Emergency Alert System

[Tim Supinie]

I think rdale is referring to storms across the entire NWS Charleston CWA, not just in Charleston. Maybe you are, too, but if that's the case, I find it hard to believe that the *entire* CWA has only had four severe thunderstorms so far this year. Maybe the storms were warned multiple times, which could lead to more warnings than storms? I'm not sure how the NWS verification works, so I can't say whether or not each warning would be separately verified, even if some of them were for the same storm.

What criteria are you using to say the reported events "didn't happen"? Not every severe report causes damage that one would hear about on the news.

Anyway, sorry to perpetuate an off-topic discussion ...

 

[rdale]

I have no idea about Charlotte but I can say that multiple reports from the same area and multiple reports from the same storm in other counties sure help skew the numbers, more with tornadoes than severe thunderstorms.

I agree, however we're talking about SVRs at this point. Tornado warnings either verify or they don't - the number of reports doesn't matter. It's not too often that two spotters call in the same wind gust measurement from the same location

If there have been 60 legitimate severe thunderstorms over the CHS warning area this year, then I can assure you that is an overall false account.

I'm just going by the numbers.There really is only one way to discuss science and that is using the numbers, whether or not the facts agree with your "feelings" in the matter. The numbers are there to see. The IEM COW is not "official" but it's pretty clear that out of 97 warnings issued so far, there has been more than 4 actual severe thunderstorms verified.

I'd suggest you contact the WCM at Charleston and address their use of false reporting, and if you can pull out specific LSRs that are spoofs it would be of more value than what you're doing in this thread.

 

[Mike Johnston]

RDale - you can believe a number just because it's a number logged into some official record, but that doesn't make it true. Science is science, and you don't need to lecture me on that. It has nothing to do with my "feelings", it's about eyes and ears. And, I can assure you, if you just believe the text because it is so-called official, you are way, way off in your impression of how many severe events have actually happened in this area. If it weren't so sad (because of the inaccuracy) it would be funny.

 

[rdale]

I'm not looking at a number, I'm looking at the reports. Nearly 200 of them. And you say all but a handful are fake? Seriously? Can you just list a few? You're making some WILD accusations about the NWS, and that's long past the funny stage. You ought to have stronger backing other than your feelings.

 

[Brandon Clement]

I agree, however we're talking about SVRs at this point. Tornado warnings either verify or they don't - the number of reports doesn't matter. It's not too often that two spotters call in the same wind gust measurement from the same location



I'm just going by the numbers.There really is only one way to discuss science and that is using the numbers, whether or not the facts agree with your "feelings" in the matter. The numbers are there to see. The IEM COW is not "official" but it's pretty clear that out of 97 warnings issued so far, there has been more than 4 actual severe thunderstorms verified.

I'd suggest you contact the WCM at Charleston and address their use of false reporting, and if you can pull out specific LSRs that are spoofs it would be of more value than what you're doing in this thread.

Measured wind gusts by spotters are rare in the south. Most of the reports are from tree damage and there are many occasions where multiple reports come in from the same dead tree that fell across a road and is considered severe limits. I don't care what anyone says, it happens all the time. Tornadoes aren't either confirmed or they aren't. Many straight line wind and downburst damages are ruled tornadoes and some of these reports are flat out false because tornado paths are very obvious with the millions of trees we have. Some of the tornado damage I've seen include several mile wide areas of damage that includes all trees laying the same direction that ends up being ruled an ef-0 or 1. Either it was straight line winds or we have occasional ef-0 wedges that aren't ever seen despite being several miles wide. It is quite the phenomenal event.

If you want to boast these numbers as the science then central Ms has the worlds most severe weather and no other place is close. The Jan forecast area issued more severe/tornado warnings than Lubbock, Amarillo and Dodge City combined. Jan forecast area has more than 900 more warnings than any other forecast area in the country over the same 5 year period. Jan forecast area has more than twice as many warnings as Shreveport to the west, Mem to the north, Birmingham to the east and more than 3 times of LIX to the south. The only valid explanation is that storms intensify the second they get into the Jan forecast area and tend to weaken the second they leave. Pretend you are looking at sensors and the dewpoint ranges between 70-72 for every sensor in a 250 mile radius with exception to one that is showing 84 td. Do you disregard that one sensor because it is obviously bad data or do you disregard the other 10 and drive to that area because of the extreme instability pocket? I don't care who wants to argue this point with me because I'll stand behind my claims every time. I've witnessed it multiple times each season for a decade now. Afterall, is it really a stretch to think that the grades are really good because the kids are grading their own homework?

