Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects
Department
Geography and Geology
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
The National Weather Service (NWS) is continuously improving its forecasting skills, but forecasters still cannot accurately predict the path of a tornado or a severe thunderstorm. The NWS has developed a new warning system in which the warned area is outlined by a polygon, not a county boundary. The polygon-waming approach is expected to significantly reduce the total square-mile area of warnings not followed by an event, called the False Alarm Area. There are three central issues concerning the failure of the polygon-warning method: I) the size of the counties impacted by a storm, 2) the impact of the new warning system on visual and auditory warning methods, and 3) the communication between the NWS, media, and emergency management. If the polygon-warning method is going to be a practical alternative to the countywarning method, then warning disseminators will have to work together to provide the most consistent method of communicating severe-weather wamings to citizens who are in immediate danger.
Advisor(s) or Committee Chair
Scott Dobler
Disciplines
Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Recommended Citation
Bergman, Crystal L., "The National Weather Service's Polygon Method: Warning Dissemination of the Future" (2005). Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 159.
https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/159