🚀 go-pugleaf

Keith Brewster asks:

...  A local TV station recently did a report
about the impact of false burglar alarms on the police, including the
fact that a major factor in false-alarms was thunderstorms.  This lead
me to wonder if this somehow could, itself, be used as weather
warning data, and be automatically relayed to the NWS (if a person
had to call it in it'd just worsen the overload).  I had heard about a
proposal once to do something similar wrt power outages.  A downside,
I suppose, is that some alarms may be caused by load thunder
(vibrating large windows, etc) and not represent actual threatening
weather.  Anyone have thoughts on this?...

Nope, not a good idea Keith.  There is no way to know what REALLY caused the
 alarms to go off.  Yes, it may have been wind/thunder, but it may have also
 been an unrelated power failure, etc.  Additionally, it doesn't take much
 wind/thunder to set off some alarms, so there would be no way to gauge any
 severity information.

Concerning this thread, my take as the Director of both our Emergency Management
 Department and our 9-1-1 Communications Department:

Yes, 9-1-1 should accept the information (or directly connect you with the EOC).
  However, in both instances, if you are not part of the local organization,
 your information will probably be carded with an "unknown" reliability.  There
 is just no way for the local person to know IF you are REALLY a chaser, how
 serious of chaser you are, how experienced you are, etc.  That's not to say
 that your information won't be used and/or appreciated, it simply means that
 the information may be treated with some suspicion.  Maybe to help clarify
 this...we tend to always get citizen calls of, "hooks in the sky" whenever
 there is any clouds at all and severe weather is forecast.  We also have those
 who call us and try to pass themselves off as something more than they really
 are.  It's a known fact in our business that people lie to the police!

Bottom line is that we would encourage you to call, but don't be discouraged if
 we don't immediately sound the alert based solely on your information.  More
 than likely we'll pass it along to our own spotters, who can hopefully use it
 to confirm/deny the information.  (It may also help them to determine exactly
 what they see from THEIR vantage point!)

Also...if you have an emergency, then 9-1-1 is always the appropriate number to
 call.  Severe weather certainly qualifies as an emergency!


Gayland Kitch   KC5MMU/KAD1363  <gkitch@ci.moore.ok.us>
Director of Emergency Management & Communications
The City of Moore, Oklahoma  <http://www.ci.moore.ok.us/emermgt>
Cleveland County SKYWARN  <http://www.wildstar.net/~plaws/skywarn>

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