famartin Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I would like him to explain how time of day has nothing to do with meteorology... In fact one would view the time of day as a primary driving force on a multitude of meteorological processes that occur within the atmosphere. If Tom really wants to make a scientifically based argument, statements like this aren't helping his cause. I think he means that the time of day when the storm affects an area determines its impact on the population. I.e., if a 6-inch storm falls in the middle of the night, road crews can be out and have many roads cleared by morning, or at least mid-morning. However, if those 6 inches fall during the morning rush, then that's obviously a much bigger impact. Of course, that doesn't really explain how a storm would miraculously produce 6 inches in one area in the middle of the night and then evaporate so that it doesn't affect anyone else during the following (or previous) day. That doesn't often happen, so in that respect the "time of day" argument only applies if they will only be naming storms which hit the megalopolis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil882 Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I think he means that the time of day when the storm affects an area determines its impact on the population. I.e., if a 6-inch storm falls in the middle of the night, road crews can be out and have many roads cleared by morning, or at least mid-morning. However, if those 6 inches fall during the morning rush, then that's obviously a much bigger impact. Of course, that doesn't really explain how a storm would miraculously produce 6 inches in one area in the middle of the night and then evaporate so that it doesn't affect anyone else during the following (or previous) day. That doesn't often happen, so in that respect the "time of day" argument only applies if they will only be naming storms which hit the megalopolis. He could have mentioned that human population is a large non-meteorological driver towards the overall impact of an event. That's a statement that would have fit in a lot more logically than "time of day." I am somewhat in agreement that a naming nomenclature is probably useful for public understanding and consumption of an event. I just don't appreciate the way TWC is trying to establish brand ownership and authority on this naming system. Unfortunately, it is a system that will ultimately cause more confusion as individuals, media, and public sector alike decide whether or not to adopt the naming nomenclature, a situation make even more precarious by poor naming selection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 He could have mentioned that human population is a large non-meteorological driver towards the overall impact of an event. That's a statement that would have fit in a lot more logically than "time of day." I am somewhat in agreement that a naming nomenclature is probably useful for public understanding and consumption of an event. I just don't appreciate the way TWC is trying to establish brand ownership and authority on this naming system. Unfortunately, it is a system that will ultimately cause more confusion as individuals, media, and public sector alike decide whether or not to adopt the naming nomenclature, a situation make even more precarious by poor naming selection. I suspect TWC will find that they should've paid some attention to all the fuss which is sometimes made over NHC's much more simple naming process. Considering all the flack NHC gets sometimes about those storms they name and those they don't (with much simpler criteria), this will probably end up being a nightmare of criticism for TWC (considering the apparently much looser guidelines with respect to naming winter storms). Their mets may well find that they really didn't want to step into this situation after all. However, TWC is marketing to the public, and its the TWC executives (who probably aren't mets) who probably both thought of this (based on Tom Niziol's e-mail) and will enjoy the benefits of the extra ad revenue from greater public attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Marusak Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I don't see it as a debate about the decision from TWC itself, as more of a "Well now what?". Broadcast Meteorologists and media entities need to decide if they are going to play along with TWC's game or dismiss TWC all together and keep doing what their doing. Whatever the decision is, it needs to be unanimous for the sake of the public, for reasons stated in the thread. The public is going to be very confused if half of the market area they are in calls a storm by TWC's name and the other as a generic. that's where the professional organizations may have to step in and host that debate. epsecially since there's discussions about the NWS and NOAA not liking what decision was made, companies and tv stations already going all over the place on this, etc. Get all the stakeholders and their representatives in a room, and get the points out there on either side, and go by what the consensus says in agreement. There may be losers and winners, but without an organized discussion from all professionals involved going over the actual merits, it just turns into chaos like we're about to see, imho. it'll have to be done sooner rather than later. so since it's now on the table, the NWA