NWS Central Region Impact Based Warning Experimental Product

[Greg Stumpf]

Excellent continuation of the discussion, imho.

I'd like to contribute more, but before so, I request that the ST moderators change the title of this thread. The official name of the NWS Central Region demo is "Impacts Based Warnings" (IBW), and not intensity-based radar-indicated warnings. I'm not going to defend nor criticize a project that does not exist.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Almost there: "NWS Central Region Impacts Based Warnings (IBW) demo" would be most appropriate. Again, not radar-indicated!

 

[rdale]

Obviously the decision to not reissue warnings when they go from low end to high end (other than a TE) is horrible, which makes this useless for most alerting systems. But this is still an excellent writeup from NWS Wichita http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=ict&storyid=79638&source=0

The National Weather Service office in Wichita, KS will be taking part in a new severe weather warning pilot project this upcoming severe weather season.
This is an Impact Based Warning pilot project that is not aimed at the general public.


Impact Based Warning Pilot Project

This project is primarily aimed at those in decision making positions and allows them a better avenue to know which storms may possess greater impacts.

The main changes to the warnings will be the inclusions of tags at the very end of a warning and is considered supplemental data (generally not seen by the public). We will issue Severe thunderstorm warnings (SVR) as we have in the past and continue to add hail and wind tags at the very bottom of the warning as we have in the past. However, if we are anticipating the hail size to be 2.75 inches or larger and/or the winds to be 80 mph or greater, the follow up statement will include within the body of the warning "This is a very dangerous storm". These selections will not precipitate a new warning to be issued, therefore, it is not a tiered warning system.

There are times in which a particular storm may have a small potential for a tornado (landspout, gustnado, QLCS) to occur and the forecasters confidence is to low to issue a tornado warning. Therefore, within the initial SVR warning or followup severe weather statement a "Tornado...possible" tag may be appended within the supplemental data at the very bottom of the warning. This replaces the phrase “Severe thunderstorms can and often do produce tornadoes with little or no warning” as mentioned above. This allows those in decision making positions an opportunity to follow that particular storm a bit closer and monitor for a potential upgrade to a tornado warning. This tag will not occur with every SVR warning issued.

As for tornado warnings, they will continue to be issued as they have in the past. However, if by using our scientific expertise in analyzing the atmosphere, interrogating the radar data, and listening to spotters observing the storm we feel a greater threat for significant damage is possible, we will add a tag (Tornado damage threat...significant) at the bottom of the warning to allow the decision makers an opportunity to know the potential impacts this particular storm has. Within the body of the warning, the phrase "this is a particularly dangerous situation" will be added into the warning text. Once again, this will not precipitate a new warning being issued, it will be appended to the bottom of a severe weather statement. However, there will be times in which the initial warning issuance may have this information.

In a rare case the the tag (Tornado damage threat...catastrophic) may be utilized when a confirmed tornado has the capability to produce catastrophic impacts to citizens. The NWS does have the option to issue a new warning if this is expected as it may be in everyone's best interest to be alerted again. Within the body of the warning, the phrase "A tornado emergency for abc city" will be added into the warning text. Once again, the usage of this tag should be very rare.

Lastly, the NWS is working very closely with social scientists throughout this entire project. They along with our partners (media, emergency managers, and private vendors) will provide input throughout the project to help mold the final model to be utilized across the country.


If you seek more information, feel free to contact;

 

[Patrick Marsh]

MOD Note: I have changed the name of this thread to what appears to the name of the experiment/product based on NWS Central Region documents.

 

[Mike Johnston]

Sounds like the document which Rob is citing shows this is pretty much a fait accompli to be "utlilized across the country" rather than an experiment to evaluate how it actually works in practice.

 

[rdale]

Not really - this was originally intended to be a national experiment but changed at the last minute. I have no idea what the process will be in order to push this nationally, but it certainly isn't going to happen this year. I expect WRN meetings to look long and hard at this over the next few months prior to having it become the standard. I'm far from the first to note that the SVS product doesn't fit into the current watch/warning structure, so hopefully that would be addresses at some point.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

rdale, who told you this was going to be a national experiment. I can assure you that this did not come from John Ferree, the NWS Severe Weather Services Coordinator...

 

[rdale]

The comments field of http://products.weather.gov/viewExperimental.php?selrow=467

It also shows that this was originally approved Dec 19th, so I assume it was high on the agenda at the Dec 15th WRN conference since it was that far along, right?

 

[Patrick Marsh]

The "deciding official" was the NWS Central Region Director, not someone from NWS HQ. This is a NWS CRH initiative, not a HQ one. CRH "recommended" this be a national experiment, but that doesn't mean it was intended to be one. It was not discussed at the WRN conversation; in fact, I don't recall seeing the Central Region Director at the workshop (not to say, he wasn't there, mind you).

 

[rdale]

CRH "recommended" this be a national experiment,

Thanks for clarifying.

It was not discussed at the WRN conversation

Maybe it was such a small item that nobody ever thought to bring it up

 

[Mike Johnston]

So, it's been a couple of years. Does anyone know if there are actually verification statistics on this controlled experiment?

Looking at the Central Region Headquarters web page on this project, I can't find anything new. Even the 2012 examples don't even show up.

 

[rdale]

A lengthy report was completed a few months ago but never released publicly.

 

[Mike Johnston]

Yeah, we'll see how the verification of TE's, and levels 1, 2 and 3 actually go. I predict the verification stats won't exactly be transparent to the public, nor will anything in this actually advance the science itself.

So, I guess my guess two years ago might have been a good guess. Yet, I see the bureaucratic inertia continues this year - expanded again, even.

 

[Mike Johnston]

IMO you can't jump to conclusions about an experiment when they will be formally verified.



The possibility exists that you are wrong though, and having set criteria along with valid verification will help us answer that question.

So much for valid verification.

 

[John Wetter]

There was a session at the Iowa Severe Storms & Doppler Radar Conference about this with some verification numbers. Numbers for the 'enhanced' wording for warnings was good, but not perfect; huge contrast between enhanced wording to 'all other' warnings, but I think that could be expected. For more info, you'll likely want to get the conference DVD.