Watch Outlines

[Robert Dewey]

Sorry to say, Benton Harbor to Coldwater won't be seeing severe weather today. I've seen worse cases of counties trapped between watches.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Just notice it's been fixed. I'm guessing IWX hadn't posted the watch update at that time.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

The Watch dissemination process is a mess of products. Basically, you have the WOU and WCN. The WOU is the Watch Outline Update and is the quadrilateral that used to be how watches were issued. The WCN is the Watch County Notification, and is what actually adds a county to the watch. In the example you showed, it appears that for those three counties had not had a WCN issued for them just yet.

 

[Tim Shriver]

WOU issued by the SPC.
WCN issued by the local WFO..

The WOU is issued when a new watch is issued (and at the top of the hour) and comes out minutes before the local WCN.

But if the local WFO cancels or adds a county to the watch the
WCN is the product that will contain this information.

Not even the NWS displays keep up with it most of the time.

Tim

 

[Mike Smith]

My two cents: This whole process has gotten unnecessarily complex. When dealing with critical information, simpler is always better.

 

[Tim Shriver]

My two cents: This whole process has gotten unnecessarily complex. When dealing with critical information, simpler is always better.

I agree to some point. If the SPC is going to issue the watches
I think they should also handle the changes to the watches
instead of the local WFO.

The local WFO would still control what counties they want removed or added
but would inform the SPC and they would issue the WOU ASAP. (not wait until the top of the next hour)
That would eliminate the need for the WCN.

Not sure we could get either party to agree on this or not.

The addition of VTEC helps this issue in small ways.

Tim

 

[Patrick Marsh]

The local WFO would still control what counties they want removed or added but would inform the SPC and they would issue the WOU ASAP. (not wait until the top of the next hour) That would eliminate the need for the WCN.

You wouldn't want to eliminate the WCN; you want to get rid of the WOU. The WCN is the product that contains the counties. What you would want is to give the SPC total control over the watch and let them issues the WCN, whenever they feel like it.

Not sure we could get either party to agree on this or not.

Probably not with the current NWS leadership in one of the regions. This person wants to strip SPC of the watch products and give it to the local offices.

With this said, the final decision as to whether a watch is issued or not (and the type of watch) lies with the SPC forecaster. The local office can make suggestions, but they are just that...suggestions. Most of the time the SPC will follow the suggestion, but not always. In this regard, SPC is still in control.

As for contacting the local offices, several SPC forecasters I've talked to actually like the idea of the coordination phone calls and soliciting feedback from the local offices. This gives the SPC a sense of buy-in from the local offices and is good for fostering collaborative environments.

However, the products that must then be issued to formally issue the watch, certainly needs cleaning up.

 

[Tim Shriver]

I agree Patrick. When the change was first made folks tried to get the WOU to, let say. be more useful they didnt get very far.

It is a pain having to watch for two products instead of one.

With the VTEC in place it does help with weeding things out.

Tim

 

[rdale]

It's really not that big of a deal... Most meteorologists know when an area is no longer under a threat, regardless of that showing up in a WCN/WOU.

 

[Mike Smith]

Rob,

For you, me, and most television meteorologists you are right. But, there is a significant number of presenters of weather who don't know when a threat has ended. It is essential for the NWS to be able to provide those individuals with this key information.

As I said in the earlier post, the current watch dissemination system is unnecessarily complicated.

Mike

 

[rdale]

I see what you're saying, but I think those weather presenters have much more potential for damage with their "radar interpretation" attempts (and frequent horrible failures.) Keeping a county in a watch a little longer than necessary if pretty low on the overall concern list...

 

[Mike Smith]

I think those weather presenters have much more potential for damage with their "radar interpretation" attempts (and frequent horrible failures.)

In the 1970's, we had a presenter rush on the air with a "scoop" -- that huge hail was going to occur in Sumner Co., Kansas. He said they had not yet determined a direction of movement.

It was AP. The sky was literally clear.

I do not believe every television weatherperson needs to be a meteorologist. But, if they aren't meteorologists, they shouldn't do scientific ad libs. In order to keep that to a minimum, I want it as easy as possible to use the information from the NWS or from a private weather briefing service like AccuWeather.

 

[Tim Shriver]

You would be shocked at how many mets I have as customers..

Tim