and the AMS might as well get cracking and set up comittees (either separate or joint) and hash this out so we can all agree either way, as well what the standards will be for names/no names, etc. and they should be the forums as both of them would be more independent than if NOAA held them or they were held in congress, or even in public townhalls. with that, I'll say that tonight after work, I'l be penning such a letter to the AMS Board members as a national member after work tonight asking them to host such a forum/professional discussion on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 NWS and NOAA not liking what decision was made Officially, we have no opinion. And all my opinions expressed here are my own, and not NWS/NOAA's. Just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeznado Posted October 4, 2012 Share Posted October 4, 2012 I see a Winter Storm Warning in the Dakotas/Minnesota and no named winter storm. They're undermining themselves already. Good sources tell me that they are not going to name every small low, even if there is some zone that gets a foot of snow- Grand Forks and Roseau, not enough impact on enough folks. This will be mostly population based, although if there is a large areal coverage storm in the Plains that shuts down Interstates and disrupts air travel, that would likely also be named. But clippers in Nebraska, no. They would run out of names pretty quickly if they did that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Officially, we have no opinion. And all my opinions expressed here are my own, and not NWS/NOAA's. Just saying. Yep, and I have a feeling NOAA wants no part of this. If TWC naming becomes a fairly large media story this winter, they may have to deal with it. But I imagine they hope it remains a novelty, which it probably will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QVectorman Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Forgive me if this has been stated before in some form or another I haven't had time to go through all 12 pages. Does this lead into the Accuweather situation with Santorum, TWC is taking the lead into a realm akin to naming hurricanes which is duty of NHC and JTWC and in a way possibly opening Pandora's box to issuing their own type of "warnings" years down the road. Slowly chipping away at the currently impenetrable government monopoly in the end leading to TWC gaining a contract to privatize weather in 10 or 15 years. After they have proven they are just as capable of offering the same services one service at a time. Just a thought.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Forgive me if this has been stated before in some form or another I haven't had time to go through all 12 pages. Does this lead into the Accuweather situation with Santorum, TWC is taking the lead into a realm akin to naming hurricanes which is duty of NHC and JTWC and in a way possibly opening Pandora's box to issuing their own type of "warnings" years down the road. Slowly chipping away at the currently impenetrable government monopoly in the end leading to TWC gaining a contract to privatize weather in 10 or 15 years. After they have proven they are just as capable of offering the same services one service at a time. Just a thought.... Well, when they start issuing actual warnings, maintaining radars and satellites, and releasing weather balloons, they might be ready to take over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QVectorman Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Well, when they start issuing actual warnings, maintaining radars and satellites, and releasing weather balloons, they might be ready to take over. Well in theory they have the capabilities to maintain radars and satellites since their parent company is GE. Just saying what if this is some type of Trojan horse. Obviously as talked about before privatizing the NWS is a huge task and I personally don't agree it would work either but with GE as the parent company and one of the largest in the world I can't think of a company better equipped or has more resources to possible pull it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Well, when they start issuing actual warnings, maintaining radars and satellites, and releasing weather balloons, they might be ready to take over. Lol...yeah and start buying supercomputers, hiring staff to maintain and interrogate 120 Nexrads, maintain the climate network, and then devise a way to give out their products (aviation, fire, and marine included) for free without the possibility of litigation, blah blah. This has been hashed out a million times before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Congrats to the north central US for not mattering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Congrats to the north central US for not mattering. Yep. "The Minnesota State Patrol blamed the near-blizzard conditions for the head-on collision that killed a woman in the Thief River Falls area." Let this blood be on TWC's hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Yep. "The Minnesota State Patrol blamed the near-blizzard conditions for the head-on collision that killed a woman in the Thief River Falls area." Let this blood be on TWC's hands. Not enough revenue to justify a name. Blood doesn't matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Not enough revenue to justify a name. Blood doesn't matter. I suppose that's true. They gotta draw the line somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Yep. "The Minnesota State Patrol blamed the near-blizzard conditions for the head-on collision that killed a woman in the Thief River Falls area." Let this blood be on TWC's hands. I would think the central US (more rural locations generally) might have high percentage viewership of TWC compared to places inundated with local weather forecasters. Maybe that's misguided though. It seems those folks are more weather aware in general... Low population for sure but warnings were up and it was a pretty solid early-season event. "For early October, this is definitely a big storm," said Jeff Makowski, a weather service meteorologist based in Grand Forks, North Dakota. