Folks at SPC are top notch

[Glen Romine]

Originally posted by Jeff Snyder

I was wondering if the criteria for Public Severe Weather Outlooks (PSWOs) have changed?

This was discussed in an earlier thread. See comments by Roger Edwards.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic....t=4001&start=15

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Originally posted by Glen Romine+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Glen Romine)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Jeff Snyder

I was wondering if the criteria for Public Severe Weather Outlooks (PSWOs) have changed?

This was discussed in an earlier thread. See comments by Roger Edwards.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4001&start=15[/b]

Ahh... I wonder how/why I didn't notice that before... Without the explanation, though, it certainly seemed to be a 'cry wolf' event given the previous weight/magnitude of an event expected/associated with the release of a PSWO... It seemed to me that most folks who only understand 'plain-text' products would seek word from their local WFO instead of the SPC, and the WFOs HWOs and other discussions/products (e.g. "some storms may be severe" in the zone forecasts) are supposed to address this threat in 'plain-text' I thought. Along the same line, those who read SPC products were more inclined than just Joe Blow to learn/understand at least a fraction of the meteorology behind the risk assessment. Again, this is just what I thought... Didn't know that so many public folks read SPC discussions, as evidenced by the emails Roger referred to in his post in the other thread. It seems that most of the intense damage, injuries, and deaths occur during particular outbreaks, so I wonder if the increased "density" or number of PSWOs will lower the response/attention previously given to the product. I certainly understand the too-rare idea, since there's the chance that nobody would know what it means if a particular product is very rarely issued. And I suppose we still have the HIGH risk for those most-severe of events. I obviously don't know much about the situation in regards to the internal discussions, so these are just my rambling thoughts.

It's great that the SPC is getting more public visibility, however! Anything to raise public awareness to severe weather hazards is beneficial!

 

[JHadorn]

The SPC does indeed rock. I'm quite happy to see that some members of their crew haunt our boards. In particular, Roger Edwards deserves my gratitude. He fielded one of my more "duh, i r teh n00b" questions without being condescending. I didn't even know he worked for the SPC until then.

There should be a day at the end of the Plains chase season were we hold a party for those guys or something.

 

[Robert Dewey]

I like to see that they addressed my concerns over the use of "0%" probabilities in their severe watch probability tables. I noticed that they now use "<5%", which will save their butts when it comes to any whiners/news agencies that like to hound different forecast agencies...

 

[Rich Thompson]

Originally posted by Jeff Snyder+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeff Snyder)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Rich Thompson

If anyone here has any comments or suggestions for improvements, we do listen. I can't promise that we'll agree or be able to make the change, but we'll consider most requests within reason :^)

Rich T. - SPC

Rich,

I was wondering if the criteria for Public Severe Weather Outlooks (PSWOs) have changed? In the past, it seemed as though they were reserved for the most severe of severe weather outbreaks - those events that occur maybe 2-3 times of year. Either High Risks or very large MDT risks... This year, however, it seems as though the 2 that have been issued (on 4-21 and 4-29) probably wouldn't have been issued in past years. I'm assuming that population density has something to do with it (e.g. Little Rock, Jackson, and Nashville metro areas looked like they could have been affected today), but I'm not sure how large of a role that plays in the decision to hoist a PSWO. Ya'll do an awesome job, so this question/comment shouldn't be viewed in any sort of negatory light, but it seems as though there's been a policy change in regards to PSWOs (like the MDTs) as well.[/b]

Jeff,

The criteria for a PWSO used to be a HIGH risk, but we decided to try PWSOs for all MDT risks this year. You just started seeing them recently because it took a while to update some of our software. The idea behind the change was to get a little more exposure for the convective outlooks on days when something substantial may occur.

Along those lines, the threshold for a MDT risk has also been lowered slightly from the past few years. The categorical outlooks are related directly to the probabilities - we tried lowering the MDT threshold for hail/wind from >= 35% + SIG to >= 35%. There have been more MDT risks this spring than in the past, though most of them would have been MDTs in previous years (e.g., the 35% SIG hail/wind areas, or 15% TOR). We've been a bit lax in making some of these changes public knowledge, though I believe we'll address the categorical and probabilistic outlook relationships soon via the SPC web page.

Rich T.

 

[Bobby Lang]

Hey Rich and everybody else @ the SPC,
I know I'm late as always :roll: , but just wanted to say as everyone has said that you guys do one heck of a job. Keep up the good work :wink: !