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Introducing: Post Categories!

Here at USA Weather, we're always trying to make this blog better.  Starting with my next post, I will try to introduce a new asset: Post Categories.  You're probably wondering what these Post Categories are.  Basically, at the top of the page, there will be a set of parameters categorizing the post.  Right now I have three things that will be displayed.  More may be added if needed.  Here is an example:

Category: Severe Thunderstorms
Post Type: Outlook
Threat Level: PDS


So as you can see, there will be a general category, which would just say what the post is talking about.  Then you have the post type.  This will say whether or not this post is an outlook or a situation update.  Finally we have the threat level.  It will say just how dangerous a situation is.  There are four categories of Threat Level:

• Tranquil: The weather situation is not dangerous at all or is very far out in time (4+ days)
• Pay attention: The situation is dangerous enough that you need to pay attention to posts on this blog and updates on the National Weather Service website.
• Take Action: The situation is dangerous enough that you need to begin taking action to protect your life and/or property.
• PDS: Particularly dangerous situation.  The weather situation is threatens to destroy lives and property if action is not taken.  Extremely devastating situations such as strong long track tornados or major hurricanes are likely within the threatened area.

I hope that this system works!  Stay tuned!

Remember to check our SnoScale!

Our SnoScale page is a great place to see long term snow threats!  Check it out now!  Stay tuned!

Threat To Land (TTL) Index

The TTL Index is an extremely simple little number we will attach to every tropical storm.  It simply gives a probability of the storm hitting land.  It goes from 0-5.  Here it is:

• TTL 0: No threat to land
• TTL 1: Small threat to land
• TTL 2: Below 50% probability of hitting land
• TTL 3: More concerning of a value
• TTL 4: Likely to hit land
• TTL 5: Nearly certain that it will impact land

We will likely create an Advanced TTL Index soon, which will take into account strength, track, satellite, etc.

Introducing...

We at USA Weather are proud to announce that we will be implementing a very simple, yet effective, system that will forecast very general long range snow amounts, among other things.  It is called the SnoScale.  So how does this work exactly?  Well, some of you may be familiar of the fact that when meteorologists discover a possible snowstorm, they won't know the exact amounts, but rather have an estimate about how strong it might be.  While this won't fix that problem, it will help to give the reader a general idea of how strong the system will be in their location.  So say we have an Alberta Clipper moving down from Canada about a week out, we would detect that and give it a rating, like this example:

Sno1 would be lighter snow, but things would start to become problematic if you lived in Sno2.  In general, the SnoScale will work best between 3-7 days out.  Ok, Sno1 means generally light to moderate snow amounts, Sno2 is starting to get on the heavy side with amounts, and Sno3 is very heavy amounts of snow/any blizzard.  On rare occasions, and I mean rare, like probably only once or maybe twice a season, I may issue a Sno4, or extreme/historic.  But for this to happen, you'd not only need extreme amounts of snow, but I'd need to have incredible confidence in what was going to happen.  Well I hope that this was simple to understand, and hopefully not a downer on everybody's summer by having  you think about snow.  On the other hand, it's scorching out for some of this, so this may be "a cool thought on a hot day."  Stay tuned!