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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for the counties that include Minneapolis and St. Paul, and says it has received a report of a tornado just north of downtown. The weather services say it received reports of the tornado at 2:11 p.m. Wednesday. Radar shows the storm is moving north at about 20 mph. It reportedly damaged a downtown church. The tornado warning covers central Anoka County, northeastern Hennepin County and western Ramsey County. It remains in effect until 2:45 p.m. Electric Fetus reported on their Twitter page that their building sustained damage and...

(CNN) -- Residents living in single-family homes in some parts of coastal Texas face "certain death" if they do not heed orders to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ike's arrival, the National Weather Service said Thursday night. -snip-

Excerpt - The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for a swath of the south metro region that includes Castle Rock, Castle Pines, the Denver Technology Center, eastern Arapahoe County and northwest Elbert County until 6 p.m. ~ snip~

The snow just won't stop. Intense lake-effect snow squalls that buried communities along eastern Lake Ontario for nine straight days diminished Sunday _ then started up again early Monday. Unofficially, the squalls have dumped 12 feet, 2 inches of snow at Redfield. If accurate, that would break the state record of 10 feet, 7 inches of snow that fell in nearby Montague over seven days ending Jan. 1, 2002, said Steve McLaughlin, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Buffalo. A weather service representative was being sent to Redfield on Monday to verify the total. Residents of this hardy...

As a strong vort max begins to move out of the Rocky Mountain region today, wind shear and instability will be sufficient for intense supercells with the likelihood of producing tornadoes. 40 knots at 850 mb, and ENE-ly storm motions will combine to create perfect storm relative winds for strong tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center has issued a moderate risk for today, with a hatched area for EF2-EF5 tornadoes. Tomorrow looks like a historic outbreak, so we'll be making a two-day chase out of this. We'll be using three live streaming vehicles today, and we're continue improving our setup,...

At 222 PM CST... National Weather Service Doppler radar and storm spotters were tracking a large and extremely dangerous tornado. This tornado was located near Henderson... or about 9 miles southeast of Goshen... moving northeast at 45 mph. The tornado will be near... Antioch... Brundidge and 7 miles northwest of Hamilton Crossroads by 235 PM CST... Brundidge Municipal Airport... Monticello and banks by 240 PM CST... Josie... 7 miles south of Tanyard... 8 miles southeast of Sandfield and 9 miles southwest of Boot Hill by 245 PM CST...

Excerpt - A severe weather outbreak is likely tonight through tomorrow from the eastern Southern Plains east to the Mississippi River Valley (Southern IL southward). The models have been trending slower and slower with this system with each consecutive run, with the WRF now forecasting the dryline to cross the I-35 corridor late tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Therefore, the severe weather threat for today will hold off until after dark when the upper-level support arrives. Beginning early tomorrow afternoon, or even late tonight, the threat for tornadoes will increase dramatically over Northeast TX, East OK, and AR as supercells become surface-based....

GRAY, Maine -- The National Weather Service is calling for significant snow for the mountains and foothills of western Maine and New Hampshire Friday into Friday night. By the time the snow tapers to snow showers on Friday night, forecasters said they expect 4 to 8 inches will have fallen across the mountains, with 3 to 6 inches in the foothills.

Hurricane center chief reassigned Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press Friday, July 6, 2007 at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Proenza was temporarily reassigned Monday, July 9, 2007 amid calls from about half his staff that he be ousted for undermining the public's confidence in the center's forecasts. Director Bill Proenza will be replaced by Deputy Director Ed Rappaport, said center spokesman Dennis Feltgen. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) MIAMI - The director of the National Hurricane Center was temporarily reassigned Monday, four days after many of the center's employees called...

The new director of the National Hurricane Center, under fire from staff members who wanted him ousted, said Friday that he won't resign and that the disagreements can be resolved. Director Bill Proenza replaced Max Mayfield in January. On Thursday, 23 employees - about half his staff - urged the government to removed him immediately. "We may have some disagreements in the philosophy of making changes at the hurricane center in the future as far as what we want for new capability, new science and technology," Proenza said in a phone interview. "Does that justify removing someone?" The senior...

WASHINGTON - One day after its hurricane forecasters complained of budget cuts, the head of the National Weather Service and his deputy announced they will retire next month. David Johnson, the director, and John Jones, the deputy director, plan to bow out at the end of June, according to an internal memo they sent Friday to staff of the nation's weather agency. On Thursday, the AP reported that the director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, which is part of the weather service, believes the government is wasting millions of dollars on advertising while shortchanging his hurricane forecasters' budget. Bill...

