Water, tropical, coastal and winter

Your office asks about the hazards it gets

The categories below are the ones that appear on most offices' lists, but the weight on each is entirely local. A coastal office whose area includes bays, sounds and open water out to sixty nautical miles wants marine observations and surge depths. A High Plains office wants blizzard visibilities. An office over a burn scar wants debris flows. The same course, four different priorities.

Water, quoted in full

Flooding: Report any flooding of roads, homes, or businesses.

Heavy Rain: Rainfall reports are always welcome, including rainfall
totals. Rain totals of more than 1 inch in an hour are also helpful.

What to actually say is module 6 lesson 5 as well, and it comes down to four things: where the water is rather than where you are, how deep against a named reference like a kerb or a tyre, flowing or standing, and rising, steady or falling.

Tropical

A tropical cycloneThe general term for a tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane. Their outer rainbands produce small, shallow supercells that are a recognised tornado threat well away from the centre. is the one situation where a spotter may be observing for two days rather than twenty minutes, and where the most valuable observations are the plainest ones.

• Wind and damage, continuously rather than once. The peak is often not when you expect it, and the second half of a landfall arrives from the opposite direction.
• Surge and inundation depth, against fixed references. How far inland the water reached and where it stopped is a measurement somebody can survey against later.
• Rainfall totals, and the times you read them, since a storm-total figure without a window is hard to use.
• Pressure, if you have a calibrated barometer. Rarely available and disproportionately valuable when it is.
• Tornadoes. Tropical cyclones produce them, often well away from the centre and on more than one day, and they are usually brief and rain-wrappedHidden inside the precipitation around it. A rain-wrapped tornado breaks none of the identification rules; it just denies you the observation those rules rely on.. Do not stop watching for rotation because it is a hurricane.

Coastal

Coastal flooding and storm surgeAn abnormal rise of water generated by a storm, over and above the predicted astronomical tide. It is the storm-driven part on its own, which is why it can be quoted as a height without saying anything about how deep the water actually got. are separate categories in the record from rainfall flooding, and module 6 lesson 1 gives the definitions. For reporting, the useful distinction is the source of the water: rain that could not drain, or sea that came inland. Say which you believe it is, say why, and say if it is both, because where a coast is low and flat the two arrive together more often than not.

Winter, which does happen

Winter Weather: Any reports of snow, sleet, or freezing rain. Please
include accumulation information and reports of road conditions.

Rare here, and that is exactly the problem: rare events are reported by people who have never reported one. Three things carry most of the value. Which type it is, and freezing rain and sleet are genuinely different and behave differently on a road. How much, measured on something flat and open rather than on grass or a car bonnet. And what the roads are doing, which is the part emergency management acts on within the hour.

Lightning, and the rule that surprises people