Is FFC's coverage area too big?

[LithiaWx]

Winter precip or temperature verification? Here is verification of Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb max and min temp forecasts made 2007-2011. The left chart is FFC forecast improvement over MAV guidance, the right chart is all WFOs in AL, AR, FL, GA, MS, NC, SC, and TN. The x-axis is 12hr forecast periods (1=12hr fcst, 2=24hr fcst, etc...) and the y-axis is percent improvement over MAV. Not a huge increase but certainly above the regional average performance in periods 1-3.

Thank you!

[Lookout]

Sure. I think I understand that the point of the thread was to poll, not assume the service is utterly lacking. Sorry if I implied the later was the point. I also agree that the short lead time for big winter events and overly brief AFDs are two specific shortcomings of our office. I did a study last summer with a UGA student on winter weather verification including lead time. Our initial finding was that *when* significant snow does occur, our forecasters nearly always underestimate the amounts and tend to wait a little too long to issue the warning. The AFDs are also lacking detail at times. Definitely valid points. All I can say is this is being addressed but "old habits" die hard. As many have noticed, our newer (but not necessarily younger) forecasters are up to the task with warnings and AFDs. The culture shift is occurring. However on the flip side, an interesting observation I've found is that those forecasters that tend to write short AFDs and are conservative also tend to have good temperature and PoP verification. Veteran level experience has it strengths and weaknesses.

When someone proposes splitting up an office, I guess I couldn't help but wonder that a degradation of service was being implied. My concern is one should use data and facts, not conjecture. It may be hard to do this properly without raw data, so I'm willing to furnish it. Let me know.

You know i had this long post written up until I saw this one. No point in posting it since you address, in a very positive fashion, every concern and are aware of it. Hawksfan is absolutely correct with regard to the fact that it shouldn't be taken as us just wanting to bash the nws/ffc. It's not, it's just honest questions and opinions. And it shouldn't be taken personally if many of us think the cwa is too big. In fact, it's more of a testament to the fact it puts too much of a load on you guys. We simply believe by splitting the cwa up, forecasts/warnings would improve...because your cwa is so freaking huge.

I had a lot to say about all of this but hawksfan has done a very good job of saying what I was going to say, and you make it known you are aware of it and admit it, so it doesn't serve much purpose to repeat it. But just know that I have watched you guys extraordinarily closely over the years in winter weather situations and every observation I make is valid, even if I don't have a set of statistics I can lay out to you. It's not conjecture, it's not make believe, and it's not simply wrong impressions. And it's just not people like me but just about every met on board has questioned, in a regular basis, ffc's thought processes in winter situations.

I wonder though, why on earth are the old guard the way they are? Don't they get tired of busting constantly on cad/winter situations? Why do they ignore such obvious signals and historical precedence in similar situations? I sure hope you younger guys kick them to the curb soon lol.

As for severe, To me warnings should not be based on population density. That is how people can get killed. Just because you have a county with less population than the metro area, doesn't mean peoples lives are not at risk during severe weather. GSP, to their credit, doesn't seem to follow this mindset as they do a fantastic job (as I said) of warning every county if necessary, regardless of population. I just wish ffc shared this philosophy.

I thought it was interesting you guys issued a warning for eastern oglethorpe/wilkes county yesterday when I would have wagered 99/100 times a storm like that would have never gotten a warning. I wondered if that was because of our discussion here. (?)

That said, I for one *highly appreciate* you coming on here and taking the time to talk to us. It speaks highly of your character that you often do this. I really can't say enough about how highly I think of you for doing so. Whenever you do post, your posts are always informative and interesting. I know you are busy but We surely wish you or others would chime in from time to time, especially in active weather situations (or future weather situations). We would love to hear your thoughts outside the forecast discussions.

