Countywide versus Storm Specific

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AND WEATHERCALL ARE MAKING WARNINGS PERSONAL

When I was a child in Oklahoma City, OK, fearful of the next tornado delivering thunderstorm, everytime I would hear an outdoor siren, I would worry if that was the 'one'.  The whir of the weather  radio would have my knees buckling in fear.  Fear that my house would soon be gone, and me in it.  Wizard of Oz, Dorothy style.  But with today's National Weather Service warnings and the proper choices of notification companies, those days of unnecessary fear are over!

The National Weather Service, a compilation of 122 individual offices nationwide, are comprised of meteorologists each of whom are highly qualified meteorologists, hydrologists, and/or engineers, monitors the nation's weather 24/7, 365 days a year.  They are truly the best weather warning and alerting organization in the world.  Each tornado, severe thunderstorm and flash flood warning are individually issued by NWS staffers based on radar data, storm profiles, storm spotters, and decades of experience.  Even though there is still a code issued in the warning that stated the counties involved, the individual warnings are geocoded to the specific danger area in the storm, where they draw a 'box' or 'polygon' to show people where the danger is most likely to affect. In the case of this particular warning, parts of several counties would have received traditional county-wide warnings, but only the WeatherCall subscribers inside the red tornado warning box would have been notified.

And beware.  There are numerous weather 'apps' available in your smart phone platform operating company's store either paid or free, but most of them, even though they will tell you they will 'track your phone', the warnings you will receive will likely be based on the COUNTY you are in, not if you are actually inside the storm warning polygon, and worse yet, if you have one of these apps, and have an app-killer that will keep it from working everytime your screen goes blank.

So take charge of your weather safety and sign up for one or more of the many WeatherCall products.  Check out our testimonials page.

Brad Huffines

Meteorologist, National Notification Consultant, WeatherCall