Storm Warnings: Right on Track

Reported October, 2007

Washington D.C. -- It’s important to pay attention to warnings of severe weather in our area, but not everyone takes the alerts seriously. Next time severe weather hits, a new warning system could dramatically save lives and property.

When a severe weather warning is issued, most people perk up and pay attention. Traditionally, warnings are issued for entire counties. But storms are often smaller than the size of a county, and weather forecasters end up warning more people than necessary.

"In the county based system, there’s eight full counties indicated ... that are under a warning, and about a million people total are warned," says Eli Jacks, Ph.D., meteorologist at NOAA National Weather Service in Washington D.C.

Now, a new system called Storm Based Warnings, allows meteorologists to narrow down warnings and alert smaller areas at risk of tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, flash floods and marine hazards.h

"The storm based environment will allow us to forecast for the actual threat rather than for the entire county, and that enables us to eliminate needless warnings for people who are not threatened," Jacks says.

With the new system, the rectangle boxes show more precisely the direction of a storm, and indicate more specifically within the county who exactly is at risk, only alerting the public whose lives or property may be threatened.

"If we can eliminate needlessly warning them and, by way of the storm based warning, reduce 70 percent of the warned area, it’s a tremendous benefit,"Jacks says.

Forecasters can now give more precise public warnings as to where a storm is headed, referring to specific landmarks like highways, shopping centers, parks and rivers.

"The folks to the East here, will have more time to continue their activities before they need to take shelter."

The new storm based warning system is effective starting October 1st, 2007. In the future, the National Weather Service expects to expand their storm based warnings for other weather events, like winter storms.

The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Theresa Eisenman, Public Affairs Officer
NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration)
(301) 713-0622 x150
Theresa.Eisenman@noaa.gov

American Meteorological Society
Boston, MA 02108-3693
(617) 227-2425
http://www.ametsoc.org

American Geophysical Union
Washington, DC 20009-1277
(800) 966-2481
http://www.agu.org

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