🚀 go-pugleaf

Ron Clark <ronc@TOP.NET> wrote...

>>spotters in the area or not, NWS still must do its job. As I said yesterday
>>activation of spotters can be requested by any official be it an ARES EC,
>>EMA director, Sheriff, Police Chief, Mayor, ...you get the idea. No matter
>>who calls them out however, it is important to remeber  that the information
>>reported, should go directly to the NWS  first.

To which Rob Dale <rdale@NORDEN1.COM> replied...

>I don't know about that last line... If I've got a confirmed tornado on the
>ground, I'm going to make sure the EMA (in Lucas County the sheriff's
>office) gets that information first so the siren can be sounded, then to NWS
>(not that there is much time difference, but I'm not going to wait for
>Cleveland to say, "Yep that's a tornado" before requesting the button to be
>hit...)

This gets back to an issue I've brought up several times before (at least on
WX-TALK).  That is, who should spotters be making their reports to?  The NWS
might argue that spotters are the eyes and ears of the NWS  --making their
observations so that the NWS can issue warnings --which in turn benefit
local communities.  This model is true when the spotters are reporting
directly to
the NWS but in many cases spotters do not report to the NWS but rather they
report to and are under the direct supervision of local emergency management.
I don't have any figures concerning what percentage of spotters come from
ham radio vs. emergency management (police, volunteer fire/rescue, civil
defense)
but I suspect the latter group accounts for a far greater number than is
generally known.

It is my opinion that the primary use of spotters is to protect one's own
community and the secondary use is to allow the NWS to issue warnings that
benefit other nearby communities.  This sounds 180 degrees out of phase
with how the NWS perceives spotters --especially in light of the fact that
the NWS does the majority of all spotter training.  But let's consider who
these spotters actually are.  The vast majority not meteorology students
or weather freaks but rather local people simply concerned with protecting
their own local communities.

In a previous post I mentioned that if a tornado were sighted 2 miles away
from a community that it would probably be too late (for that community) for
someone to call the NWS, make the report, and for the NWS to get that report
out on the weather radio and to the broadcast media.  A tornado two miles
away, however, might still be far enough away for the local emergency manager
to activate the siren system, cable TV voice override, and get people moving
to shelter.  Ideally, information should flow in a parallel fashion.  That
is, we shouldn't have to say 1) set off the sirens, 2) activate the cable TV
system, 3) call the nursing home, and 4) notify the NWS.  Rather, we should
just be able to say  1) get on the common emergency alert system and make
the report.  Where spotters work directly with emergency management, the
local community (the folks who are about to be hit) get the information first.
I know of one EM coordinator in the St. Louis area who, for right or wrong,
did not want amateur radio operators in his county talking directly with the
NWS.  Instead, he wanted them to report through his EOC.  His reasoning?  He
controls several hundred outdoor warning sirens and did not want to miss
out on tornado reports.  He also wanted to have some form of information
integrity/control concerning reports originating from within his county.

When I mentioned a common NWS-operated radio repeater system before I talked
about it in terms of an outbound information dissemination system (like NOAA
weather radio or NAWAS) but such as system is equally valuable in gathering
information.  Not only does it allow a common channel (wide-area access) for
sending reports to the NWS but it also gives anyone else who needs
information a single place to monitor/interface.  With sufficient
operational guidelines in place, such a system would maximize efficiency and
productivity
of spotting operations, reduce costs, and not rely on one particular group or
individual to make it happen (which is often the case with amateur radio).
It would allow far greater participation (since not everyone needs to be
a ham) and lends itself to area-wide spotter training and registration.

Just a few thouhgts.  ..Chris..
*====================================================================*
Chris Hayes Novy - WA9V   Internet: chris@siu.edu
Southern Illinois Univ.             chris@lib.siu.edu
Systems Administration       Phone: (618) 453-1683 (work)
Morris Library                      (618) 457-6149 (home)
Carbondale, IL 62901-6632      FAX: (618) 453-3440
*====================================================================*

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