[Psalm 148:8]

You know i had this long post written up until I saw this one. No point in posting it since you address, in a very positive fashion, every concern and are aware of it. Hawksfan is absolutely correct with regard to the fact that it shouldn't be taken as us just wanting to bash the nws/ffc. It's not, it's just honest questions and opinions. And it shouldn't be taken personally if many of us think the cwa is too big. In fact, it's more of a testament to the fact it puts too much of a load on you guys. We simply believe by splitting the cwa up, forecasts/warnings would improve...because your cwa is so freaking huge.

I had a lot to say about all of this but hawksfan has done a very good job of saying what I was going to say, and you make it known you are aware of it and admit it, so it doesn't serve much purpose to repeat it. But just know that I have watched you guys extraordinarily closely over the years in winter weather situations and every observation I make is valid, even if I don't have a set of statistics I can lay out to you. It's not conjecture, it's not make believe, and it's not simply wrong impressions. And it's just not people like me but just about every met on board has questioned, in a regular basis, ffc's thought processes in winter situations.

I wonder though, why on earth are the old guard the way they are? Don't they get tired of busting constantly on cad/winter situations? Why do they ignore such obvious signals and historical precedence in similar situations? I sure hope you younger guys kick them to the curb soon lol.

As for severe, To me warnings should not be based on population density. That is how people can get killed. Just because you have a county with less population than the metro area, doesn't mean peoples lives are not at risk during severe weather. GSP, to their credit, doesn't seem to follow this mindset as they do a fantastic job (as I said) of warning every county if necessary, regardless of population. I just wish ffc shared this philosophy.

I thought it was interesting you guys issued a warning for eastern oglethorpe/wilkes county yesterday when I would have wagered 99/100 times a storm like that would have never gotten a warning. I wondered if that was because of our discussion here. (?)

That said, I for one *highly appreciate* you coming on here and taking the time to talk to us. It speaks highly of your character that you often do this. I really can't say enough about how highly I think of you for doing so. Whenever you do post, your posts are always informative and interesting. I know you are busy but We surely wish you or others would chime in from time to time, especially in active weather situations (or future weather situations). We would love to hear your thoughts outside the forecast discussions.

Lookout...I'm so glad you brought up this point!! I thought I misunderstood what he said...I am SHOCKED that population bears ANY interest at all on whether or not a warning is issued!! 10 lives or 10,000 lives! A life is a life. Personally FFC has missed 2 here recently....1 that BMX warned on the Ala border and FFC didn't warn here....took down numerous trees in a campground and one fell on a camper with a dad and 2 girls inside.....The other was last week's incident where we lost power due to numerous trees down.....the storms were still up in the Atlanta area but 50 miles down the road here in Troup Co we got nailed just as if the storm was in Coweta on our doorstep.....I've seen warnings issued by GSP lately that say the winds will be several miles out ahead of the storm....several to me is 10 or 15...not 50! I am still not sure what that was.....I thought it was a gravity wave....I've never seen a SVR storm in Atlanta send wind 50 miles down the road and knock out power here in Troup County....After the winds passed down south to near the Columbus area, then they got a SVR warning...but there were no thunderstorms near them....just that line of winds that came through us in Troup Co.....Storms BEGAN developing in Troup Co 45 minutes AFTER the wind damage and power outage occured....and they were not the storms in Atlanta...they were new storms that developed on top of me.

Here's to hoping that both of us are misunderstanding the warning/population correlation....

AbsolutZero,

ditto on you taking time to come here and explain for us...Thanks! I do not want your job by any means...you guys have a tough one!......however, me being the weather buff in the family/community, I'm trying to figure out the hows and whys when people ask me why we were not under a warning....they look to me and I look to you guys and the AmWx folks....

[DaculaWeather]

It appears that many of the warnings for urban areas are due to more visual reports reaching the NWS office which leads to a warning. In rural areas that information is sparse and many bad storms go unreported by the public, at least that's what I gather from the study. It doesn't necessarily mean the FFC office can't keep up, they just don't have as much information from those areas to help them make a decision.

If you read further it also says that increased warnings in the rural areas would lead to a higher FAR... Catch 22.

