Some offices not following the NWS directives for TOR's!

[rdale]

"the DDC office no longer gives pathcast TIMES... "

Why?

 

[Mike Umscheid]

"the DDC office no longer gives pathcast TIMES... "

Why?

The DDC CWA does not have very many towns compared to most other parts of the country. There is a lot of open rural area, and if there's no town impacted, we would get a lot of "X miles south of Y town at Z time". If a thunderstorm is quite large, the arbitrary location with reference to a town can be confusing and sometimes misleading. A location may be getting strong winds and heavy rain in advance of a pathcast time as well. Yes, customers can be confused when we tell them that a severe thunderstorm will be there at Z time and they may be getting non-severe thunderstorm conditions well before the predicted severe thunderstorm time. There can also be inconsistencies in the times from initial warning and subsequent SVSs, and this can be due to only subtle change in the warning operator's track of the storm. Again, more unnecessary confusing to the public, in our eyes.

This is something fairly new our office is doing, and we'll just have to wait and see how the public/media responds. In our eyes, there's just too much uncertainty in nailing down an exact minute for a town in the warning. We prefer to keep it simple by saying "hey, this location will be impacted at some point during the valid time of this warning."

Mike U

 

[Jeff Snyder]

This is something fairly new our office is doing, and we'll just have to wait and see how the public/media responds. In our eyes, there's just too much uncertainty in nailing down an exact minute for a town in the warning. We prefer to keep it simple by saying "hey, this location will be impacted at some point during the valid time of this warning."

Mike U

That makes sense to me...

The by-the-minute feature relative to the general uncertainty of future storm motion, etc, reminds me of another thing quirk I have -- street level mapping... I always get a kick out of local media when they pull up a radar map and zoom into a storm, oh, 120-150 miles away. Then, they zoom in and activate street-level mapping, and proceed to say EXACTLY (i.e. the intersection) where the rotation is over... But wait, being 120 miles from the radar site, they are telling where the mid-level rotation is, not necessarily where the low-level rotation is.. By being so detailed in their analysis, I think it portrays a false sense of security for those in the area but not living on the exact street they say the rotation is... There've been cases where the actual tornado was 5-10-15 miles from the center of the rotational couplet on the lowest scan... The only time when real time street-level mapping should ever be used is when the feature-of-interest is close enough to the radar to make using street-level mapping valid. I know there are politics / ratings behind a lot of this, but it just bugs me...

 

[Scott Roberts]

There is a lot of open rural area, and if there's no town impacted, we would get a lot of "X miles south of Y town at Z time". If a thunderstorm is quite large, the arbitrary location with reference to a town can be confusing and sometimes misleading.

Speaking as a user of those products, I always found it confusing to hear "17 miles SSW of East Podunk or 12 miles E of Hicksboro" as a storm location/path forecast. In the same token, leaving out all pathcast times doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either. I like a blend of sorts...when it's going to pass over a town, use the town name, and pathcast the time as "by (time)" instead of "at (time)." When no town is in the path during the forecast period, "rural portions of (county)" works very well.

 

[mikegeukes]

Severe Weather Statements:

On a similar note, I notice some NWS offices do a excellent job, when it comes to issuing timely Severe Weather Statements, telling you the severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning continues for such and such county and having statements telling you when the warning is cancelled. Some offices I have notice do a fair job in issuing severe weather statements.

I have also notice a few times this year, seeing a Tornado Warning was issued for such and such county and never seeing a SVS sayiing the Tornado Warning was cancelled for that county.

Mike

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Severe Weather Statements:


I have also notice a few times this year, seeing a Tornado Warning was issued for such and such county and never seeing a SVS sayiing the Tornado Warning was cancelled for that county.

Mike

Mike, of course if the tornado warning goes until expiration and never needs to get cancelled, there's not going to be a cancellation weather statement. If the metr has timed it correctly, there really shouldn't be too many cancellations.

