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Also a note that the weather warnings come from the National Weather Service, not from your local TV meteorologists
And the National Weather Service, being a federal agency, whose funding is perpetually sitting on a chopping block to be sliced, diced and portion controlled every time an election comes up, is a prime candidate for looking for ways to make sure their services feel needed.
I'm just saying there is a reason why something becomes "SEVERE" and all alarms go off, even when its a relatively minor precipitation event. They err very far on the side of severity most often.
I'm just saying there is a reason why something becomes "SEVERE" and all alarms go off, even when its a relatively minor precipitation event. They err very far on the side of severity most often.
What is a relatively minor precipitation event in your yard might be severe 10 miles away.
Like cheapdad said, a house along Green Level Church Rd in NW Cary (Weycroft/Braemore) 3rd floor caught on fire and took a very long time to put it out. Their neighbors said it was most likely a lightening strike. This is from the small cell that passed through NW Cary around 5pm yesterday (Sat).
With so many storms passing by in our area, there's a small chance it can cause damage.
What is a relatively minor precipitation event in your yard might be severe 10 miles away.
This is exactly what I was saying earlier. This is a large area, sometimes the actual event only passes through a very small area.
Years ago when I was handling claims there was a hail storm in Asheville. The ONLY people who had hail damage were people who parked at a medical center. We didn't get one single claim from anyone who was anywhere else in Asheville. That's how hail is.
I live about 5 miles from my sister in Apex and about the same from my parents in northwestern Cary. It can be monsooning by one of them and I'm getting nothing.
Last summer I went outside and it was raining at my house. Walked the dog to the end of the street and it was dry as a bone. Walked back to my house and the rain had stopped.
The weather here is definitely odd.
That doesn't mean WRAL needs to say its meteorologists are in the SEVERE WEATHER CENTER every time they toss it to weather. That's just ridiculous.
That doesn't mean WRAL needs to say its meteorologists are in the SEVERE WEATHER CENTER every time they toss it to weather. That's just ridiculous.
Yeah, it is.
It is the same marketing maven mindset that pathetically and perpetually pushes panic runs on the grocery stores when there's a possibility of 3 snowflakes in a 3 foot radius within 50 miles.
"Ain't bleeding? Lead with it anyway and create a panic!"
Would people prefer if weather services used your precise location data to notify you if there is a bad cell vs a county/area wide notification system? I feel like most people on this forum would have a privacy issue with that (even if it’s already being tracked haha)
I actually do like the “level” system that ABC11 uses - won’t bat an eye if it’s a level 1 or 2 afternoon, that’s pretty normal around here but if it’s a level 3 and higher, then I’ll pay a little more attention
Would people prefer if weather services used your precise location data to notify you if there is a bad cell vs a county/area wide notification system? I feel like most people on this forum would have a privacy issue with that (even if it’s already being tracked haha)
I actually do like the “level” system that ABC11 uses - won’t bat an eye if it’s a level 1 or 2 afternoon, that’s pretty normal around here but if it’s a level 3 and higher, then I’ll pay a little more attention
When they take the first 10 minutes of Jeopardy! to blather on about what they just spent half an hour blathering about, a storm brews on the other side of the family room from me.
Thunderstorms can be small.
Microbursts are a real possibility, and are under 2.5 miles in diameter.
The increase in alerts is also due to better data and higher-resolution forecasting. Very strong microbursts, of the sort that will take down several trees on one block, used to be much too small for weather forecasts to pick up, but radar is now very adept at finding them. "If a tree falls in the forest..."
More widespread weather alerts also factor into the perception. An alert sent out at 1AM used to only go out to the few people tuned into local radio then, but now that gets pushed out to everyone's hand-radio (aka cell phone). They've also gotten a bit better about localizing the alerts (used to just be just counties, which are huge), but still have a long way to go.
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