mappy

If you have any other questions I can ask, let me know! Thanks all!

More from Ashley: I have a PGFD group full of firefighters and enthusiasts (scanner nerds) who will put in interesting or big calls in the chat. Usually it starts with a preliminary dispatch (not vetted as it is reported by public) followed but confirmation by crews, social media, or news,. So the goal is a place to do the same - or even do a call out and ask for reports for big events.

Yes. All reports need to be taken as "unverified" until confirmed. On my end, I will not take action before a verification. When the group is up and ready and I open it up to other EMs - they will be trained to do the same. I do think we should make group rules about that. Feel free to share info like that but people need to say the source, especially if it is second hand.

It is not at this time. Folks still need to pass info on to NWS LWX (or correct office) via the mode they request. We might be able to provide that in the future - but I haven't been able to get LWX as receptive to the VOST concept as other offices I've worked with previously. Perhaps with time!

This is a group to share info amongst each other for our own situational awareness. More of an awareness group of what weather is occurring. Of course, if someone shares a damage report or a report that should be passed on to Sterling, folks are encouraged to still pass that on to LWX the same way they would without the group. This group just allows folks to share what weather is occurring in the state and also will help EMs informally have an idea of what is going on. Folks using it (me or other EMs) will still vet the info before we use it. Similar to what we do with general public reports to dispatch or on social media.

I am not sure if they will have a summary, here is their website: https://www.midatlsevere.com/ It is open to the public, tickets were reasonably priced. They will have it next year, trying to align it with AMS Severe Conference that is happening in VA Beach at the end of October, so their thought is to hold the event in Richmond following that AMS Conference nearby. I think October 26th 2024 was the date I saw, but that could change.

GroupMe is free and easy to use

I know when we did it when we were sending stuff to Sterling, it was being QCd by others prior to being sent to NWS. I will ask Ashley what her plan is and let you know.

Great question! My understand is that it would be used by emergency management, and open to general public vs needing a spotter ID to submit directly to NWS. It is not limited to just PG County, would be communicated across other emergency management offices. Also not limited to storm damage, hail, or snowfall reports, could include traffic accidents and other situational awareness reports. So if a neighbor posts something on social media about damage to their house that they otherwise wouldn't report to NWS because they are not a spotter per say, you would then pass that along to the group.

Happy Monday Friends! I attended the Mid-Atlantic Severe Weather conference in Richmond on Saturday and talked with Ashley Morris, an emergency manager out of PG County, about her initiative with gathering information following weather events in Maryland. I was part of a group last winter that submitted reports to her, that then went to Sterling, but it fizzled out after a while. However, she is revamping the idea so that it's not specific to Sterling any longer. We are looking for folks that would help share weather related situational awareness, damage reports, impacts you may hear about, first responder calls, etc. We would do our reporting through GroupMe (or WhatsApp, to be decided). If you're interested, please let me know in this thread and I will be in touch about how reporting will be done and more information as I get it. Thanks!

BWI: 26.5" DCA: 20.5" IAD: 28.5" RIC: 11.5" Tiebreaker SBY: 3.5" MBY: 35.0" Edited 11/7 to adjust BWI/DCA numbers.

It was good! Lot of good information across the board. Glad you enjoyed too!

Spent the day in Richmond attending the mid Atlantic severe weather conference. So much good weather research going on these days, and got to meet a lot of folks I’ve known from Twitter in broadcast meteorology and emergency management.

did you just give the answer? lol

low of 29

No doubt, quite frozen. Yay for remote starts on cars. It was a dumb joke to make about me being friends with someone. Go you.

30 currently, but got down to 27 at 3:30am

I wasn't talking about Ava.

My bestie reported snow at her house in Deep Creek

32

Was cloudy/cool all day yesterday. quite foggy this am.

Going to be a great night for halloween fun at Hershey

He was not

Im quite late to this but it was just shit timing with the move and 2 crappy winters up here back to back. I thought I had hit the jackpot when I got 70" during my first winter. Nah, just a snowy winter compared to the rest. Patience! We will get snow. Eventually

35 with frost.