National Weather Service Ft Worth Spotter reports

brentford

EF0
Joined
Apr 23, 2010
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45
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Ft Worth
Ive posted this question before but Im still a little perplexed at how Ft Worth filters out reports. Ive made reports over the last few years and none show up. For instance we had a microburst just sw of Ft Worth this morning around 2am. Had multiple power flashes and 50 plus mph winds. ( I know technically not severe criteria) Power is still out and trees down in our area. Does the NWS just automatically disregard reports if you arent ham operators/spotters or law enforcement? Been spotting, chasing for near 20 yrs. It starts to get pointless to report if they are going to disregard it.
 
No two NWS offices are the same, but having worked as a spotter in FWD's area I can assure you that they take all reports and reporting modes very seriously. They have ham radio operators come in and they sit directly across the desk from the forecasters. They monitor spotter network via it's feed into NWS chart. When they expect major impacts they even have folks come in to monitor social media. The call in line is on speaker. Their MIC even thanked chasers on twitter this season.

Not every report made ends up making a LSR. But that doesn't mean that they didn't see it and consider it. When they get a report like the one you made they probably double checked radar and if they didn't see anything they probably asked the ham radio operators to ask to see if any other spotters could confirm. They also may have felt like it was not to SVR threasholds or felt the threat from the event was past. I know they where concerned about downbursts last night, because they specifically asked us to be looking for that last night when they activated us in Collin county. Don't get discouraged- keep making reports.
 
Some of it may be political also. I have had the privilege of getting to know my NWS employees on a personal level and they know me and know that I know what I'm doing so they have never disregarded any of my reports

Sent from my 6070O using Stormtrack mobile app
 
Let's start with the source of your complaint... What leads you to believe they ignored your report? It would not be in an LSR since it's not severe, and it would not result in a warning because it's not severe, so what exactly gave you that impression?
 
Most of us have had reports not make it into LSRs, including tornadoes that we have video/pictures of. It's up to the NWS office to decide whether to officially record a report or not, and unfortunately some just don't make it in. The reasons probably vary from case to case and office to office. Some might be that they have a reason to question the report (maybe if radar doesn't correlate or the environment isn't supportive). Some may be because they are overwhelmed with a big event and/or they received similar reports nearby that make an additional one redundant. I've just accepted that it happens, I wouldn't take it personally. If you make the report, you've done your part.
 
brentford said:
Ive posted this question before but Im still a little perplexed at how Ft Worth filters out reports. Ive made reports over the last few years and none show up. For instance we had a microburst just sw of Ft Worth this morning around 2am. Had multiple power flashes and 50 plus mph winds. ( I know technically not severe criteria) Power is still out and trees down in our area. Does the NWS just automatically disregard reports if you arent ham operators/spotters or law enforcement? Been spotting, chasing for near 20 yrs. It starts to get pointless to report if they are going to disregard it.
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I wouldn't dwell on it. You even said so yourself, it was below severe criteria so naturally it wouldn't show up on the LSR, doesn't mean your report was ignored. Power flashes and outages doesn't mean much unless it's being caused by a tornado, it doesn't take much wind to cause both. Hell, my dad worked for the electric company and it wasn't uncommon for him to being called in because 20-30MPH winds blew transformers and what not.

If it makes you feel any better, I have known the WCM at SGF NWS since I was a teen, I'm 36 years old now. Not only have I known him since I was a teen, but I also have gotten to know many of the meteorologists at SGF NWS over the years, a few of them I have storm chased with.With that said, there are times I make a report to SGF NWS and the report doesn't show up on LSR. Doesn't mean my report was ignored, most likely they already got a report on the same storm from someone else and my report just provided validity to whomever else reported.
 
Thanks for the replies!
Rdale, the only reason I was curious is because a .75in hail report ended up in the LSR. Didn't think that was of severe criteria either.
 
NWS Fort Worth uses 3/4" hail and 58mph winds or higher for severe warnings so LSR's start at 0.75" and likely 60mph with rounding. Can't recall if I've seen a wind LSR at 58 or 59mph. This document is dated Jan 2009 but based on working severe weather for them in the office it looks to still be good data. Warning criteria is on page 12.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/Image/fwd/pdf/swa/NWS_product_guide.pdf
 
Patrick O'Brien said:
NWS Fort Worth uses 3/4" hail and 58mph winds or higher for severe warnings
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Beginning Jan. 5, 2010 the minimum size for severe hail nationwide increased to 1" diameter: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oneinchhail/ . The document you referenced is from 2009. LSRs are sometimes issued for smaller hail, but a warning should not be issued for less than 1" hail unless the event exceeds another threshold (i.e. 58 mph winds).
 
Randy Jennings said:
Beginning Jan. 5, 2010 the minimum size for severe hail nationwide increased to 1" diameter: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oneinchhail/ . The document you referenced is from 2009. LSRs are sometimes issued for smaller hail, but a warning should not be issued for less than 1" hail unless the event exceeds another threshold (i.e. 58 mph winds).
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Well ... a warning may be issued with a report of less than 1" if, based on the radar presentation, the storm has a good chance of producing 1" hail currently or in the near future. I know that is the approach taken by the PHI office (and seems to make sense to me).
 
brentford said:
Thanks for the replies!
Rdale, the only reason I was curious is because a .75in hail report ended up in the LSR. Didn't think that was of severe criteria either.
Click to expand...

3/4" hail LSRs are still issued because hail 3/4" or larger in diameter is required to be recorded in Storm Data.
 
Chris' comments led me to notice something interesting. NWS Instruction 10-1605 does say "Hail 3/4 of an inch or larger in diameter will be entered." It also says "Hail accumulations of smaller size, which cause property and/or crop damage or casualties, should be entered." I noticed in the Jan 2017 Storm Data that in California they list 17 reports of 0.25 inch hail with no injuries/casualties, but it looks like they had to enter a property damage amount and in many cases they entered "0.1K", ($100). In some other cases they entered "5000.00K" ($5,000,000) and a comment of "Damage dollar amounts is a low estimate. Impacts are not fully known, but any individual car crash would likely exceed this amount". I'm thinking they didn't realize that was in $K.
 
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