isohume Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 I would suggest asking Upton about that. They seem to do it a lot (soliciting reports from the public via FB, that is). It would be interesting to know how reliable their fans are, how much QC they need to do, etc. Yeah every office will be different in that regard I suppose. I know we get a lot of enthusiastic public snow reporters that report their drifts, etc. I really wish the spotters would report more on their own and we didn't have to always do round up calls to them during/after the storms. Perhaps we could make it fun by introducing an app or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 what I'm talking about would be database driven. Here's an example of a script I use that pulls storm reports from the SPC and displays them in a color coded list format for all to see. Here, the list could be displayed by region or a total summary. http://www.daculawea...1&submit=Submit Just a thought... I like this. You should see if amwx would go for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Lightning Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I use the Skywarn line at Mt. Holly (still ) for snowfall reports and any severe weather damage. Obviously the former is much more likely than the latter, as the chance of getting my parents to measure snow right outside the house is much higher than getting them to go around looking for severe damage If its a big rain event I'll call in their rain report too, but I've only done that once I think (the big rain in the second week of this past August). As far as being in another WFO's area, when I moved to State College, Joe Miketta (WCM at Mt. Holly) talked to the guys at CTP and they sent me a CTP-area Skywarn card with a new spotter ID and their number, which I used while I lived there (again, mainly for snow ). Good thinking Ray-I may just call up Joe and find out. I don't live in the Upton CWA permantly though....just Mon-Fri. I guess it would be okay to have a Skywarn card from two WFOs or maybe there is a "Super" Skywarn card that's good anywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgertime Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 As a social media manager I figured I should chime in here. Haven't read the all of the posts but to me it seems to many people want to treat facebook like twitter. It's not twitter, twitter would be the outlet for reporting storm totals. Since twitter has less likely of a chance to spark debate it can be filtered a bit easier. Plus you're only dealing with 120 characters so you can more easily ignore non storm total/reports. For AmWx and facebook, facebook should be used to drive the passive member to the board. It should be used as a reminder by going into streams that AmWx is there and discussions are being had about major winter storms. Facebook pages are better utilized as marketing tools as opposed to informational tools....not saying they can't be used that way it's just very tough to get them to that level. If I were going to use twitter for storm totals I would make a hashtag with the date or name of the storm and do a tweet like, "give us your #totals for #PDStorm3" or maybe "check in with #stormtotals @AmWx for #PDStorm3". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billgwx Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Well, I could just cut out the middle man and do it myself. I wouldn't mind. I just don't get why Skywarn isn't all the same on a national level. For Mt. Holly you go to the basic and then advance classes.....but for Upton apparently during the class you have to take a test(and pass it) in order to get certified. We did that only for one year. When you attend these days you take the course and automatically receive certification at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billgwx Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I know that Mike-I did call in snow amounts in the past(and since you know I am a registered spotter at Mt. Holly, then what's my spotter number, huh? ). If you want this Winter I will relay snowfall totals from Hoboken to you so you can relay them to Upton. http://www.erh.noaa.gov/okx/report.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billgwx Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 I would suggest asking Upton about that. They seem to do it a lot (soliciting reports from the public via FB, that is). It would be interesting to know how reliable their fans are, how much QC they need to do, etc. We've found the FB spotter reports to be very useful/reliable so far. We take a pro-active approach on Facebook, soliciting spotter reports before/during/after events, and contacting spotters when we have questions about their reports. We're also not a fan of the COMET Skywarn classes. Good overview and a recruitment tool for the local classes and that's about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgertime Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Also sorry OP I clearly didn't read your first post good enough. FB can be a great tool for mets and reporting, but I still think twitter would work better for storm totals as opposed to FB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted November 14, 2011 Share Posted November 14, 2011 Also sorry OP I clearly didn't read your first post good enough. FB can be a great tool for mets and reporting, but I still think twitter would work better for storm totals as opposed to FB. We already use Twitter with the hash #wxreport. Anyone is free to use it here and it would be nice if was automated somehow through an obs forum or some other script. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/stormreports/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgertime Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 We already use Twitter with the hash #wxreport. Anyone is free to use it here and it would be nice if was automated somehow through an obs forum or some other script. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/stormreports/ Nice. I really don't pay much attention to social media on the weather side strangely enough. Now I know how to report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 Nice. I really don't pay much attention to social media on the weather side strangely enough. LOL!!! That is funny! I'm going to work on a form that a user might use to enter a report. Maybe I can get the admins here to add a few custom fields to the database this forum runs off of to help support it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eekuasepinniW Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 That's a great idea! I'm not sure if they still have the obs reporting forum here...but when it was used, it was a good source for us to get snowfall amounts. Problem was...it was rarely used. It's still here. I don't recall which storm, but it affected pretty much the whole east coast and despite having 1500 people online, barely 30 actually used it. Many submitted a report halfway through but never posted a final total. It could easily be modified to list/plot anything, but I'm not sure it's worth my time. Might feel differently when bored next month though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaculaWeather Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 It's still here. I don't recall which storm, but it affected pretty much the whole east coast and despite having 1500 people online, barely 30 actually used it. Many submitted a report halfway through but never posted a final total. It could easily be modified to list/plot anything, but I'm not sure it's worth my time. Might feel differently when bored next month though. Where? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongRanger Posted November 15, 2011 Share Posted November 15, 2011 The Snowfall Reports feature fails here (it says it requires iframes). I suspect it may have additional problems on other devices / browsers, and may receive more use if compatibility were increased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
40/70 Benchmark Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 I can't imagine a better platform for reporting weather information (by both trained spotters, meteorologists, weather savvy individuals, and other weather enthusiasts than the American Wx forum. You will get some response on Facebook - but quality control will be more difficult. Within this forum you have at least a better chance of reliable and accurate measurements. Sure you will always have a few questionable observations - but more often than not that won't be the case. I agree.....the "noise" attributed to the relatively uninformed masses is laregly muted on here...they either do not exist or only lurk, however on FB the same can not be said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 I agree.....the "noise" attributed to the relatively uninformed masses is laregly muted on here...they either do not exist or only lurk, however on FB the same can not be said. Bill found this not to be the case (see comment 67). In all likelihood, I suspect those people who "like" the NWS pages are gonna be of the same overall "weather weenie" type person who come to AmericanWx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phlwx Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Bill found this not to be the case (see comment 67). In all likelihood, I suspect those people who "like" the NWS pages are gonna be of the same overall "weather weenie" type person who come to AmericanWx. The # of people who "like" a NWS (or any other wx facebook) page would likely be a good bit higher than the number of actual participants/interactions, much like here, although those that interact on FB may not necessarily come here and post for whatever reason...and not all of them would be weather weenie type although someone may fit the "mass market" type of weenie who focuses only on the 12" of the 6-12" snowfall forecast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 The # of people who "like" a NWS (or any other wx facebook) page would likely be a good bit higher than the number of actual participants/interactions, much like here, although those that interact on FB may not necessarily come here and post for whatever reason... This is quite true. and not all of them would be weather weenie type although someone may fit the "mass market" type of weenie who focuses only on the 12" of the 6-12" snowfall forecast. I don't quite follow your meaning of "mass market type of weenie". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phlwx Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 I don't quite follow your meaning of "mass market type of weenie". the average person who has a casual interest in snow/weather when it's a big story but isn't going to post on a weather board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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