Why no early tornado warning in Eagle Pass?

[rdale]

As for the communications network - what is being done right now to deal with polygon warnings that cover multiple counties?

So far - nothing. Most SR offices still don't use polygons as they just draw the boxes to match county outlines. It's unfortunate since I do think it's a good idea to implement, but until all of the NWS starts using them next year there's not much for the vendors to do. And as long as no cross-CWA warnings are issued, vendors won't need to do anything different.

 

[David Wagener]

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.

It will be interesting to see what kind of moves are made when it comes to issuing advisories/warnings for adjoining areas. The Toledo area you mentioned has always been a frustration for me...mainly because I've seen how NWSCLE takes a passive stance on TOL compared to the rest of their FA. I think it is one of those odd ball areas where you have the metro area essentially covered by three different offices - CLE: Toledo proper and east, DTX: Northern suburbs, IWX: Western suburbs. It has stunned me sometimes the lag between warnings when a storm crosses over, and also the vast differences in forecasts. Of course I also felt the new IWX site was placed about 40 miles too far to the west.

Definitely will be good to see some more cooperation when it comes to warning coordination in cross over areas. Hopefully with the polygons, they'll be able to work out exactly how to do it better. There is nothing wrong with giving more advanced warning. It definitely saves lives when everyone knows what it going on. Is an hour lead time too long? Depends. On a May 3rd-scale of event, not at all...when its situation where you have a lot of weak tornadoes jumping up and down - it may become overkill.

 

[rdale]

Not only three different offices - but two different regions, each having different criteria (not speaking for convective severe weather but for other products.) While I appreciate Greg's hope for cross-office coordination, it sounds much better in theory than I think it will be in action.

IWX was interesting - I went over there with two other NW Ohio Skywarn reps wanting to work on a way to get our reports to their system (since about a third of our counties went to them after the switch.) We were somewhat politely told that those reports weren't really needed, but we could relay through a chain of three repeaters and if enough people were in the loop they would get that info. Fortunately things have improved since some of the original members left...

 

[David Wagener]

Good to know things have gotten somewhat better. The media coverage there still leaves something to be desired...but back on topic.

Looks like EWX has learned from any alleged mistakes of the past. Storm coming into Maverick county has plenty of warning on it now.

 

[rdale]

Now it's just CYA though... Tornado warning issued for an hour and the storm never made it across the state line before it expired. They issued another for 50 minutes stating Eagle Pass was going to get hit, but storm motion would have it staying north. Now the cell is all wrapped up and while probably hailing something fierce is not likely to wipe out EP fortunately!

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Based on the severe warning text I don't know why the office didn't just jump straight into a tornado warning. Based on my perception of the politics that go into various warnings (namely bogus warning verification statistics as noted by Edwards and Doswell among others), I read the warning text as this: "There is a severe thunderstorm out there that likely has a strong tornado on the ground but we are going to wait to issue the tornado warning just in case it doesn't to avoid potentially increasing our false alarm ratio". That said, the tornado warning was issued with enough lead time for people to take appropriate action assuming people actually got the warning. Based on the info I've read in this thread it sounds like the community would need more lead time than a typical StormReady community in the Plains. As such, the NWS should have been on the wraning like fleas on dung.