Why no early tornado warning in Eagle Pass?

[rdale]

Interesting to note that Maverick Co is not covered by a NWR transmitter...

 

[Bill Tabor]

Yeah this storm was blatently tornadic even back by Del Rio. Gene and I were watching it on our chase as we intercepted a tornado warned storm a bit north of there near Eden and wishing we had gone there instead. He had a feeling about south Tx this day. Plus there was that tornado the night before at Laughlin AFB near Del Rio.

But wow, we were just watching this thing and thinking man...somebody's in trouble. Obviously a dangerous storm. I agree a Torn warning should have been issued earlier.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Interesting to note that Maverick Co is not covered by a NWR transmitter...

Hmm...that is interesting. What are the implications? How then do the warnings get disemminated to them?

 

[rdale]

There are no warning sirens in that town or on the Mexican side either...

 

[rdale]

A newspaper reported the 15 minutes. According to those who tracked the storm that is not correct - it was not 15 minutes.

Warning was started at 6:47pm and disseminated at 6:51pm, LSR indicates damage was at 7:01pm.

EWX apparently is part of the IEMChat network, but I checked the logs and nothing was in there from anyone.

 

[Jim Tang]

i just dont understand...why not issue a tornado warning anyway...clearly it was producing...just because the people are in mexico, doesnt mean you shouldent issue a tornado warning...isnt the goal of the NWS to protect life and property? it wouldent be that hard to pull the warning out long before it came across the border...i know they dont issue warnings or anything for mexico, but if people are going to die...you should issue a warning...reguardless of political boundarys...

Nowadays, with the polygon warnings, I have seen WFO's that have placed areas not in their CWA, in a warning polygon. I think that it would've been very considerate for EWX to issue a polygon tornado warning that included portions of Mexico.

I don't want to slam but I have never really liked the EWX office. They're standards for issuing tornado warnings are a bit weird and random at times. On the day of the Jarrell tornado, when they issued the warning for the county Jarrell was in, they spelled the name of the city wrong.

Still, I don't know what impact they would've made given the location...

 

[Martin Kucera]

Just on a side note... Is there any footage of the tornado at all ?

 

[rdale]

Nowadays, with the polygon warnings, I have seen WFO's that have placed areas not in their CWA, in a warning polygon.

That's because of sloppy drawing, it's not a good thing to have one office issuing a warning for another office's area!

 

[Greg Stumpf]

That's because of sloppy drawing, it's not a good thing to have one office issuing a warning for another office's area!

Why not?

Actually, there is a move within the NWS in the storm-based warning community to start allowing neighboring offices to issue warning polygons that cross County Warning Area (CWA) borders, before wholly handing off responsbility for that storm to the downstream CWA. This allows for a seamless warning service on that storm. Remember, storms do not care about political boundaries, and these responsible WFOs are all part of the National Weather Service.

 

[Walker Ashley]

Warning was started at 6:47pm and disseminated at 6:51pm

Is this "delay" normal? Four minutes seems like a lot of time in a tornadic situation. And what specifically do you mean the warning was "started" at this time? Thanks in advance for the clarification.

 

[rdale]

Is this "delay" normal? Four minutes seems like a lot of time in a tornadic situation. And what specifically do you mean the warning was "started" at this time? Thanks in advance for the clarification.

The 6:47pm timestamp is in the text of the warning itself... Some times they start a warning and wait for a little bit more info before transmitting, other times it just takes them a bit to decide exactly who to warn or what to put in the text. 6:51pm was the transmit time.

 

[Kevin Bowman]

i just dont understand...why not issue a tornado warning anyway...clearly it was producing...just because the people are in mexico, doesnt mean you shouldent issue a tornado warning...isnt the goal of the NWS to protect life and property? it wouldent be that hard to pull the warning out long before it came across the border...i know they dont issue warnings or anything for mexico, but if people are going to die...you should issue a warning...reguardless of political boundarys...

so our tax dollars now will go to pay for a warning system for Mexico? Mexico, last time i checked is not a state in the United States Of America

 

[rdale]

Remember, storms do not care about political boundaries, and these responsible WFOs are all part of the National Weather Service.

Storms don't care - but the communications network as set up do... SVRCLE always gets me a severe thunderstorm warning for Lucas County. If I also have to alert on SVRIWX for Fulton Co and SVRDTX for Monroe Co (borders to the west and north) you're adding a whole new layer. What if the WFO doesn't think the storm warrants a warning yet it is "forced" on them by the neighbors? Or what if the next WFO issues a TOR anticipating the cell, but the first WFO has drawn a SVR overlapping. Just too much confusion.

 

[Jonathan.Brazzell]

That's because of sloppy drawing, it's not a good thing to have one office issuing a warning for another office's area!

Actually the polygon is not the official warning yet, that does not come until later this year. By then, there is supposed to be a new build of AWIPS that will cut the polygon off for the forecasters at the CWA boundary in the text product.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Storms don't care - but the communications network as set up do... SVRCLE always gets me a severe thunderstorm warning for Lucas County. If I also have to alert on SVRIWX for Fulton Co and SVRDTX for Monroe Co (borders to the west and north) you're adding a whole new layer. What if the WFO doesn't think the storm warrants a warning yet it is "forced" on them by the neighbors? Or what if the next WFO issues a TOR anticipating the cell, but the first WFO has drawn a SVR overlapping. Just too much confusion.

I think it would be less confusing if there was one warning polygon for one threat area, rather than it being split up across geopolitical boundaries (counties or CWAs or whatever).

The point I'm making with my original post is that the neighboring CWAs would coordinate and make a decision on which CWA would have responsiblity for that storm/threat. What difference should it make to the user which WFO issued the warning, as long as they get a concise (and single) message?

As for the communications network - what is being done right now to deal with polygon warnings that cover multiple counties? I'm sure some changes had to be made by the 3rd party vendors that created them. This shouldn't be the responsibility of the NWS. The NWS should be responsible for issuing a warning indicating the threat area, and it is up to third party (private) vendors to disseminate that information in whatever method their customers desire.