Back to the point of the thread. The JAN forecast area gets 2.47 severe/tornado warnings per day year round on average. This disregards all watches, tests, flash flood, winter storm, tropical, etc warnings. If you don't think this desensitizes the people these warnings are supposed to protect then I am sorry. However, I think we can both agree throwing a test out there at 6:45 AM is simply moronic.

 

[Mike Johnston]

I'm not looking at a number, I'm looking at the reports. Nearly 200 of them. And you say all but a handful are fake? Seriously? Can you just list a few? You're making some WILD accusations about the NWS, and that's long past the funny stage. You ought to have stronger backing other than your feelings.

RDale, it's not up to me to prove a negative. I can assure you, though, if you believe our FAR around here for severe thunderstorms is only 22, then you have a have a terribly distorted view. I'm just calling BS on the overall number. Not asking you to defend the system, and not accusing anyone of submitting false reports, but just be careful of taking statistics at face value.

 

[rdale]

If you want to boast these numbers as the science then central Ms has the worlds most severe weather and no other place is close. The Jan forecast area issued more severe/tornado warnings than

That's not how you determine "severe weather." That's how you determine "severe weather warnings." You have to look at the actual verified warnings to compare severe weather.

If you don't think this desensitizes the people these warnings are supposed to protect

SVRs are not issued to protect the public, they are issued to cover any sort of damage reports received. That's a thread for a different day

However, I think we can both agree throwing a test out there at 6:45 AM is simply moronic.

We do. Something must have broken in the system somewhere on that day, but I think we also agree now that 64 of these don't happen per year.

RDale, it's not up to me to prove a negative.

I'm not asking you to, so apparently something got lost in translation. There were 64 SVRs verified in the CHS area and you are saying about 60 of them are untrue. I'm just asking for a few examples. You obviously are very weather savvy in your area, so you should be able to look at the list and pretty easily figure out which LSRs have been faked by spotters and/or NWS. They don't get into the database on their own

As I mentioned later, the 2011 CHS SVR FAR is 34%, not 22%. I must have clicked a different date range at some point.

but just be careful of taking statistics at face value.

I don't know what that means... The stats say 64 severe thunderstorms verified, you "feel" like that number should be 4. I am not sure how the stats should not be trusted, but your feelings should be? The verification system isn't perfect. I wouldn't even say it's "pretty good." But it's what we have today, so if you want to compare FARs or PODs then it's what you go with. It still has some value in it.

 

[Mike Johnston]

I perused the list. I guess if every felled tree verifies a severe thunderstorm, then we're in business with the stats. I guess I'm mistaken, but I thought the wind criteria for a severe thunderstorm was ~60 mph. We have trees downed in the neighborhood with 35 mph gusts. Believe me, the felled trees around here are mostly a function of the sheer number of trees...not the speed of the wind.

And you can take most of those "quarter" sized hail reports and cut them down to a penny and would be more accurate. I know this area, I know what kind of storms we have around here and I know under what circumstances we are typically warned. In 7 years of living here, I've seen only one storm (excluding tropical stuff) that actually approached the magnitude of a plains supercell. And, I lived in Kansas for 25 years, so I'm pretty familiar with those. Has nothing to do with "feelings", just observations.

 

[rdale]

I guess if every felled tree verifies a severe thunderstorm, then we're in business with the stats.

It does. It's considered damage from severe winds.

And you can take most of those "quarter" sized hail reports and cut them down to a penny and would be more accurate.

I'm with you there too. That's commonplace nationwide. Is it scientifically accurate? Nope. Should it be fixed? Yep. Can / will it be? Nope.

 

[Brandon Clement]

That's not how you determine "severe weather." That's how you determine "severe weather warnings." You have to look at the actual verified warnings to compare severe weather.

Particularly in the southeast where we tend to have hills, trees and faster storm motions than the plains, tornado warnings are issued much more frequently. When I am in the plains it amazes me to see the type of rotation in supercells that don't have a tornado warning in place for them. The difference is in the plains there are hundreds of chasers and spotters under most storms and the NWS knows exactly what that storm is doing. When a tornado warning is issued in Kansas or NW Ok, a tornado is either on the ground or very close to being able to produce. In Mississippi a tornado warning may be issued on a storm that doesn't even have a wall cloud or organized inflow because it is simply in a high shear environment and shows some signs of low level rotation. In the south we also get a very high percentage of our storms in the late evening, night and very early morning hours. All this leads to a large number of false warnings, many of them at times when people are sleeping. I've been saying for years that the boy is calling wolf way too often.