As far as winter weather... I'm definitely in the same boat as everyone else, the ball was dropped a few times on those storms where some met's here did get them correct.

[phil882]

It appears that many of the warnings for urban areas are due to more visual reports reaching the NWS office which leads to a warning. In rural areas that information is sparse and many bad storms go unreported by the public, at least that's what I gather from the study. It doesn't necessarily mean the FFC office can't keep up, they just don't have as much information from those areas to help them make a decision.

If you read further it also says that increased warnings in the rural areas would lead to a higher FAR... Catch 22.

As far as winter weather... I'm definitely in the same boat as everyone else, the ball was dropped a few times on those storms where some met's here did get them correct.

Thanks again AbsolutZero for taking time to reply in this thread.

I agree with the bolded statement. I think the main problem lies with the fact that warning in a sparsely populated area contains added risk that nobody will experience the severe weather event, and thus you will have no warning verification. Sure it makes sense to warn every cell that you think is capable of producing damaging winds and large hail, but for an office that wants to achieve the best FAR along with the highest POD, you will be inclined to issue more SVR warnings over highly populated areas since there is where you have a far better likelihood of getting warning verification. If you treat rural and urban areas the same, you face the risk that you will either under warn the urban areas and then get missed reports which hurts the POD, or you over warn the rural areas and then you can't verify the warning which hurts the FAR.

This is why offices have to rely on storm spotter reports so often, because they are what help and hurt their verification scores. So really if you want to do your part in making your local NWS office better... you need to be a diligent spotter! The warnings that each office deliver can only be as good as the ground truth the public can give them... and having good warning verification scores for an office look very good back in headquarters.

[isohume]

Sure. I think I understand that the point of the thread was to poll, not assume the service is utterly lacking. Sorry if I implied the later was the point. I also agree that the short lead time for big winter events and overly brief AFDs are two specific shortcomings of our office. I did a study last summer with a UGA student on winter weather verification including lead time. Our initial finding was that *when* significant snow does occur, our forecasters nearly always underestimate the amounts and tend to wait a little too long to issue the warning. The AFDs are also lacking detail at times. Definitely valid points. All I can say is this is being addressed but "old habits" die hard. As many have noticed, our newer (but not necessarily younger) forecasters are up to the task with warnings and AFDs. The culture shift is occurring. However on the flip side, an interesting observation I've found is that those forecasters that tend to write short AFDs and are conservative also tend to have good temperature and PoP verification. Veteran level experience has it strengths and weaknesses.

When someone proposes splitting up an office, I guess I couldn't help but wonder that a degradation of service was being implied. My concern is one should use data and facts, not conjecture. It may be hard to do this properly without raw data, so I'm willing to furnish it. Let me know.

This a good point. I occasionally see the AFD being held to a standard as a scientific white paper by many on here and elsewhere. In my mind, the AFD length and detail all has to do with the amount of time had and necessary points needed to be made per specific forecast. It's not meant to be an expose of all the variable interactions and meteorologic conceptual ideas one has formulated during the forecast process. That would be impossible anyway. I see the AFD as a good tool to get the talking points describing the patterns, model discussion, and expected sensible wx out to the media and other customers in an efficient and coordinating fashion. What you said about some forecasters writing short AFDs and still being some of the best verifiers in the office is true at GSP too. Experience is the intangible that cannot be replaced in something as subjective and "art-like" as weather forecasting.

[snowman21]

This a good point. I occasionally see the AFD being held to a standard as a scientific white paper by many on here and elsewhere. In my mind, the AFD length and detail all has to do with the amount of time had and necessary points needed to be made per specific forecast. It's not meant to be an expose of all the variable interactions and meteorologic conceptual ideas one has formulated during the forecast process. That would be impossible anyway. I see the AFD as a good tool to get the talking points describing the patterns, model discussion, and expected sensible wx out to the media and other customers in an efficient and coordinating fashion. What you said about some forecasters writing short AFDs and still being some of the best verifiers in the office is true at GSP too. Experience is the intangible that cannot be replaced in something as subjective and "art-like" as weather forecasting.

