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[Rothman]

Add fire tornadoes to the list.

[US 89]

They've also dumbed it down severely over the years. In Massachusetts it used to mean 4-6 inches of snow or a tenth to quarter of an inch of ice accretion. Over the past few years it has been invoked for such things as freezing fog causing a coating of ice on the roads or a mere 2 inches of snow, and specifically citing that as the need for the advisory.

It's fun to watch them ruin a meaningful product, ask the masses whether the product is needed anymore, then come out and say "the public says it's not a good product" after they used it for target practice for years.

We need to bring back Ice Storm Watch/Warnings, Snow Advisories, Freezing Rain Advisories, and Heavy Snow Watch/Warnings. Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Watch/Warnings should be for mutli-precip events in the same area. Annoyingly, the Norton (Boston) NWS never used those specific watches and warnings.

For what it's worth, Ice Storm Warnings are still around, but I am sad the others have fallen by the wayside. However, the problem with the old approach is that people would ask "what's the difference between a Heavy Snow Warning and a Winter Storm Warning?" and the answer to that question is a lot more complicated than just explaining the difference between a watch and warning.

The main reason advisories are worthless now is because in the past few years, the NWS has tried to make their alerts more "impact based" and while that's not a bad idea, many offices have completely gotten rid of hard criteria for a lot of advisories and are instead just going with something along the lines of "causing significant inconvenience". I don't mind fudging criteria slightly if the situation warrants (e.g. a snowstorm with totals expected to be just below warning criteria will hit during the morning commute, so a warning gets issued instead of an advisory), but they can't just throw advisory criteria out the window completely.

[zachary_amaryllis]

the 'winter weather advisory' drives me up the wall..

'gee, its january.. i wonder what sort of weather i should expect?'

They've also dumbed it down severely over the years. In Massachusetts it used to mean 4-6 inches of snow or a tenth to quarter of an inch of ice accretion. Over the past few years it has been invoked for such things as freezing fog causing a coating of ice on the roads or a mere 2 inches of snow, and specifically citing that as the need for the advisory.

It's fun to watch them ruin a meaningful product, ask the masses whether the product is needed anymore, then come out and say "the public says it's not a good product" after they used it for target practice for years.

We need to bring back Ice Storm Watch/Warnings, Snow Advisories, Freezing Rain Advisories, and Heavy Snow Watch/Warnings. Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Watch/Warnings should be for mutli-precip events in the same area. Annoyingly, the Norton (Boston) NWS never used those specific watches and warnings.

i just realized.. i'm getting old..

used to be, in a given winter, when i was a kid, we may or may not get a snow day. i grew up, and still live in, the mountains. most days, the school bus got up here before the snowplow did.

now, they close schools (or delay them) if there's even a chance of snow.

the road up here isn't that terrible in the winter, i learned to drive in the winter (in an old vw bus) and did just fine. the school bus driver did it just fine. i don't get it.

[GaryV]

^ Liability.  No matter how remote the chance, if a kid gets killed on the way to school in the snow, the school system is deep in something much worse than just snow.

[ftballfan]

^ Liability.  No matter how remote the chance, if a kid gets killed on the way to school in the snow, the school system is deep in something much worse than just snow.

And snowplowing budget cuts

[cabiness42]

^ Liability.  No matter how remote the chance, if a kid gets killed on the way to school in the snow, the school system is deep in something much worse than just snow.

Who is liable when a kid gets killed waiting for the bus because it's still dark at 8am because we've pushed our clocks so far forward?

[Scott5114]

^ Liability.  No matter how remote the chance, if a kid gets killed on the way to school in the snow, the school system is deep in something much worse than just snow.

Who is liable when a kid gets killed waiting for the bus because it's still dark at 8am because we've pushed our clocks so far forward?

You are, for trying to bring back the DST thread.

[SEWIGuy]

^ Liability.  No matter how remote the chance, if a kid gets killed on the way to school in the snow, the school system is deep in something much worse than just snow.

Not just liability, but a realization that sending kids to school during a snowstorm isn't really necessary if you build enough flexibility into your schedule.

[CapeCodder]

One trouble I have with NWS's watches and warnings is that I don't know how to "translate" them into the European color-coded warning system (yellow, orange, red in order of severity). Further complicating things is the way they are issued: The NWS issues a watch when something might occur in an area and a warning when it is already happening while European meteorological services will issue warnings based on forecasts, e.g. the AEMET (Spanish equivalent of NWS) would issue (for example) an orange thunderstorm warning several hours before the storm actually takes place, while the NWS would only issue a severe thunderstorm watch and only when a storm really forms they would issue a severe thunderstorm warning.

Technically, a tornado doesn't have to have actually been spotted in order for a tornado warning to be issued.  A warning means that the threat of the condition described is imminent, and it could develop at a moment's notice.  So a tornado warning may be issued with no spotted tornado, if it is determined that the weather conditions are ripe for a tornado to drop down at any time.  A tornado watch, on the other hand, means that those "ripe conditions" haven't developed yet but are likely to soon.

Most tornado warnings around here are issued for radar-indicated rotation, and indeed, most of them never turn into funnel clouds or touchdowns. We had an instance several weeks ago not far from here where there was just a strong thunderstorm, not severe, with no associated watch. All of a sudden the radar showed rotation and a tornado warning was issued.

True, they are. I'm a volunteer spotter (original office was LSX [St. Louis] but is now BOX [Boston/Norton]) and the more eyes on the ground, the better. I was in New Melle, MO on Good Friday, 2011 when the tornado that would eventually tear through Lambert first touched down. I got on the horn to the NWS and reported it. I think my spotter report was the first to go out over the air, but I could be wrong. That whole day was weird.