I pulled a few sites out of the IEM COW and the two OK offices have a 71% false alarm rate, which almost identical to that of Jackson Mississippi, so that line is not true.

I think you get a better picture if you look at the number of warnings issued.

For ex:
Tornado warnings Dodge City from 1/1/05 to 12/31/10
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/co...&wtype[]=TO&hail=1.00&lsrbuffer=15&ltype[]=TO

Jackson over the same period
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/co...&wtype[]=TO&hail=1.00&lsrbuffer=15&ltype[]=TO

For those that don't want to click: Jackson has had 984 tornado warnings, Dodge City has issued 312 over the same time period.

I'm even taking this year out of the equation because it has been unusually active in Ms and unusually slow in Kansas, add in this year and the gap widens much more.

Add in severe thunderstorms to the mix:

Dodge City: 1862 Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings issued from 1/1/05 to 12/31/10
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/co...&hail=1.00&lsrbuffer=15&ltype[]=TO&ltype[]=SV


Jackson, Ms: 4.428 severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings issued from 1/1/05 to 12/31/10
http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/co...&hail=1.00&lsrbuffer=15&ltype[]=TO&ltype[]=SV

Well, now I'm confused. If Jackson has a pretty typical FAR compared to the plains NWS areas then please explain to me why Jackson NWS has 900 more warnings issued than any other area in the NWS forecast area. Why it has twice as many warnings issued than each of the neighboring offices but doesn't have the most severe weather on the planet?

 

[rdale]

I only did the FAR for 2011. I'll leave it to you to compare number of verified warnings over the years and relate them to different CWAs.

 

[Bob Wagner]

I didn't look at the text code, was worried about making a juice bottle for my daughter.

Called the NWS in Jan around 7:30 and asked if they had a test that morning. The man that answered said they did. I asked why they would do it at 6:45 in the morning and he told me it wasn't the NWS decision because it was a monthly EAS test and came from either MEMA or Clearchannel radio. I asked if he could fiind out and he put me on hold. He came back and said that it was Randy Bell with Clearchannel radio that ultimately decided. So now you can see why I was so confused. Whether he gave me bad info or not I can't tell you but there was certainly a test at 6:45 this morning.

I didn't say most homes have them because I know that not to be true, said most of the people I know have them in their homes. However, I was once again lazy and didn't find the exact stats but figured it was probably 10-15% and with the Jackson NWS signal hitting over a million figured it was a lot of people. Regardless of the numbers, my point is the same. Plus there is talk of a bill, not sure if it passed, to make it code to have NWR radios in mobile homes. Also several state departments of homeland security have either started giving away radios or discussing the idea of giving them away so that number is about to go up.

I have my radio set to "test text only" and it does not go off for the weekly tests. I'm not sure if it went off today because of a different code or if it was defect in the radio but it doesn't matter. Many older radios do not have the option to turn off the tests.

It most certainly happened.

It's actually a quarterly (at least as far as NWS responsibility goes) test, and it's done at different times of the day when it's done. We have to do it here at Slidell for those transmitters that have listening areas in Mississippi. It is meant to trigger the EAS system. I'm pretty sure it goes out as a RMT (monthly test) and not a RWT ( weekly test).

 

[Brandon Clement]

It's actually a quarterly test, and it's done at different times of the day when it's done. We have to do it here at Slidell for those transmitters that have listening areas in Mississippi. It is meant to trigger the EAS system. I'm pretty sure it goes out as a RMT (routine monthly test) and not a RWT (routine weekly test).

Thank you Bob.

So this test is solely for MEMA and isn't nationwide?

 

[rdale]

We have to do it here at Slidell for those transmitters that have listening areas in Mississippi. It is meant to trigger the EAS system. I'm pretty sure it goes out as a RMT (routine monthly test) and not a RWT (routine weekly test).

Thanks - any idea why this one would have activated NOAA Weather Radios with test messages turned off? Or maybe some radios need both codes disabled?

 

[Brent Willcox]

Hopefully the OP will come back and let us know what model of weather radio he has that was triggered, but on the Radio Shack and Reecom units I have in service, both RMT and RWT are disabled and will not audibly alert but only will display a message.

Here's the EAS primary and secondary assignments for Mississippi http://www.msbroadcasters.org/2011/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=110&Itemid=162 and NOAA Weather Radio is listed as an originating source for the month of June.