MD WxAware - spotters needed

[mappy]

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!

[Kmlwx]

Count me in to help in whatever way is needed. I'm in Montgomery County - but it sounds like this would not be limited to PG?

[WxUSAF]

I’m interested but how is it different than normal spotter reports to LWX?

[mappy]

19 minutes ago, WxUSAF said:

I’m interested but how is it different than normal spotter reports to LWX?

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. 

[Rhino16]

18 minutes ago, mappy said:

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. 

Is this to help get people involved in the warning verification process, so that it makes the NWS’ work a bit easier?

[WxUSAF]

Ok cool. I’m in but since I’m 500 years old I don’t have those apps.

[Kmlwx]

Will they QC the reports? I can only imagine what this will lead to if a "friend of a friend" messages that they see a "tornado" and somebody reposts that....90% chance it's scud or other cloud phenomenon. 

[mappy]

58 minutes ago, Kmlwx said:

Will they QC the reports? I can only imagine what this will lead to if a "friend of a friend" messages that they see a "tornado" and somebody reposts that....90% chance it's scud or other cloud phenomenon. 

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. 

[mappy]

1 hour ago, WxUSAF said:

Ok cool. I’m in but since I’m 500 years old I don’t have those apps.

GroupMe is free and easy to use

[mappy]

4 hours ago, WxUSAF said:

I’m interested but how is it different than normal spotter reports to LWX?

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.

[mappy]

3 hours ago, Rhino16 said:

Is this to help get people involved in the warning verification process, so that it makes the NWS’ work a bit easier?

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!

[mappy]

3 hours ago, Kmlwx said:

Will they QC the reports? I can only imagine what this will lead to if a "friend of a friend" messages that they see a "tornado" and somebody reposts that....90% chance it's scud or other cloud phenomenon. 

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. 

[mappy]

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.

[mappy]

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

[Kmlwx]

It may be worth telling Ashley (I can as well) that Alan Henney (a local news/crime follower) and I run a Zello group dedicated to local breaking news and crime (as it happens essentially). It's much more focused on police/fire - but there could be some crossover there. We don't do any forwarding to authorities that much - but many of the members that monitor the channel are local reporters (freelance or pro) and many have some connection to local public safety. We have several hundred "members" - the channel is PW protected as well to prevent "riff raff" from joining. 

I don't think we would want to merge the groups of course - but it may be a way to coordinate or work together. 

[mappy]

3 hours ago, Kmlwx said:

It may be worth telling Ashley (I can as well) that Alan Henney (a local news/crime follower) and I run a Zello group dedicated to local breaking news and crime (as it happens essentially). It's much more focused on police/fire - but there could be some crossover there. We don't do any forwarding to authorities that much - but many of the members that monitor the channel are local reporters (freelance or pro) and many have some connection to local public safety. We have several hundred "members" - the channel is PW protected as well to prevent "riff raff" from joining. 

I don't think we would want to merge the groups of course - but it may be a way to coordinate or work together. 

Feel free to reach out to her. She’s running it, I just offered to help get the word out to get some people interested in the effort. 

[LongRanger]

I'd participate but don't care for yet another app. For example, GroupMe's Sign up now button does nothing here. It needs to be simpler.