When did AFDs become a product for public use? I remember 15-20 years ago it wasn't that way. Was it just the internet that led to the wider dissemination/audience?

[isohume]

When did AFDs become a product for public use? I remember 15-20 years ago it wasn't that way. Was it just the internet that led to the wider dissemination/audience?

Yeah it was with the Internet. All of our products became highly visible to the general public even they're not the intended audience for some of them, like the AFD, Spots, TAFs, etc.

[DaculaWeather]

But that should be good isn't it? Isn't the point to get out as much information as possible?

I think the comments we've made about AFD's is based on how well some offices in the southeast do with theirs, while others are not very helpful at all. I read AFD's to try to "read between the lines" and figure out HOW and WHY they came up with their forecast. Some AFD's just don't give you much to go on.

[isohume]

But that should be good isn't it? Isn't the point to get out as much information as possible?

I think the comments we've made about AFD's is based on how well some offices in the southeast do with theirs, while others are not very helpful at all. I read AFD's to try to "read between the lines" and figure out HOW and WHY they came up with their forecast. Some AFD's just don't give you much to go on.

It's good for weather weenies I suppose. But the general public doesn't care to read them or figure them out...let alone rate them.

It's bit us in the butt a couple times...once a trucker couldn't understand some of the contractions used in the AFD and complained to our MIC...who then told us no more contractions. Another time a forecaster got an irate phone call from some guy because the actual obs didn't match what he thought he interpreted in the AFD wrt to an ice storm in his area.

We have a hard enough time explaining the AFD to media mets at times...let alone the public.

[on_wx]

Environment Canada offices are too big

[snowman21]

Environment Canada offices are too big

How come Saskatchewan is shaded in that map? Do they not have an office? Are the little squares offices or does each province have its own?

[Ed Lizard]

They could easily merge Lubbock and Amarillo, with Midland taking over the the southernmost LBB/LUB counties, if they needed to find people to split Atlanta's CWA.

[snowman21]

Look out west at the size of the CWAs (http://www.weather.gov/organization.php#maps). What's the big deal about FFC?

[AbsolutZero]

Here's to hoping that both of us are misunderstanding the warning/population correlation....

AbsolutZero,

ditto on you taking time to come here and explain for us...Thanks! I do not want your job by any means...you guys have a tough one!......however, me being the weather buff in the family/community, I'm trying to figure out the hows and whys when people ask me why we were not under a warning....they look to me and I look to you guys and the AmWx folks....

Sorry for the delay guys. Yes, I think there is a little misunderstanding. In my opinion, the biggest finding with Jeff Dobur's research from 2004 is that reports are heavily weighted to population density. That said, there is some correlation with warnings and population density too. Think about this question, what most likely triggers a decision to warn in the era before 88D? Its reports, not data. If we didn't get a report, then there is a lot less chance of a warning. Yes, there were WSR-57's and 74's then, but from my conversations with HMTs and mets who issued warnings before 88D, a lot more emphasis was placed on reports than now.

Please don't think we have different warning thresholds based on population density. The forecasters who used to talk that way, did so 10 or more years ago. In our office, our most vocal opponent to that philosophy is one of the "old guard" I mentioned earlier. There is always someone in the path of a storm in this part of the country and we never use population density as a factor to warn or not.

If we repeated the research for 2004-2011, I hope that that correlation has changed.

Steve

[DaculaWeather]

While we're discussing....

What is your preferred method for receiving storm reports? Phone, eSpotter, SpotterNetwork, or plain email?

[AbsolutZero]

While we're discussing....

What is your preferred method for receiving storm reports? Phone, eSpotter, SpotterNetwork, or plain email?

As long as we are allowed to continue using eSpotter in southern region, I prefer that by far. It goes straight to our workstations. There could be one or two bad reports, but nearly all the eSpotter reports I've seen have been very helpful.

[DaculaWeather]

Great, thanks! That's what I'll use then. I figured there had to be a preference.