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-usa-weatherminnesotal1e8l4nht-20121004,0,4258743.story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlehurricane Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 I got this email forwarded by one of my met professors from Tom Niziol, the weather channel's winter weather expert. "Greetings, I am writing to you because you are a friend and colleague. I realize yesterday's news that The Weather Channel will be naming winter storms this season has come as a surprise to many in the science community. I cannot and will not comment on whether or not NOAA/NWS should have been consulted before TWC went public with this effort. I can however comment on some concerns that have come from the science community regarding the basis for naming a winter storm. I want to make colleagues aware that this is not a flippant decision made by a marketing person, rather a fully evaluated process vetted through a team of meteorologists using a combination of objective and subjective guidance parameters to reach our decision. I encourage you to share what I have written below with the meteorology community. At the outset, I want to reiterate that our goal is to communicate High Impact events to the public. Unfortunately, the variables that produce those impacts in winter storms can be inumerable and many have nothing to do with meteorology (eg. time of day, day of week). At TWC communication of weather information is a priority and the basis for all that is communicated weather-wise is a pragmatic, science based consensus approach. To that end, the responsibility of naming a storm will always rest with the meteorology group. For those not aware of that group, it is composed of a large team of meteorologists, apart from our operational forecast team, who like many of you get together on a daily basis for an in-depth map discussion to make decisions by consensus. They have been directly involved in the Winter Storm Naming project as well. TWC has been working on the Winter Storm Naming effort for over a year now and I was made aware of that fact when I was hired in January of this year. As with any science-based endeavor, the project began with a full literature review regarding winter storm impacts and indices to rank storms. I will not get into the details at this point but to alleviate other meteorologists concerns I will provide the Readers Digest version. Much of the development work is based in part on excellent work done by Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini on Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS), similar work in the ReSIS project by NCDC and Cerutti and Decker's Local Winter Storm Scale (LLWS). From those resources we have developed a simple set of basic objective forecast parameters including snowfall/ice accumulation and wind speed which are weighted in similar ways to what is done in the referenced material to develop a potential "index" for the winter weather system. That gives us a basis for further consideration, then more subjective parameters are evaluated. At the end of the process the team makes a decision to name or not to name. Due to the inherent nature of winter weather systems, storms will not be named more than 72 hours in advance of the timeframes when high impacts are forecast to begin. There will be some cases when that window might be reduced to less than 24 hour notice, and yes, there may even be cases where the decision to name is made as the event is in progress. Many of us who have had the pleasure/challenge of sitting at the operational forecast desk have all been there, but it is the nature of the game, we have to have some level of confidence before making the decision to name. This process is not perfect by any means. Yes, winter weather systems are very different from tropical systems. TWC will most certainly have successes and failures with the effort. At some point in the future, there could be more collaboration by the entire meteorology community inlcuding NOAA. I cannot comment on that now. I did however want to communicate to my colleagues that although the process to name a storm may not be as rigorous a science-based effort as some would like to see, it is a process that incorporates components from the best published materials on the topic with a main goal to communicate overall impact. TWC will provide more information soon and I am always open to comments and suggestions from my peers. Tom Niziol" I still don't see the point of naming mid-latitude cyclones. Winter storm advisories and forecasts issued by the NWS give the public all the info they need in detail, without