🚀 go-pugleaf

Kevin Heyboer wrote:
>
> However, please explain the purpose of having real time radar at an
> EOC....few, if any, emergency managers have the training to properly
> interpret what they are seeing, and typically the only "real time"
> product you can receive is the base echo.....NWS forecasters use several
> different modes to interpret the incoming weather.  Most particularly,
> they scan the storms vertically....and I have NEVER seen this product
> available on the open market.  There is a lot more to forecasting a
> severe thunderstorm than seeing a big red blob on the base echo radar
> screen.   Upper level dynamics, vertical lift, moisture in the
> atmosphere and freeze level being just a few factors that are
> considered.
>
> The only value of radar to the average person is to give them an idea of
> the timing of the storms....the same is true for EOC personnel...and
> that can be obtained off the internet.  In addition, if severe weather
> is expected, the local NWSFO should be transmitting an updated Hazardous
> Weather Outlook and a NOWcast.
The type of emergency operations centers I'm familiar with are at a
sheriff's department,
and an electric utility. Both of those use it not to forecast the
severity, but to determine
the direction of travel of the storm - severity is determined by the
forecasters.
In the case of the electric utility, they use the radar and the
lightning detection network
 (NLDN) to decide whether to open (or leave open) district offices, as
well as to determine staffing requirements. They recently went from
WeatherBrief SAT, to DTN, and I find that they are
constantly looking at the radar on the net because of the low
resolution, and low update rate of DTN. I downloaded EMWIN, and
attempted to show them all the products they could receive, and received
EXTREMELY
negative feedback because of all the bugs (all of which I've reported
with no response, fix, or acknowledgement), and the difficult user
interface. DTN, accuweather, and WeatherBrief SAT are ALL menu driven,
and watching storm motion (direction) is just a mouse or key click away.
I don't see why radar
is not sent more frequently - 10 to 15 mins - it doesn't seem to need
much bandwidth to send it. It would
appear that MRC's implementation of EMWIN, and all it's products is
geared to the amateur forcaster, not
to an EOC, where they just want to see what's going where, and what
warnings are present. In New York, every
EOC that has anything to do with law enforcement receives almost real
time severe weather warnings
via NYSPIN. Selected NWW text is inserted onto NYSPIN, and distributed
to appropriate areas (Broome agencies
get Broome info, etc.) It's also kind of interesting that that data on
GOES is now uplinked using an
almost proprietary modulation technique. Whats wrong with FM2? Also I've
called Zephyrus to ask about
the G4 feed, and what subcarrier they'll be using there. No answer. As
far as error free data goes, I've seen
 text products and graphics be missed for an hour, and this is from the
EMWIN server. I tried to promote this
thing in an EOC environment (what it's intended for), and they don't
like it in it's present form.

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