Implementation of the Watch By County Severe Weather Products

The Watch By County suite of severe weather products provides NWS partners and customers with an orderly process to receive new, modified and cancelled severe weather (Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm) watch information. Watch By County products are issued through a partnership between local Weather Forecast Offices and the Storm Prediction Center.

The NWS plans to implement operational Valid Time Event Code in the initial and final Watch Outline Update Message (WOU) issued by the Storm Prediction Center on February 8, 2005.    Two legacy convective watch products (State Areal Outline Statement and Watch County List (SEV)) will be discontinued on February 22, 2005.

Local Weather Forecast Offices will issue both operational Special Weather Statements (SPS) and experimental Watch County Notification Messages (WCN) during the 2005 Severe Weather Season to clear all or portions of Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Watches.  The plan is to replace the SPS with the WCN for this service function in the fall of 2005.

Watch By County Documents

Policy

• NWSI 10-511 (WFO Severe Weather Products Specification): Description of the experimental Watch County Notification Message. The latest version of this directive is in final draft.
• NWSI 10-512 (National Severe Weather Products Specification): Technical description of the Watch Outline Update Message.
  • Interim Test Guidance on Test Messages

Technical Information

• AFE scripts for WOU and WCN: TAR
• CAFE scripEt documentation: amended
• Watch By County Message Archive
  

Outreach Material

• Watch County Notification Implementation Plan: A Familiarization Guide for External Partners, Emergency Managers and the Broadcast Media, OTE
• Static Test Schedule and Outlines

Training Links

• WES Watch By County Simulation Page
• GHG Training Movie for Watch By County: Developed by Matt Davis, WFO LaCrosse
• VISITview: Articulate presentation of the recent WBC teletraining session.
  Run visitlocal.bat to play presentation
• Watch by County Training with talking points: ftp://ftp.roc.noaa.gov/Pub/WDTB/wbc04.ppt

Contact Information

• Watch By County: NWS Severe Weather Program Leader Richard.Okulski@noaa.gov
• Watch By County Operational Test and Evaluation: Boise, ID, WCM Paul.Flatt@noaa.gov

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge and thank the NWS employees, and external customers and partners who have continue to provide valuable and useful comments to development of the Watch By County software, test and evaluation process, and supporting documentation.

Richard Okulski, NWS Severe Weather Program Leader

Download Camtasia Studio for avi files.