dealing with the arbitrary nature of trying to classify winter storms. A storm can be very powerful but advect in just enough warm air for all rain east of I-95, but how is that storm dynamically different than one that's a few degrees cooler? Also what if a weak clipper dumps 8" of snow but a strong nor-easter dumps 6"? The tropical cyclone naming system was started back in the day to prevent confusion between all the tropical cyclones roaming around in the open ocean, and the tropical cyclone naming system is extremely rigorous and has precise guidelines, in my opinion there is no other way to go about classifying weather systems. An arbitrary attempt based on the impact of a weather system, which isn't directly connected to the dynamics itself but highly variable topography and population density, is a shameful thing for a degreed meteorologist to do. The biggest problem is if people start taking this naming thing seriously they won't pay attention to winter storms that aren't named, even if that storm is more powerful than a named storm that hit a populated region. This entire thing strikes me as a way to fire up the hype machine rather than anything that would benefit the public. TWC will name the storms that will get them lots of ratings due to hitting a populous region, or regions that barely ever get winter weather, and in the end lower public understanding of what the heck is going on with the weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Assuming Dr Forbes uses similar methodology to the SPC forecast mets, his TorCon number should be an integer about 4 times the percentage of the SPC tornado risk percentages (10% equating to about 4 because of doubling the radius from 25 miles from a point to 50 miles). Obviously not directly copied from SPC, as he does Day 2 TorCons, I'm guessing SREF values on STP and the such, and a touch of seat of the pants. The average person has no idea about the SPC probabilities. Forbes is just implementing a similar idea in an easier digestible form. I think it's fine. Edit: also Forbes is very well respected in both the research and operational severe weather communities (always at conferences, up to date on ongoing research, etc.), I have not encountered any resistance to him doing TORCON. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormitecture Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Question? Does any government entity have evacuation procedures in place for snow storms? Do government agencies react to hurricanes because of the name, or is it based on the conditions forecast? Do the Emergency Managers responsible for the people really care if the storm has one, two or a dozen names in order to respond? Is it not possible to forgo certain sources of information and accept more "official" sources during major events. (I avoid AccuWeather like the plague for my chasing)? Will insurance companies not pay claims because of the names? We are talking about SNOW storms right? Granted I know they are intense at times...but seriously...we're talking snow storms! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
famartin Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Question? Does any government entity have evacuation procedures in place for snow storms? Recall that in the northeast (the most likely places where storms are going to be named), many big snowstorms are nor'easters which also produce coastal flooding. So, in those situations, the answer is yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellinwood Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 TWC just had a Q+A on Google+ ...wasn't able to join it myself, but Nate Johnson did some bullet-point tweeting through most of the event (read from the bottom of the post upwards): ----- TWC winter-storm-naming hangout is done. Despite questions for specifics, few new details. Norcross promised release of criteria, tho. 7m Nate Johnson Nate Johnson @nsj Niziol: We want "everyone to work along with us on this." // That's great - why didn't you ask the AMS, NWA, and others first? 8m Niziol: Early-season storm in ND/MN caused "impact" but was not on the scale for a name. 10m Ostro: Looking at last year, there were 7-8 storms that would have gotten names in advance plus 1-2 more borderline storms. A "quiet" year. 10m Niziol says TWC has the infrastructure to put this information out nationally "for the traveler". 11m Ostro: Won't name fast-developing storms, e.g. recent light-precip, high-impact event in STL, but will name large storms. 13m @vathpela …the NWS criteria for what counts where and when are publicly available and standardized. 14m @vathpela They seem pretty clear that the thresholds will be different for different places. In their defense, NWS does this, too - but... 14m Q: Won't this be confusing since NWS doesn't name storms? Niziol: NWS is a "close partner" who issues warnings. We will continue to relay. 15m Ostro: There's a human element in naming tropical systems. Norcross: We "are going to" put out our criteria so everyone else can evaluate. 16m @kahatfield Agreed. Don't know. Houston + impactful would suggest yes, but will hard to justify a name for that when a 14" storm missed. 17m Ostro: Amount of population affected will be a criteria. Norcross draws parallels between this and NHC's assigning prob of devel to pre-TDs 18m Ostro: We are going to try to make the criteria as objective as possible, but the criteria will be different for MN than ATL. 20m Niziol: The nature of winter storms makes setting quantitative criteria difficult. It's about societal impacts. Human element is needed. 