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NWS Settles Into New, State-of-the-art Facility
posted 03/23/09
5:42 pm
The NWS was forced to relocate because of the recent expansion of Dulles International Airport (web | news) ; the old office was right in the path of a new runway.
The new office is only three-quarters-of-a-mile away, and has cutting-edge technology to predict severe weather. It's staffed around the clock with meteorologists who are always looking to keep the public out of harm's way.
"We need to have people watching weather 24 hours a day so it doesn't sneak up on you," the NWS's Chris Strong said. "Warnings can be issued whenever that happens, because weather can happen, certainly, any time."
Meteorologist Chris Strong is part of the team that issues warnings and advisories for everything from severe thunderstorms to tornados, even the occasional winter storm.
Forecasting for severe weather begins days before the event. Meteorologists use models that show atmospheric conditions, as well as satellite images of clouds to help predict where the weather is headed.
On a severe weather day, they launch weather balloons and track individual storms on their doppler radar to determine if the main concern is hail, damaging winds -- even tornados. Once a storm becomes severe, a warning can be placed on it, and with a click of a button, can be sent to the public through the Web, media, and NOAA weather radio.
Since 2007, the National Weather Service has issued severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings by storm, rather than by county.
Strong says this allows them to narrow the warnings to those immediately impacted.
"If we're just warning for northern Loudoun County (web | news) into, let's say, northwest Montgomery County (web | news) , that's alerting maybe just a few ten thousands of people instead of 2 million people, who don't necessarily have to be warned about a storm that's not affecting them," Strong said.
Within seconds, those warnings reach the ABC 7 Weather center, where they are relayed through TV, the Internet, and on WTOP radio.
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