By-Will Sellers
Dogs, snakes, spiders and closed spaces are among people’s top fears in the United States according to the American Psychiatric Association. This isn’t the case for Raeann Anderson, who fears severe weather above all.
Fortunately for her, WeatherCall, a new invention has helped to relieve some of her fears for unnecessary warnings in the weather.
“At least I know if it something that I should be worried about,” said Anderson.
WeatherCall is a rapidly growing service that was invented by Kansas City’s own meteorologist, Bryan Busby. The system was designed to be more effective in terms of getting the attention of the audience, and to eliminate false or unnecessary warnings.
During a severe thunderstorm event, Busby received an e-mail from a viewer that asked him if they should take the advice of a competing meteorologist and spend the night in the basement of their house. He replied to the viewer by saying that the threat did not seem to be credible, but there was a slight risk of severe weather over night.
Busby has been thinking of a way to curb questions that keep parents up all night watching TV and thinking about the safety of their children. Others will try to turn on the NOAA weather radio which will automatically broadcast any weather alerts that occur within the area. The problem with radio is that many of the alerts will broadcast on the radio even if the event is not an immediate threat for the area.
“When people turned off their TV, there was no way for us to notify them of severe weather. With WeatherCall we can call them only if their house is in the effected area,” said Busby.
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1,995 sq. miles and over 850,000 people in Arapahoe and Adams Counties in Colorado are under a tornado warning.
The actual warning area in the red box is approximately 100 square miles.
Photo Credits: Weather Call
The system, which is still patent pending, takes the specific geographical location of the severe storm or tornado warning and then populates a list of addresses that lie within the box. Then it makes an automated call to everyone who has signed up and relays the message to them. The system is even sophisticated enough to detail what the strength of the storm is supposed to be. If hail is going to be the largest factor in the storm then the message will relay that.
By using the watch box technology, WeatherCall eliminates the need to for a NOAA weather radio to be on all night, and interrupt the viewer’s sleep because of a false warning. The system can also be less invasive then a simple phone call and deliver an e-mail that contains the specific warning information.
“This is the next best thing to going door to door to let people know about the weather threat,” said Busby.
Raeann Anderson, Circleville, KS, has seen a few tornadoes in her life. She is terrified of the damage they can do and the uncertainty of the location of the devastation.
“They are the scariest things imaginable; you just don’t know what they are going to do or where they are going to go,” said Anderson.
Anderson is glad to have the technology calling her phone. Before she had WeatherCall she would pack up a box of canned food, water, a flashlight, a radio, and a blanket before she relocated to the laundry room of her apartment complex., every time that a severe weather alert would come across the television screen.
While she still has her box of supplies ready to go for the worst of the weather conditions, she now knows that only if she gets a call from this service that she needs to be concerned for the potential of severe weather.
Anderson is not the only one to have the same desire to be informed only when it really matters. In the U.S. more than 33,000 people have signed-up to receive the WeatherCall service since its debut in March of 2008. In Lawrence, alone more than 40 people have signed-up and as the severe weather season continues Busby expects this number to do nothing but rise.
For more information about weather call go to WeatherCall.net