[EAS] NWS to reduce WEA FFWs

[Gary Timm]

In the latest issue of the NWS Aware Newsletter, NWS announced that it will be launching the Impact-Based Warning (IBW) format for Flash Flood Warnings (FFWs) beginning on or after September 16, 2019, with all NWS Offices issuing FFWs in IBW format by late November 2019. IBW assigns a "threat tag" to each FFW, and only FFWs tagged as Considerable or Catastrophic will be issued on WEA. This is expected to reduce the number of WEA FFWs.

NWS stated in its Fact Sheet, "The NWS issues more than 4,000 FFWs each year with a range of impacts on lives and livelihoods. Currently, all FFWs trigger WEAs. Public perception is that the NWS over-alerts FFWs, and FEMA has noted a large number of complaints about overnight WEAs for FFWs with perceived little impact. With this change to impact-based FFWs, the NWS is aiming to improve the public response to FFWs by providing easily readable information and issuing WEA alerts only for flash flood events that require immediate life-saving action."

Most of the NWS documentation on this change deals with WEAs, and at first I didn't see any mention of EAS FFWs via NOAA Weather Radio.
However, in following the links to the various documents at the end of the article, I found this in the first paragraph of the "Product Description Document": "FFW issuance using these tags will be implemented on NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System (EAS) at a later date based on implementation of software modifications."

So it sounds we will have fewer WEA FFWs now, with fewer NWR/EAS FFWs coming later.

Page 1 of this edition of NWS Aware contains the FFW IBW article:
https://www.weather.gov/media/publications/Aware/19aug-aware.pdf

If you are interested in subscribing to the NWS Aware Newsletter, contact:
Melody Magnus, Managing Editor: Melody.Magnus at noaa.gov

Gary Timm
WI SECC