Guy54435
Thanks for the response 🙂 I’m also a trained spotter, with several years of basic and advanced spotter courses in Ohio and Florida. I use the app on my tablet. I do see my spotter reports on the Wx app during an event.
If you ever get the chance to tour the NHC in MIA FL, NCAR Mesa lab in Boulder CO, or the NWC campus in Norman OK, do it. They’re really educational. Do some familiarization with the facilities prior to going. They all have educational websites.
It would be helpful for the public to familiarize themselves with the different levels of alerts issued by NWS, NHC and Severe Storms center. Advisories, watches and warnings have different purposes and levels of recommended responses.
Also, read up on different graphics like the spaghetti models. Although different models are constructed for different purposes. They all have one thing in common. They are statistical models with statistical uncertainty. It’s irritating to me to see them emphasized beyond their actual capabilities to drive clicks, views and ratings. I tend to view model projections as a very broad overview since the cones and paths only show probabilities and statistical extremes.
Research, data collection, analysis and modeling updates need to continue. Data collection and computing capabilities and technologies have increased, and efforts to provide more accurate short, medium and long range prediction can save lives and mitigate property damage and loss.
