Why Businesses Should Use AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions

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Last week, The Vane called this a "ridiculous tornado forecast." Hook echo and other indications of a tornado seemingly forecast to jump over a county and strike the next.

This is an artifact of how the National Weather Service's warning system is constructed. Each of their 122 offices has a number of counties for which they are responsible for issuing warnings of storms. Things, too often, don't work as they should at the boundaries between the offices' county warning areas. 
In this case, the tornado warning was issued by Wilmington's office but its projected path went through one of Charleston's counties. The two offices did not agree, thus the ridiculous tornado warning -- and, a great deal of confusion. Confusion can cost lives as we saw in the 2011 Joplin tornado.

Another issue is that some NWS offices grossly overwarn of tornadoes. Here is a warning from Denver's NWS office yesterday. There is no such thing as a 50-mile wide tornado.

This is why businesses should work with AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions to prevent confusion and insure you receive the most actionable and timely information to protect your people and property. Since you are dealing with a single organization, these situations never occur.

Comments

  1. BrianJune 9, 2014 at 10:36 AM

    Clearly in the first case there was a lack of coordination between NWS Charleston and NWS Wilmington OH.

    I do take exception to your NWS Denver comments. Here is preliminary information on the tornadoes in the NWS Denver CWA:

    At this time it appears 8 tornadoes occurred on Sunday in our warning area. 6 of these were over northeast Colorado while the other 2 were in Park County. More details will be available in the next few days as more information is collected.

    1115 AM TORNADO 3 NE FAIRPLAY 39.25N 105.96W 06/08/2014 PARK CO
    APPROXIMATE 5 MINUTE TOUCHDOWN IN OPEN COUNTRY WITH DAMAGE TO ROOF OF A STRUCTURE.

    1232 PM TORNADO 3 W LAKE GEORGE 38.98N 105.43W 06/08/2014 PARK CO
    TORNADO ON THE GROUND FOR SEVERAL MINUTES. SOME DAMAGE NEAR LAKE GEORGE

    1254 PM TORNADO 2 S GROVER 40.84N 104.23W 06/08/2014 WELD CO

    1258 PM TORNADO AURORA 39.70N 104.81W 06/08/2014 ARAPAHOE CO
    *** 1 INJ *** DAMAGE TO CONSTRUCTION TRAILER AND GOLF CARTS.

    0112 PM TORNADO 5 ENE PALMER LAKE 39.14N 104.82W 06/08/2014 DOUGLAS CO

    0117 PM TORNADO 4 SSE ROGGEN 40.12N 104.34W 06/08/2014 WELD CO

    0132 PM TORNADO 12 ESE PROSPECT VALLEY 40.01N 104.20W 06/08/2014 WELD CO

    0143 PM TORNADO 15 SSE BENNETT 39.55N 104.32W 06/08/2014 ARAPAHOE CO

    Your picture depicts 6 separate warnings at 1:20p MDT. Maybe the warning over far eastern Park County should've been discontinued (your west-most warning...and actually the county immediately to the east (Teller) is in the NWS Pueblo CWA)...but otherwise the preliminary reported data from NWS Denver completely validates their warnings.

    It's unfortunate you chose NWS Denver as an example where AccuWeather ES would provide better solutions. The data doesn't validate your criticism Mike. Suggest a correction or clarification from you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mike SmithJune 10, 2014 at 7:45 AM

    I appreciate your comments and am happy to have them, Brian. However, the warnings Sunday were too large relative to the threat. My point is that NWS tornado warnings are often too large or otherwise inconsistent. While there were tornadoes Sunday (which I knew when I posted), it doesn't invalidate my comment about the warnings being too large.

    NWS DEN did the same thing Thursday with my brother driving from Limon to Denver. Huge warning versus the genuine threat area.

    ReplyDelete

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