Living in Pittsburgh, a recent addition to our weather has been tornadoes. Not
wishing to travel to Kansas by an unintentionally mobile home (created by the
uprooting of our conventional home), I have 2 weather radios and utilize the
service offered by the weather channel called Notify.

Notify (for a $5.00 monthly fee) will call: Your home phone, and your cell
phone, and your alphanumeric pager, and send you an e-mail. The service is
configurable, so if you live on a mountain and do not wish to receive flood
alerts, you don't have to. Same with winter storm warnings, etc. You can elect
silence periods for specific devices, i.e. you don't want pages in the middle
of the night warning of bad weather since you did elect to get them on your
home phone, you don't need to receive the pages. Just specify the times.

The interesting thing is that the warnings sent by Notify are some 3 to 5
minutes in advance of the activation of my weather radios, via the NWS. This I
don't understand. This leads me to believe that Notify would be a better bet
to warn of weather that is immediately dangerous to life and property. Perhaps
the NWS in the Pittsburgh area is unusually slow at generating the alerts,
maybe this doesn't apply elsewhere.

In addition to the alert services, subscribers have access (needing s simple
download to allow it to operate on your computer) to, what I believe, is
significantly augmented Radar Images and Information. Not only does the radar
show the storm swath and relative precipitation amounts, but it shows
Mesocyclone Activity, 2D Uncorrelated and 3D Correlated Shear, Elevated and
Elevated Enhanced Rotation, Hail probability, hail size, and more.

Give it a look, well worth the money to me.

http://www.weather.com/index.html
http://www.weather.com/services/noti...rom=b_homepage

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

If you have a dedicated phone line or high speed internet connection you can
have the same thing for free with software like weathernode and some
plugins.

--


Remove "zz" from e-mail address to direct reply.



Its (The Dawn Soliloquy) wrote in message
...
Living in Pittsburgh, a recent addition to our weather has been tornadoes.
Not
wishing to travel to Kansas by an unintentionally mobile home (created by
the
uprooting of our conventional home), I have 2 weather radios and utilize
the
service offered by the weather channel called Notify.

Notify (for a $5.00 monthly fee) will call: Your home phone, and your cell
phone, and your alphanumeric pager, and send you an e-mail. The service is
configurable, so if you live on a mountain and do not wish to receive
flood
alerts, you don't have to. Same with winter storm warnings, etc. You can
elect
silence periods for specific devices, i.e. you don't want pages in the
middle
of the night warning of bad weather since you did elect to get them on
your
home phone, you don't need to receive the pages. Just specify the times.

The interesting thing is that the warnings sent by Notify are some 3 to 5
minutes in advance of the activation of my weather radios, via the NWS.
This I
don't understand. This leads me to believe that Notify would be a better
bet
to warn of weather that is immediately dangerous to life and property.
Perhaps
the NWS in the Pittsburgh area is unusually slow at generating the alerts,
maybe this doesn't apply elsewhere.

In addition to the alert services, subscribers have access (needing s
simple
download to allow it to operate on your computer) to, what I believe, is
significantly augmented Radar Images and Information. Not only does the
radar
show the storm swath and relative precipitation amounts, but it shows
Mesocyclone Activity, 2D Uncorrelated and 3D Correlated Shear, Elevated
and
Elevated Enhanced Rotation, Hail probability, hail size, and more.

Give it a look, well worth the money to me.

http://www.weather.com/index.html

http://www.weather.com/services/noti...rom=b_homepage

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Interesting. A keeper. Thanks. I've been away from emergency services for
several years.

My area's NWS office, with its Doppler radar, is just a few miles down the
highway from me.

A few years ago, that office had a fellow who would punch the button and give a
warning annoucement in real time. Now the duds there, even though a ham is in
charge (or was), wait for the 5-minute tape to get around to a certain point
and then tape their severe storm warning. By the time it's broadcast, the storm
has already blown through. LOL

BTW I assume you are referring to Pittsburgh PA, not KS or CA. G I do
remember tornadoes in PA when I was there in 1960. And again in, I think, 1990.

Bill. K5BY
In SE Texas

Yes, Pittsburgh PA, I lived here for all my 40 something years, perhaps I was
adequately distracted as a youth, but the winds seem more severe now. The
local news had a video of a tornado forming over (actually near) downtown
about a month ago. It didn't amount to much, thankfully.

A couple of years ago, Homestead (or whatever the area near Kennywood is known
as) was hit pretty hard, that called it a downdraft or microburst. Sheared the
roofs off of homes, downed trees, all in a fairly defined area. Likewise
Mount Washington was hit by a tornado several years ago, building damage, no
fatalities.

After seeing a lightning strike or two within 40 feet of me over the years, I
am becoming increasingly conscious of the weather. (I also have an interest in
Amateur Astronomy, so I look skyward more often).

I see that the NWS is endeavoring to improve the readability of their
electronic voices, male and occasionally female. Apparently they miss the
punctuation while typing, every so often the words are obviously jammed
together, making the overall effect unrecognizable.

Regards.


