Contact:       
J. Michael Looney                     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Patrick J. Slattery                   Nov. 10, 1998

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - The National Weather Service's Cheyenne office will test a new storm warning procedure this winter that could result in a public rating scale designed to better describe the potential impact of winter storms.

J. Michael Looney, chief of meteorological services at the agency's Central Region headquarters in Kansas City, said the new rating system should let forecasters provide a winter watch and warning service more useful to those affected. The winter storm rating index was created by forecasters in Cheyenne. The test begins

Nov. 25. "This index blends criteria we've used for years into the actual impact a winter storm is likely to have on a given area," Looney said. "It's our view that local forecasters know their warning areas better than anyone else does, and this gives them some flexibility in issuing winter storm watches and warnings.

"For example, sometimes in Wyoming and the Nebraska Panhandle, an eight- inch snow won't have significant impact; at other times it will. Much depends on many variables, such as wind and/or temperature, other than simply the amount of snow that's expected to fall."

Looney said Cheyenne forecasters devised the new index after an October 1997 storm dumped heavy snow on parts of the two states for 15 hours in gale-force winds. As the storm grew in strength, he said, forecasts progressed from a winter storm watch to a snow advisory, a snow and blowing snow advisory and, finally, to a blizzard warning. More flexible locally-adapted warning criteria could have saved time and made the frequent changes unnecessary.

The new index rates winter storms in five categories: one, a minor incon- venience; two, inconvenience; three, significant inconvenience; four, potentially life- threatening; and five, life-threatening.

Winter storms are difficult to rate objectively on a number scale, Looney said, because they don't have the same impact in all situations or locations. "We'll find out this winter how well this more subjective index works for the public."