 

[rdale]

The NWS procedures state that a SVS should be issued for a warning.

- Rob

 

[rdale]

Hate to rehash an old topic but was checking on ILX (they had Peoria County under a TOR for 86 minutes) and found that the NWS directives clearly state that Tornado Warnings should not exceed 45 minutes. SVR's can be up to an hour.

Severe Weather Statements should be issued at least once during a warning and may be issued at the conclusion.

- Rob

 

[Glen Romine]

Originally posted by rdale
Hate to rehash an old topic but was checking on ILX (they had Peoria County under a TOR for 86 minutes) and found that the NWS directives clearly state that Tornado Warnings should not exceed 45 minutes. SVR's can be up to an hour.

Severe Weather Statements should be issued at least once during a warning and may be issued at the conclusion.

- Rob

The Peoria county warning was cancelled at 11:15 :

390
WWUS53 KILX 060414
SVSILX
ILC143-179-203-060430-

SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LINCOLN IL
1115 PM CDT MON JUL 5 2004

...A TORNADO WARNING CONTINUES FOR WOODFORD AND TAZEWELL
COUNTIES UNTIL 1130 PM CDT...
...THE TORNADO WARNING FOR PEORIA COUNTY HAS BEEN CANCELLED...

So the warning was in effect for 52 minutes, not 86. A tornado was reported with this cell at 10:40 - so a lead time of 17 minutes, which is actually pretty good. An SVS was also issued at the time of the tornado report - so I don't really see anything wrong with how the situation was handled there (so 2 SVSs for the Peoria county warning). Regulations may advise that the warning times are limited, but there could be reasons behind the choices to sometimes have extended warnings times that are not outwardly apparent, so it seems unfair to lambaste the weather service on every occasion.

Brown county in in NE was under a TOR for 57 minutes last night - but in two separate warnings. To me, this is no better or worse than if they had issued a single hour long warning and put out an SVS at at the mid-point (they actually issued several SVSs).

I currently live in the ILX CWA, and I do have my fair share of gripes with their performance - but these are more based on whether a warning should be issued for a particular storm and for what area (county-wide vs. partial county - the latter is NOT done here). Warning duration just doesn't seem like that big of a problem so long as there is still active convection within the warned area.

Did you ever contact Jeff last at GRB? Chris Miller is the WCM at ILX: [email protected]

Why don't you contact them about your concerns, and we could all benefit from a better understanding of the basis for their office's decisions on warning times.

Glen

 

[rdale]

"So the warning was in effect for 52 minutes, not 86."

A Tornado Warning was issued for Peoria Co at 10:04pm until 11pm, then a Tornado Warning was issued for Peoria Co at 10:23pm til 11:30pm. Not quite sure why that happened but in any case 10:04 til 11:30 is a 86 minute warning. 10:04p - 11p is 56 minutes, 10:23p til 11:30p is 67 minutes. The NWS directives quite clearly state that Tornado Warnings should not exceed 45 minutes when issued. It does not mean that you can issue an hour+ warning and cancel early - it says that when tornado warnings are issued they are to be for a duration of 15-45 minutes.

"so 2 SVSs for the Peoria county warning"

I was responding to Mike & Jeff above.

"Did you ever contact Jeff last at GRB? "

You may have missed my previous post - it appears GRB was more of a coding error because the met tried to tweak things he wasn't supposed to tweak and the UGC was messed up. That's not clueless, just a mistake.

"Why don't you contact them about your concerns, and we could all benefit from a better understanding of the basis for their office's decisions on warning times."

I'm just forwarding these to the HQ contact for the directives, I figure since he is the one responsible for making sure that TOR's never exceed 45 minutes he'd get a little more respect from the offices. It amazes me to see so many offices going against the regulations that were written to make sure all offices do things the same way instead of individual forecasters making things up on their own...

