🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Laws <plaws@BABO.UARK.EDU> wrote:

>Help me out here.  The NWS issues a tornado for a given area, a county,
>say.  This I understand.  Once the warning is issued, whose responsibility
>then is it to blow the sirens?  My understanding is that it's the County
>OES and/or municipal agency's responsibility.  Is the municipality/county
>required to wait for a phone call from the NWS?

Sirens are just one part of an integrated warning system.  They are
installed, maintained, and operated by local government.  Some
governments have done away with them others have expanded them.  There
is no tie directly between the NWS and the local government.  Think of
them as two separate groups with a common interest.  While many
jurisdcition will sound sirens when the NWS issues a tornado warning,
some will use that as only one criterion.  They may sound sirens
before the NWS issues a warning.  Again two different groups with a
common goal.

>Is this hooey?  *I* think so since I was watching the local media at the
>time and saw the radar and saw the warning relayed by the TV-WX guy.  What
>this is probably about is the fact that the WSFO at FSM is in the process
>of being closed and the media want people to believe that the WSR-88D at
>Inola is incapable of predicting storms in Ft Smith.  Well, I'm no
>meteorologist, nor do I play one on the internet, but the images that were
>on TV last night clearly showed rotation in the clouds (it was even on CNN
>this AM).

>So.  Whose responsibility is it to blow the siren?  Is the NWS being made
>a scapegoat?

The Feds always end up the scape goat.  Remember the Emerg. Manager of
Dade County Fl after Andrew crying, "where is the cavalry?"

>(PS the TV-WX guys are saying F3-F4, up to 6/10ths of a mile wide; the
>governor is saying $250M damage; 2 fatalities in Ft Smith, 2 more in
>Madison County.)

WSR-88D radar is not the perfect solution.  It is a better tool than
previous ones, but as I understand it the information is analysed
using "crude algorythms" to identify mesocyclones and tornado vortex
signatures.  That is why the NWS still relies on spotters for "ground
truth."