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.

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.