- Rob

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Originally posted by rdale
The NWS directives quite clearly state that Tornado Warnings should not exceed 45 minutes when issued. It does not mean that you can issue an hour+ warning and cancel early - it says that when tornado warnings are issued they are to be for a duration of 15-45 minutes.

A lot of this mess could be solved if severe weather warnings could be issued by polygon alone, and throw out the notion of warnings tied to geopolitical boundaries - afterall storms aren't guided by these boundaries. The technology has been here for years. Even though NWS folks use the polygon tools in AWIPS, the polygons are more often than not still "tweaked" to the county borders, and the final warning product is mainly tied to the counties. The polygon coordindates are an "afterthought" placed at the very bottom of the warning.

Then, for each severe weather event, 15 or 30 minute updates could be issued with another polygon. Instead of Severe Weather Statements, this is a new warning (and polygon) replacing the old warning (and polygon). Whatever counties, parts of counties, or communities affected (inside the polygon) would receive the warning. Re-issuances of polygons takes care of the situations where storms move out of a region. If a storm weakens, then the cancellation is tied to the final polygon warning.

Did I make sense?


greg

 

[rdale]

Polygons

AMEN! Much of my time during tornado events is telling people what part of the county is not involved... Sounds like our local office is finally going to look at partial county TOR's when it's obvious which should make things easier.

Unfortunately the wx infrastructure has not developed - probably due to lack of a push from NWS. Our Barons display can utilize the polygons but the WSI can't. Many counties don't have siren systems that allow for partial sounding - either all or none. For non-visual delivery methods (i.e. NWR, radio, pager) I think it would be difficult to explain but in that case you go with the "county method" and direct people to other sources for a detailed display?

- Rob

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Originally posted by Greg Stumpf
The technology has been here for years. Even though NWS folks use the polygon tools in AWIPS, the polygons are more often than not still \"tweaked\" to the county borders, and the final warning product is mainly tied to the counties. The polygon coordindates are an \"afterthought\" placed at the very bottom of the warning.
Did I make sense?

That makes sense, I only wonder how customer-friendly that product would be. People know what county they live in and tend to know their position relative to surrounding counties. If they heard a polygon described over NWR or even in scrolling text on their television, could they visualize the warned area to determine their own position relative to it? That is, if their community isn't mentioned or if they live in an unincorporated rural area?

Even with as much practice as chasers have, it's still a trick to visualize perfectly a tornado watch parallelogram from coordinates over the radio.

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

People know what county they live in and tend to know their position relative to surrounding counties.

I don't have any hard stats but sadly a significant number of people don't know their county and/or have difficulty finding their location on a county map. Many do, but many don't.

Scott

 

[Mike Hardiman]

I'm just forwarding these to the HQ contact for the directives, I figure since he is the one responsible for making sure that TOR's never exceed 45 minutes he'd get a little more respect from the offices. It amazes me to see so many offices going against the regulations that were written to make sure all offices do things the same way instead of individual forecasters making things up on their own...
- Rob

If you read the directives carefully, you'll see that the rule is "Valid times should be 15 to 45 minutes..."

The way the directive-ese jargon works, it means that 15-45 minutes is a recommended guideline, not a hard rule. A hard rule would have used the term "SHALL."

Offices are given the ability to extend the valid times if they think the situation warrants it. You may disagree with the meteorological validity of the warning times, but that's a whole other arguement, one that would best be addressed by contacting the forecaster or WCM from the office that actually issued the warning, not someone in a glass bubble up at HQ.

You'd be amazed at the frustrating flaws in WarnGen, which is luckily being sent out to pasture soon. Hopefully whatever replaces it isn't even worse. I'd be willing to bet many forecasters would rather issue a warning for longer than the recommended 45 minutes, rather than having to deal with re-issuing the warning, especially if software issues may result in something not being transmitted correctly, causing even more confusion amongst the public.

Oh yeah... clearly,
*These opinions are my own, and not my employer's, and are being submitted from the comfort of my own home on my own time...*

-Mike