Storm-based Warnings

Collaborative Technical Workshop

December 5-6, 2006

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

The NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS) is planning to implement a major change to convective warnings including tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings (see Move to Storm-based Warnings Gains Momentum in the October, 2006 issue of AWARE). Currently, these warnings are issued for counties, parishes, and independent cities. As early as October 2007, the NWS plans to issue these warnings for typically smaller areas not restricted by county boundaries. By focusing on the true threat area, these storm-based warnings will improve NWS warning accuracy and quality, and instill a higher public confidence.

For the past several years, convective warnings have included a list of points (latitude and longitude) outlining the area of greatest risk. Advances in digital display technology (Geographic Information Systems, Internet XML and RSS code, High-Definition TV, PDA, Cell Phones, and others) have allowed for the distribution of graphical images of these outlined areas directly to customers. The plan is to make this area outline (polygon) the area of warning, and no longer include areas of the impacted counties outside of the polygon.

To insure that the format of the storm-based warnings meet the needs of both the public and private sector, Texas A&M University is hosting a collaborative technical workshop. The purpose of this workshop is to facilitate a discussion between the public sector (NWS, FEMA, and emergency managers) and private sector companies to set technical format requirements for these new storm-based warnings. This workshop is primarily targeted for software development and operations staff of the various vendors that partner with the NWS in disseminating weather information. The workshop will be held in College Station, Texas on December 5 and 6. This site is is under development and a registration link will be added soon.

Click here for the final agenda

The Workshop brochure in Adobe Acrobat pdf format is here.

Registration is now open. Click here (opens a new page)