In article ,
(WShoots1) wrote:
Interesting. A keeper. Thanks. I've been away from emergency services for
several years.

My area's NWS office, with its Doppler radar, is just a few miles down the
highway from me.

A few years ago, that office had a fellow who would punch the button and give a
warning annoucement in real time. Now the duds there, even though a ham is in
charge (or was), wait for the 5-minute tape to get around to a certain point
and then tape their severe storm warning. By the time it's broadcast, the storm
has already blown through. LOL

BTW I assume you are referring to Pittsburgh PA, not KS or CA. G I do
remember tornadoes in PA when I was there in 1960. And again in, I think, 1990.

Bill. K5BY
In SE Texas

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Ah, so true, but oddly enough, they can't send messages to "one way"
alphanumeric pagers. I believe that they are doing "mail drops" perhaps e-mail
drops would be a better term. They send the mail, you get a message that you
have mail, you need to download the e-mail, and then you get the warning.

If it works otherwise, let me know, but last I checked, it was essentially as
above.

I'm sure it's great for some people, I get the e-mail warnings from them, but
I was unable to configure my pager. The only other thing I would fear is
starting to get junk mail on my pager.

Regards.


In article , "Ryan, KC8PMX"
wrote:
Try http://www.emergencyemail.org/ and it is free as well. Just go to
that page, select the state and then the counties, and then the type of
alerts you wish to get.




Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Don't know about having that data sent to alpha pagers but via email service
it works great for me. I have Outlook Express always operating in the
background (so to speak) and set to check for new mail every 30 minutes so I
get email fairly frequently. I also have the counties due West, North-West
and South-West of me as well as that is where most of the weather I may have
to be concerned about is going to come from.


--
Ryan, KC8PMX
FF1-FF2-MFR-(pending NREMT-B!)
--. --- -.. ... .- -. --. . .-.. ... .- .-. . ..-. .. .-. . ..-.
... --. .... - . .-. ...
Its (The Dawn Soliloquy) wrote in message
...
Ah, so true, but oddly enough, they can't send messages to "one way"
alphanumeric pagers. I believe that they are doing "mail drops" perhaps
e-mail
drops would be a better term. They send the mail, you get a message that
you
have mail, you need to download the e-mail, and then you get the warning.

If it works otherwise, let me know, but last I checked, it was essentially
as
above.

I'm sure it's great for some people, I get the e-mail warnings from them,
but
I was unable to configure my pager. The only other thing I would fear is
starting to get junk mail on my pager.

Regards.


In article , "Ryan, KC8PMX"
wrote:
Try http://www.emergencyemail.org/ and it is free as well. Just go
to
that page, select the state and then the counties, and then the type of
alerts you wish to get.




Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

I'm losing my faith in the NWS Pittsburgh.

We were issued a "Severe thunderstorm watch" at 12:47 by Notify, in effect
until 6:00 PM.

At 13:16, my weather radios activated, reporting "A severe thunderstorm watch"
in effect until 6:00 PM.

If you were going to trust your life, or your famlies life, to a weather
warning system, which would you use?

No brainer.

Regards.


In article , Its (The
Dawn Soliloquy) wrote:
Living in Pittsburgh, a recent addition to our weather has been tornadoes. Not
wishing to travel to Kansas by an unintentionally mobile home (created by the
uprooting of our conventional home), I have 2 weather radios and utilize the
service offered by the weather channel called Notify.

The interesting thing is that the warnings sent by Notify are some 3 to 5
minutes in advance of the activation of my weather radios, via the NWS. This I
don't understand. This leads me to believe that Notify would be a better bet
to warn of weather that is immediately dangerous to life and property. Perhaps
the NWS in the Pittsburgh area is unusually slow at generating the alerts,
maybe this doesn't apply elsewhere.

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

Actually, I'm waiting for them to realize that the electronic voices that they
use sound ethnically "white", then there will be all hell to pay.
Discrimination, in the terms of ethnically biased electronic voices, will
become the rage as the country progresses further into politically
correctness.

If you don't believe me, they began experimenting with various voices.

http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/re...noaa02007.html

As an analog to this, the Time Broadcasts originating in Canada (CHU) are
given in French and English. Not bad, those in Quebec that are fluent in
French deserve to be able to hear the time signal in their native tongue, BUT
the broadcasts are so neurotic that they, on a minute to minute basis,
alternate the French first, then the next minute the English is first. Sheesh,
you have to wait for the tone to ascertain the time anyway, who gives a squat
what language's signal is broadcast first.

Start all the minutes in French, who cares? It's the BEEP that counts.

http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/
http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/main_e.html
http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/time...adcasts_e.html

Unrelated (to the above diatribe), but time related:
http://www.time.gov/exhibits.html

Regards.

In article
bm9ub3RtZQ==.d8ee1a39f635216f938ad20b295db80a@105 8036176.cotse.net,
DXER@Radio wrote:

Since the NWS is just another typical federal agency awash in lazy,
swaggering, cretinous Affirmative-Action type minority employees, I'm
surprised the weather radio alert was even broadcast.

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.