"As long as we are allowed to continue using eSpotter in southern region..."

Are they thinking of doing something else?

[suzannah]

I've noticed the same thing here in NW GA- we have had more than a few storms in the last 6 months that caused significant wind damage. It is a rare event to get a thunderstorm warning (or most recently, heat advisories); where as I used to receive them regularly. I was wondering if it was incompetence, lack of funding, or a combination of both. I started following the Huntsville office as they seem to be more reliable.

Meh, their area is too big. Even if they have more staff, it really wont' change the way they focus, or don't focus, on their fringe counties. Reason I believe this is because in situations where only a small portion of their cwa is under active weather, (which should focus whoever is on staff at the time on that area), they still largely ignore it. Between that and knowing and following how they operate, I don't believe it would improve anything.

I have been arguing for YEARS their cwa is too big. I have been complaining about it ever since they moved the nws away from athens. Look at this map below, it is absolutely ABSURD alabama and sc have 3 nws. For crying out loud, ffc's cwa is nearly the size of the ENTIRE state of sc. And Look how tiny HSVs cwa is, how is there any justification for breaking up bhm/bna's old cwa and not ffc's? It's absolutely tiny, Especially compared to ffc..which is 4 to 5 times larger than HSV's. And yes there are other large cwas, like memphis, but they don't have mountains or topography issues nearly as much. Still ffc's is bigger. And as far as gsp goes, their cwa is clearly not as large. However they have management there that clearly makes it a focus to pay attention to their fringe counties just as much as their interior counties.

The forecasts suffer for it and I absolutely HATE the way they handle severe weather and warnings. Because there is ZERO question there is one standard for a severe t-storm warning for the metro area and another for areas out here. The other night a severe t-storm moved through here that produced 60 plus mph winds, caused numerous tree damage, and knocked out power for 8 to 10 hours and not a single warning..despite the fact radar showed the storm every bit as organized or even stronger than when it was moving through the metro area...yet amazingly those storms had warnings! I have seen over and over and over again storms that should have warnings where I am being ignored while storms near atlanta get warnings, some of them won't even look as strong as ones that don't get warned here. Then as soon as those storms move into elbert and hart counties, which lie in the gsp cwa, they get warnings..even if they are weakening!

It's an issue in the winter time too because due to cad or other factors there is some variability, potentially large, over their area. Yet more or less they put everyone in the same boat as atlanta outside the mountains. You never see this with gsp, who do a fantastic job of breaking down that variability in their cwa.

I can't figure out for the life of me why some areas have so many nws offices are that they are so small while ffc is gigantic. Look how many nws are located in florida for example. I mean really, does key west really need a nws? Could miami not easily handle it? Does there really need to be a nws in tampa and yet another one in melbourne? It's ridiculous.

We need another one somewhere in central Ga, macon for example and have ffc cover north ga only. Or have ffc take care of west central/nw ga ga and have another nws office open up in rome or gainesville and have them cover NE ga down to east central ga.

I know it won't happen anytime soon though which is a shame. It really is needed.

[somethingfunny]

I wonder how people feel about this after what happened on Tuesday in Atlanta.  I know the forecasts were good, really, I do.  I wonder if communication could have been more effective if FFC wasn't having to also concern itself with a possible heavy snow and ice storm way down by Macon though.

 

I mean, this is a rather bad product right here.  It's fairly accurate compared to the snow totals sure, but while it does say "Atlanta, 2.0 inches" literally - it also suggestively says "Atlanta, negligible amounts" because of the dark shading compared to the big bright banner of doom across central GA.  Also when you compare the forecast map to the verified totals map, notice that the color scheme completely flips with cyan now being the least important color and navy/purple the most important.

 

I know FFC did a fine job with this event considering the limitations (BMX definitely did worse) but if there was ever a time to advocate for establishing an office in Macon, this would probably be it. I drew my own idea of how to split the map down a bit, I also think the northern tier of Georgia counties ought to be spun off into Huntsville and Knoxville's regions. Northeast Georgia has more in common with Knoxville geographically and meteorologically, and I'm giving northwest Georgia to Huntsville because HSV is a ridiculously tiny WFO. Not shown, but I would also move the Chattanooga metro into HSV's region.

