The National Weather Service is a big government entity consisting of the Storm Prediction Center, Climate Prediction Center, Weather Prediction Center, and 122 individual forecast offices, and more. Two of those offices cover our local area. The office in Blacksburg, VA, covers parts of the Greenbrier Valley, while the office in Charleston covers our western area and Pocahontas County. The weather forecast offices are tasked with many responsibilities. However, one of them is bigger than most.
Joe Curtis, a meteorologist at the NWS office in Charleston, says, “We issue severe weather warnings for the public. So, if you ever get a severe thunderstorm warning, if you get a tornado warning or even a winter storm warning, that comes from us here at the weather forecast office”.
I got the opportunity to visit the office in Charleston to do a simulation on issuing those warnings to see how difficult being thrown into the hot seat actually is. The speed of the system really caught me off guard. You’re not just issuing a warning and moving on; you’re managing multiple moving storms. By the time I hit send on one warning, I was already tracking the next and adjusting the active alerts to keep up with the movement of the storms. It was a hard lesson on how fast you must move when people’s well-being is at stake.
While technology is advanced, it does have limits. During my 1 hour in the “Hot seat”, my biggest challenge was the lack of visual confirmation. To bridge that gap between a radar signature and a real-world threat, the NWS relies on a dedicated network of volunteers that it is actively looking to expand.
Joe said, “Our spotters give us the knowledge and the confirmation of what’s actually happening on the ground. Storm spotters are really important. We have a really good relationship with storm spotters. We’re always holding classes where interested spotters can come and learn how to look at different types of weather and learn how to be an official spotter for us. Something that we are always doing. And that’s really important to us”.
Spotters are also important because radar cannot see everything. There is one specific part of West Virginia that makes it a little harder than other parts due to the terrain. Joe elaborated on that fact, “It can be difficult to diagnose storms that are severe and issue warnings on them across southeastern West Virginia, like the Beckley area”.
Radar isn’t perfect, especially in our mountainous terrain. Since the Earth is curved, the radar beam has a slight upward angle. Because of the high terrain between the radar and Beckley, the beam is forced to scan over the terrain, roughly 6,000 feet up. That means the radar often misses critical things like wall clouds, which can form just 1,500 feet off the ground.
It takes a collaborative effort to run a successful office; Joe has one phrase that they live by. He says, “It’s all in the eye of the forecaster, or everybody has a different perspective, and so when we combine perspectives, that’s when we can be the best that we can be”.
Reporting in Charleston for Newswatch, I’m Tanner Beam.
