[EAS] EAS triggered - for where?

[Joel Curtis - WCM at NWS Juneau]

Thank you to all that are in this discussion. An overarching theme in these comments is that all of us are looking for specificity in describing the "where" in warning messages also known as alerts. Yes, there are geeks that study warning communications, myself included. Here are some brief points: 

* messages at this point of human evolution are only effectively received by either eyes or ears. (Someday we will be able to have a cannon plug in the back of our heads for a constant feed of data). 

* alert messages are most effective when sent by multiple, if not all channels of communications. Research has shown that receivers require both a "confirmation" and a known, trusted source. Receiving the message by two or more channels can help with both the confirmation and source validation, which then hopefully leads to the receivers taking protective actions. 

* alert messages must include "where" which should answer the question by the receiver: "Do they really mean me?" 

* research and common practice has shown that "where" is by far the most difficult part of the message to communicate. "Where" can require volumes of text for both audio and reading (TV crawl), although a map can sometimes work in the visual. 

* a colleague (Mikko Wilson at KTOO) diagrammed the following: 

,,Affected / Danger Area - The area that an event affects, normally a subset of the Alerting Area.
,,Alerting Area - The area that an alert is addressed to. All recipients in this area should receive the Alert.
,,Publication / Broadcast Area - The area that sees/hears an Alert, normally an area larger than the Alerting Area.

Y'all can see how that fits in with some of the previous discussion. 

So, it seems that the best specificity so far comes with WEA where only cell tower coverage is activated by the alert. This is akin to the desired polygons. CAP has real promise in some sort of massive update of a National EAS. Plenty of folks are experimenting with polygon descriptors. 

I also leave you with this: have you ever tried to describe a warning polygon with text? Remember, text, even Lat/Long or town names, is the only way to convey the audio "where". That is why we are struggling to get beyond County descriptors, and hence, FIPS. 

I could write a book about FIPS in Alaska. 

Thanks for letting me sound-off here. 
Joel in Juneau 

On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 8:33 AM, Dave Kline <dkline at tvmail.unomaha.edu> wrote:
>I remember when the warned areas used to be described as "70 miles either side of a line between [town A] and [town B]."
>Wasn't easy to figure that out, even for people who live "there."
>----------------------------------------
>Dave Kline
>----------------------------------------

>On May 9, 2018, at 11:06 AM, Barry Mishkind wrote:

>>At 05:20 AM 5/9/2018, Mike McCarthy wrote:
>>>This is a problem everywhere a FIPS code covers more than 400 sq. miles.

>>       Not only that, but as I've written many times,
>>       one of the areas FIPS and, by default, NWS
>>       fails is the business of announcing alerts
>>       for a county. Few people driving through
>>       have any idea what county they are in - and
>>       might just be driving directly into a storm,
>>       for example.

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--
Joel Curtis
Warning Coordination Meteorologist
Incident Meteorologist
NWS Juneau, Alaska 
907-790-6803 (o) 907-723-2326 (c)