[gtg947h]

As one of the "general public" guys who reads AFDs, I appreciate when the time is taken to write out detailed discussions.  I may not always fully understand them, but they have been helping me (very slowly!) learn and understand.  I'll never be a forecaster, even at an amateur level, but it's still interesting and I think it gives me a better understanding of what is really going on.

 

That said, can we please move away from all-caps, fixed-width text products?  Normal mixed-case text in "regular" fonts would be so much easier on the eyes...

[a5ehren]

As one of the "general public" guys who reads AFDs, I appreciate when the time is taken to write out detailed discussions.  I may not always fully understand them, but they have been helping me (very slowly!) learn and understand.  I'll never be a forecaster, even at an amateur level, but it's still interesting and I think it gives me a better understanding of what is really going on.

 

That said, can we please move away from all-caps, fixed-width text products?  Normal mixed-case text in "regular" fonts would be so much easier on the eyes...

Ha, yeah. If nothing else, this needs to happen for the web version.

[CherokeeGA]

I have data for this on a county by county basis. The one trend that occurs anywhere in the US and does in Georgia is that population density affects severe weather reporting. If no one reports severe weather, then there will be less warnings. Will post the image here if you'd like. Another sad reality is the further you are from a radar, the liklihood of seeing a small signature of severe weather gets lower. Perhaps X-band radars could serve as gap-filling radars. We could use one in north GA like on a mountain in Dawson or Fannin county. Our forecasters do *not* have different thresholds for warnings based on where it is. However, if a radar doesn't show a signature and no one reports severe weather, than no warning will be issued.

 

Hi - thank you for posting all that you did.

 

I take two things from the paragraph above. 

 

First, yes, better radar coverage of the north end of the state would be extremely helpful.  (I say that as someone who's replaced my home's roof within the last 10 years due to a tornado).

 

Second, I think in some cases, having a different warning threshold is completely warranted, but with consideration given to geography and road types.  The thresholds for warning on winter precip should probably be lower in North Georgia than in the flats far to the south.  Or maybe lower for the entire coverage area.   I saw two pickups at different spots up here at 11:20am last Tuesday, when we'd accumulated about 1/4", one in a ditch and the other totaled after it slammed into the trees.  Both drivers safe, thankfully.  But being under warning at the time would have been really really good.

 

I will also say that I think the NWS service is possibly a bit victimized by the media mets' behavior (radio and local tv).  They tend to focus almost exclusively on Atlanta metro, where the bulk of their listening audience is.  They might throw out a few outlying temps or note an official NWS warning for North GA but that's it.  Even during extreme weather coverage (say, spring storms) they focus on the storms rolling through populated areas and nobody much notices what's going on way up here and points north (yay tornado, new roof. ;/ ) .  So I can see where the perception is that there's not enough attention paid to those who are north or south of the metro area.

[jburns]

I saw two pickups at different spots up here at 11:20am last Tuesday, when we'd accumulated about 1/4", one in a ditch and the other totaled after it slammed into the trees.  Both drivers safe, thankfully.  But being under warning at the time would have been really really good.

If you start issuing warning for a possible 1/4 inch, it wouldn't take very long before everyone totally ignored warnings.

[CherokeeGA]

If you start issuing warning for a possible 1/4 inch, it wouldn't take very long before everyone totally ignored warnings.

 

Perhaps for North Carolina, but not here - we just don't get snow all that often.  We see any snow at all, even a trace, on average only once a year.  Some years 0 times, some years 2-3 times, but the average is just once.  And we are all perfectly clear what happens to the roads here when it ices and/or snows.  (Not talking about the mountains, talking about the near-metro N GA).  Nobody is going to ignore a warning that only comes 1 or 2 times per year.  In fact I believe that last week was our once this year - I doubt we will see anything further until the spring thunderstorms.

