

Tell them what you are seeing exactly. Rotation? Where? What part of the storm? Persistant? Rapid?

If you really told them the above -- there are questions about 1) what is a "possible tornado" and 2) how do you know it's trying to form? Describing exactly what you see will give you much more credibility in the long run.

 

[John Diel]

I've carried around a small form I wrote up a while back. 4 of them fit to a letter sized sheet of paper. On that form I have an outline of the information I want to give to the NWS. That way it makes it very clean, concise and accurate as I can make it. The information I give it pretty straight forward and conforms to the report OUN has on their web site.

Does it take an extra few seconds to write it down? Yeah, but is that few seconds making a difference? In the long run, no, except that my report remains consistant and professionally delivered.

The only issues I've had in the past were locally rather than with NWS.

 

[SteveCarter]

I don't have any problems here. in fact, the news director of the local radio station gave me his personal cell phone number, and has urged me to call in if i see ANYTHING. In fact, they want me to do a 30 minute show every other week! I've done one so far, but turned down the offers to do more...for now, but will again soon. The NWS also gave me there numbers and told me to call them any time I needed anything, and I still talk to them from time to time. I DID take the SkyWarn classes tho, and that is prob why they are so friendly...lol Even LOCAL law enforcement let me out of a ticket, and said they knew who I was. HUH? I wasn't sure that was really a good thing at the time, but.....no ticket! So, no...local officials have been MORE than helpful around here.

 

[Jason Boggs]

Brandon, I assume your talking about the Amarillo NWS. The best way to get to know them is to go to the Weather convention every other year and go to the spotter appreciation picnic that they put on every August. Get to know them well, and you will never have another problem.

 

[Shane Adams]

I've never really had credibility.....all the reports I've made that were scoffed at were because they didn't know who I was....or maybe they did...I dunno. I don't lose sleep over it anymore. For whatever reason, some tornadoes just do not get logged. Again I use my May 4, 2001 tornado as an example. NWS meteorologist watched my video, acknowledged the tornado (weas actually quite impressed), and it was never logged. I submitted it again over the phone...nothing. I submitted it again via internet...nothing. I mentioned it again while in the OUN office doing work on the October 9, 2001 outbreak stuff...nothing.

I've come to suspect the problem was the event was a Friday, and I came in on a Saturday morning (which was also a severe weather day) with video, to an under-staffed office. Had it been during the week and the room had been filled with mets instead of just the one, I imagine the tornado would've been logged. As far as being scoffed because of bad spotter/EM reports, most of those times it was a 911 operator, which have the worst "knowledge" of severe weather of all the cliches I've encountered.

I'm still surprised at how I seem to be one of the few chasers who use a scanner as their main weapon in their arsenal....if I hear the report via scanner while I'm witnessing the event, I know it's been reported....if I'm seeing a tornado and hearing no chatter, I know it's going unseen (like March 30 last year). My problem is, everytime I'm the "first on the scene" I can never get a cell signal.