[EAS] NWS starts sending WEA for destructive thunderstorms next week

[Robert Bunge]

That one hot and humid evening in June, 2012; I knew there was an SVR for my suburban DC home, but didn't pay too much attention.  I was busy.  I did look at the radar and was impressed enough to step outside my front door as it approached, expecting a light show and wind.  Instead, I watched the mature maple tree in front of my house just about bend over double while two trees down the street snapped in half. I heard the top of the maple tree in my backyard break off and fall, with the power going out at about the same time.  A piece of the neighbor's roof landed in the middle of the street.  We were without power for a week.  Not wanting to deal with small kids, some pets in a house with no A/C and no fans and apparent temperatures in the high 90's, we loaded everyone up and visited a friend in North Carolina.  $2.9 Billion in damage according to the derecho/2012 wiki page.  This was greatly surpassed by the 2020 Midwest derecho at $11b.  No flooding.  No tornado. 

My experience in 2012 made me lobby to include SVR's when we turned WEA on.  Calmer heads walked me off the cliff, but it pained me that such events were not going to be warned over WEA.  Love EAS, but that evening, I was up to my head working on the computer.  No TV, no radio.  Just focused on whatever the task I was at the time.  My wife was busy elsewhere in the house, the kids were doing kid things.  It pained me more in 2020 knowing that NWS had been unable to make the needed changes to pull out these extreme SVR's.  Now I am very happy to see this finally happening almost a decade later! 

Please see the NWS link referenced in the original posting that contains some statistics as to how often this trigger is pulled.  

Perhaps your EAS vendor can provide updates that would allow you to filter for these extreme events.  The science of forecasting (and observing with dual-pole/super res on the WSR-88D radars) has improved greatly over the years allowing forecasters to better understand these events and when they will be extreme and have a massive impact on the community.  I personally consider NWS adding tags to existing text products to be a bit of a kludge, but I understand their limitations.  JMHO.  

Cheers,

Bob Bunge

On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 10:15 AM Dave Kline <dklinefmtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>This is why I shut off SVRs for my station. Too many alerts originated for the same storm as it moved across county lines and no specific information about the the actual threat, if any.
>Thunderstorms, in and of themselves, are not the concern. Rather it is the other weather events that may (or may not) be triggered. And pretty much all of these events have their own specific warning. And if they don't, why not?
>Thunderstorms should be dropped from the warning system as they do not specify the nature of the threat. If a thunderstorm spins up a tornado, or causes flash flooding, use those alerts when appropriate.
>SVR?? Do I go to the basement or seek higher ground? The granularity of a tornado or flash flood warning offers suggestions for the correct protective measures one should take.
>SVRs alone do nothing in the way of telling us what is going on. They only add to the increased potential that people will opt out of as many alerts as possible.

>On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 6:28 AM <tpt at sevenrangesradio.com> wrote:
>>Not unusual to have a chain of EAS alerts this time of year when fronts pass. Usually individual storms will pop up out of the front, then rain out in a couple of miles.

>>We'll see if this get to the point of turning off the phone every time a system comes through.

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>Dave Kline - Solder Jockey
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