NWS Changes Weather Alerts

[wjf]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RO1PN00&show_article=1&cat=0

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The National Weather Service is revamping the way it has issued severe weather warnings for decades with a new system designed to mark a geographic bull's eye where a storm will hit.

 

[LEH]

Strange that this article didn't mention how the new system will relate to SAME broadcasts from NOAA's weather radio. Is this going to enhance SAME coverage (add more codes) or will this be something else.

How will the alerts be sent out so John Q. Public can get them in a timely manner. As we narrow the geographic area down, will we have more or less time to react to the alert? I hope more.

I love articles that leave more questions unanswered than answered. I guess we wait until Monday to see the 'rest of the story'.

 

[rdale]

It won't change a thing at all. TV stations have done this for over a decade, and NWS offices have been issuing these in a "test" mode since 2004.

Your SAME codes won't change, your alerting won't change, your radio station DJ won't change the way he reads it. If you have an automatic alerting system for your pager / cellphone / etc it should false alarm you less often.

 

[PCPA]

SAME codes are six digits so there are 999,999 theoretical combinations. At present the first three digits are assigned for State numbers, leaving 999 possible codes within each State. In my case, Pennsylvania has 67 County codes, leaving 932 other possible codes.

The question is whether the narrowcasting storm forecast would be an overlay in addition to the County-by-County SAME warnings.

 

[rdale]

Thought I answered it... This will in no way affect your SAME code. This won't affect the text product you see, or the NOAA Weather Radio product that the computer reads. This simply adds a line or two of lat/long points at the bottom of the text product which are used by computers to plot the projected path of the storm.

 

[StereoScout]

I've read differently. Ever notice that the first digit in all SAME codes is a 0 ? When fully implemented I've read that the first digit will designates what part of a county can be alerted exclusively. That means that a county can be split up into as many as 9 "alert zones". That of course means that all present SAME weather radios are already compatible and have the ability to "split" alert messages by just editing the first digit for your area when your local NWS is setup to do that.

 

[rdale]

No they are not set up to do that - check the other thread on this issue.

 

[StereoScout]

No they are not set up to do that - check the other thread on this issue.

The keyword here is "YET". From what I read it is coming, and all they will have to do is to do a software upgrade. And then the biggest obstacle then of course will be notifying and explaining the changes to the general public.

 

[rdale]

Again it is not coming. Check the other thread.