22m Norcross: "Significant disruption to people's lives", including travel. Also, likelihood to cause "life-threatening" conditions. 22m "Daniel" asks @weatherchannel for exact criteria for naming. Norcross says "impactful" is the key. Impacts need to be in the next 3 days. 27m @TWC_Shawn Niziol mentioned an NBC survey/poll saying naming storms was popular. Do you have a link to the survey or results? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaWx Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Recall that in the northeast (the most likely places where storms are going to be named), many big snowstorms are nor'easters which also produce coastal flooding. So, in those situations, the answer is yes. What about strong nor'easters that cause little or no snow? Shouldn't they be named, too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skowee Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 The Grand Forks Herald has been naming blizzards or winter storms that have affected eastern North Dakota / northwest Minnesota for several decades. They typically name the blizzard after a famous University of North Dakota hockey play, local celebrity, state politician, etc; and alternate from a girl to a boy name with each letter. They do have an objective requirement that the NWS have a warning out for such system. Back in the winter of 1996-1997, the most famous blizzard called "Hannah" crippled the region with ice and snow. A few weeks later the Red River flooded and the city was nearly destroyed. If you ask any one there who lived through the '97 flood about the blizzard before, they will most definitely remember Hannah, similar to those in New Orleans who lived through Katrina. Here is an article that talks about the blizzard naming system in North Dakota: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/246195/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baroclinic_instability Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Chuck Doswell wrote about TWC on his blog. Usually Chuck has much better arguments; this seems more like a diatribe against TWC than an actual discussion. If anything, CD3 musings are good for pure entertainment. http://cadiiitalk.bl...-oh-really.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyhb Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Chuck Doswell wrote about TWC on his blog. Usually Chuck has much better arguments; this seems more like a diatribe against TWC than an actual discussion. If anything, CD3 musings are good for pure entertainment. http://cadiiitalk.bl...-oh-really.html Yeah, Chuck sometimes goes a little overboard on the rant o' meter, although like everyone else posting here, I can see the concerns/negatives. Although, severe weather wise at least, the coverage has improved significantly on TWC over the past two years (when before they would be showing nonsensical programming during outbreaks and whatnot), although a lot of that seems to be related to Dr. Forbes having a greater role in the analysis of the events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Chuck Doswell wrote about TWC on his blog. Usually Chuck has much better arguments; this seems more like a diatribe against TWC than an actual discussion. If anything, CD3 musings are good for pure entertainment. http://cadiiitalk.bl...-oh-really.html I'm surprised Doswell hasn't been hired away by TWC yet. He'd be a good fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormitecture Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 I'm surprised Doswell hasn't been hired away by TWC yet. He'd be a good fit. Never gonna happen. Unlike some others, Doswell is too entrenched in 'scientific process' and government oriented work to ever cross over to the media side. You can include those like Howie Blustein and Josh Wurman in that group. These guys are diametric personalities compared to TWC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
isohume Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Never gonna happen. Unlike some others, Doswell is too entrenched in 'scientific process' and government oriented work to ever cross over to the media side. You can include those like Howie Blustein and Josh Wurman in that group. These guys are diametric personalities compared to TWC. Idk..money talks and I'm sure Doswell's ego would enjoy it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Idk..money talks and I'm sure Doswell's ego would enjoy it. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he said he wasn't even going to do media interviews or scientific programs anymore because of how badly they butcher basic stuff (true). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtticaFanatica Posted October 6, 2012 Share Posted October 6, 2012 Never gonna happen. Unlike some others, Doswell is too entrenched in 'scientific process' and government oriented work to ever cross over to the media side. You can include those like Howie Blustein and Josh Wurman in that group. These guys are diametric personalities compared to TWC. I don't think scientific process needs to be in quotes for those folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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