 

If we were talking about thunderstorms warnings, perhaps your concern would be valid - we get those 50+ days a year, but only a handful of them are truly serious storms.  I can see where an overabundance of storm warnings could cause Peter Wolf syndrome so people might ignore a ts warning when they are going to be strong enough to produce high winds and/or tornadoes.

[jburns]

Perhaps for North Carolina, but not here - we just don't get snow all that often.  We see any snow at all, even a trace, on average only once a year.  Some years 0 times, some years 2-3 times, but the average is just once.  And we are all perfectly clear what happens to the roads here when it ices and/or snows.  (Not talking about the mountains, talking about the near-metro N GA).  Nobody is going to ignore a warning that only comes 1 or 2 times per year.  In fact I believe that last week was our once this year - I doubt we will see anything further until the spring thunderstorms.

 

If we were talking about thunderstorms warnings, perhaps your concern would be valid - we get those 50+ days a year, but only a handful of them are truly serious storms.  I can see where an overabundance of storm warnings could cause Peter Wolf syndrome so people might ignore a ts warning when they are going to be strong enough to produce high winds and/or tornadoes.

Never-the-less, you have to factor in the times where nothing happens. That is much more likely when the amount of precip is sparse approaching an event. IMO the overall effect would be to lessen the effectiveness of NWS warnings.

You are trying to fix the problem from the wrong perspective. The NWS wasn't the problem here. Neither was the Mayor or Governor except to the extent of not deploying their limited resources before the snow started. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. It doesn't matter what the NWS does if several million people jump in their cars despite the warnings and go to work. It doesn't matter what the mayor does if, at the first flake of snow, those same several million people all jump in their cars at the same time and start to drive home.

[max100]

I don't consider Texas part of the southeast. Here is a link to the numbers Miami barely edges out Atlanta but atlanta could already be beating Miami at this point due to explosive growth.

http://en.wikipedia....atistical_Areas

Miami Metro - 5.5million

Atlanta Metro - 5.2 million

Yes, ride by the sign at the Darlington on Peachtree, over 6.2 million as of yesterday.  What bothers me is that GA has a massive population compared to Alabama and SC both of which have 3 NWS forecast offices to GA'S 1.  

[CherokeeGA]

Never-the-less, you have to factor in the times where nothing happens. That is much more likely when the amount of precip is sparse approaching an event. IMO the overall effect would be to lessen the effectiveness of NWS warnings.

You are trying to fix the problem from the wrong perspective. The NWS wasn't the problem here. Neither was the Mayor or Governor except to the extent of not deploying their limited resources before the snow started. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. It doesn't matter what the NWS does if several million people jump in their cars despite the warnings and go to work. It doesn't matter what the mayor does if, at the first flake of snow, those same several million people all jump in their cars at the same time and start to drive home.

 

And please, read the whole thread to understand who was and was not under a warning before you post such things.  We in North Georgia were not.  Check out that map somethingfunny posted.  Would you have stayed home and taken a no-excuse day for keeping your kids home, if 0.1 or 0.2 was forecast for your area?

[jburns]

And please, read the whole thread to understand who was and was not under a warning before you post such things.  We in North Georgia were not.  Check out that map somethingfunny posted.  Would you have stayed home and taken a no-excuse day for keeping your kids home, if 0.1 or 0.2 was forecast for your area?

Based on what you are promoting, a better question is, would you stay home if the NWS put you under a warning for a possible 1/4" of snow?

[CherokeeGA]

Yes, ride by the sign at the Darlington on Peachtree, over 6.2 million as of yesterday.  What bothers me is that GA has a massive population compared to Alabama and SC both of which have 3 NWS forecast offices to GA'S 1.  

 

Population isn't really the thing here... it's the significant geographical differences in the areas they cover.  There are three major ones, with a lot of shades in between - north mountains, north ex-mountains, and central.  Each one experiences some distinct weather differences from the others.