[EAS] concerning the request for new weather Event Codes

Thu Jul 7 12:27:12 CDT 2016

Good discussions that should continue in each region. 

There are strong concerns of "messaging flooding" but there also is not a clear understanding of the actual "storms". Many in the NWS are trying to seek new improved solutions for an old limited EAS system. Unfortunately, it is not just a matter or the same "storm"
going from one location to the next. The last thing we want to do is message flood and overwarn so that the public we are serving
are not taking proper action to avoid the dangers. Each major event there are often extensive surveys of the public and officials to document how effective the warning or watch messages are (the meteorology and the warning itself). With 122 weather forecast offices there is definitely one nearby to voice local concerns about broadcasting needs and requirements. 

Thunderstorm 'Watches' are issued for large areas such as half of a state. They are issued in advance, up to 12 hours. The 'warning' message is designed
to be imminent danger for a much smaller location (defined polygon) and to take action (shelter) or avoid flooded roads while travelling. There may
be better methods but as of today the short duration warning message that goes to the Wireless Emergency Alert may be your only notification
that you are driving into a washed out road, that a wall of water is coming down the mountain while it is sunny, or that a tornado is a few blocks from your house versus just a strong thunderstorm. 

If one "warning" was issued for an entire medium to large county valid for 5 hours (the window of daily thunderstorms) would that be effective? This has
been suggested but likely will not  meet anyone's mission. 

It is not uncommon to have 2-7 different (separate) thunderstorms and are impacting individual events in a large county and busy summer day. All of these "events" are likely occurring at a different time of the day. Entirely different scenario would be a winter storm. 

The other issue is that out West the storms have very little movement (summer monsoon) so they do not travel from one area to another. Rather they live for 1 to 2 hours (move little) and an entirely new storm (cloud) may form nearby or tens of miles away in another location.  MIdwest and Eastern US thunderstorm events can often move rapidly (30-70 mph), cover much more square miles (larger and organized versus sporadic) which results in the same "storm"
having additional new "warnings" issued downstream over a large swath of land (many counties). The only way to visualize what is actually occurring is on a map
and not a daily series of text product messages. Out West it looks like pepperoni on the pizza, and scientifically it is quite random though thunderstorms
tend to favor high deserts, mountains and valley convergencing areas (similar to how high wind favors areas used for wind farms). 

Try these links in real-time or in past viewing mode for any location in the US.

https://nwschat.weather.gov/live or view old events at https://nwschat.weather.gov/vtec (substitute vtec with lsr) or follow your local weather.gov page as 
suggested.

One thing for sure is that efforts are made to validate every "storm" whether it be on the radar (proactive before it hits the ground as rain, flood or wind), using social media, emergency management and the public, and 'following' the storm in a survey. The lead time before damaging impact has increased since the warnings are often a forecast/prediction (not just a reaction to a report) but this can also lead to false alarms. NWS needs the broadcasters as a voice of the life and property
saving messaging. 

Alex Tardy
Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Manager
Emergency Preparedness and Partner Collaboration
Education and Outreach Coordinator 
Media and Public Information Officer
Cell: 858-442-6016  Office: 858-675-8700
Skywarn Program Manager
NOAA/National Weather Service
11440 W. Bernardo Court, SanDiego, CA
weather.gov/sandiego

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On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 3:41 PM, Mike McCarthy <towers at mre.com> wrote:
>They still issues both watches. Awareness of the watches has never been
>greater...which is a good thing.

>Message flooding of warnings is the problem which there needs to be a
>balance. The root problem is the use of timed polygons. It is not uncommon
>for the same county to have multiple warnings for the same storm simply
>because the projected polygon time doesn't cover a whole county.

>Particularly on SVR's and FFW's which are broad swath warnings covering
>only a portion of a given county. If a whole county is going to be
>impacted, then issue the warning for the whole county once. No two...or
>even three times.

>Or in the case of tornadoes, multiple spotted and/or radar indicated
>tornadoes are warned in different parts of the county and/or times.  A
>couple years ago, Kankakee County here had 4 concurrent TOR's in progress
>in a county less than 750 square miles.  That evening saw one of our
>stations issue 6 TOR's in a span of only a couple hours and upwards of 10
>the whole event.

>MM

>On Wed, June 22, 2016 4:35 pm, Tim Stoffel wrote:
>>

>> It used to be in the olden days, they would issue a severe thunderstorm
>> watch for an area, and then warnings for specific areas. This was in the
>> pre-internet days, when you would learn of this via radio and TV. I think
>> they still issue tornado watches, but you don't (at least not here) hear

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