Storms, floods, mudslides tie up D.C. areaBy MARTY NILAND, Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON - Flooding from a weekend of heavy rain shut down the Justice Department building, Internal Revenue Service headquarters and the National Archives on Monday, and created a nightmare for commuters with washed-out roads, mud blocking the Capital Beltway and delays on the area's rail lines. District of Columbia officials urged people to avoid the flooded downtown areas. "They need to give us time to make sure everything's OK," said Michelle Pourciau, the acting director of the D.C. Department of Transportation. "We know that more rain is coming ......

ATLANTA -- The government is changing how it categorizes tornadoes after finding that it doesn't take 300 mph winds to disintegrate homes and turn cars into missiles _ a 200 mph twister can do just as much damage. The National Weather Service said Thursday it had changed the Fujita Scale, a three-decade-old system of ranking a tornado's strength, to align wind speeds more closely with actual damage. "It was apparent that many of the speeds used in the estimates were too large, said Joe Schaefer, director of the service's Storm Prediction Center. "The scale guiding wind speeds wasn't in tune...

They were billed as one of the most important advances in the history of weather forecasting: radars so powerful, they could spot a swarm of insects soaring through a field some 30 miles away.Known as Doppler radars, they were 10 times more sensitive than the vintage radars that had dotted the nation's landscape since the 1950s, and would give forecasters more details than ever about hurricanes making landfall.But the National Weather Service project that came with such high hopes in 1987 was quickly battered by schedule delays, contractor clashes and runaway spending.Congress stepped in, lambasting the Weather Service. Audits and...

As Hurricane Earl rolled toward the Gulf Coast in 1998, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center posted warnings that stretched from the Florida Panhandle to Louisiana -- nearly 900 miles, over two days, on alert.But Earl's hurricane-force winds affected 211 miles total, leaving a 685-mile span of coastline untouched by the strongest winds. That's the distance between Miami and Atlanta.A year later during Hurricane Irene, warnings covered 989 miles but only 440 were hit. Last year during Hurricane Charley, nearly 1,400 miles were warned. Miles struck: 197.In all, hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes, shuttered their businesses and...

The clues to help forecasters figure out why hurricanes defy them sit untouched inside a dusty storage room off Miami's Rickenbacker Causeway.Here, at the government's Hurricane Research Division, the life spans of dozens of storms are documented on nine-track tapes stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall, from Claudette to Fabian to Irene to Andrew.There are trillions of bytes of data. But the division's 16 remaining researchers don't have time to study them.While the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been warning the nation about the rise in dangerous hurricanes, the agency has denied requests from its hurricane researchers for...

MIAMI - While hurricanes relentlessly pound America's coastlines, breakdowns in crucial weather-observing equipment are thwarting forecasters at the National Hurricane Center - the nation's first line of defense against tropical weather - as they struggle to get a fix on the deadly storms, a Miami Herald investigation found. Buoys, weather balloons, radars, ground sensors and hurricane hunter planes, all part of a multibillion-dollar weather-tracking system run by the federal government, have failed forecasters during nearly half of the 45 hurricanes that struck land since 1992."It's almost like we're forecasting blind," said Pablo Santos, who has pressed for years for more...

Urgent Weather Message from NWS New Orleans WWUS74 KLIX 281550NPWLIX URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005 DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED HURRICANE KATRINA MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. ATLEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD...

Far from just talking about the weather, Senator Rick Santorum is doing something dank and cloudy about it: he is proposing to squelch the National Weather Service's growing role in the information age. -snip- But Mr. Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, has introduced legislation that would basically require the service to give much of its data only to those private weather forecasting companies. A dozen of those businesses happen to be located in Mr. Santorum's home state, Pennsylvania. "It's not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing...

But U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R- Pa., who has at least 14 commercial weather companies in his home state, according to The Associated Press, introduced a bill in April called the National Weather Services Duties Act that seeks to sharply restrict access to free weather information. With the exception of the "preparation and issuance of severe weather forecasts and warnings designed for the protection of life and property of the general public," the proposed legislation would prohibit the National Weather Service from providing any product or service "that is, or could be provided by the private sector." Everyone from emergency...

Sen. Rick Santorum has done it again. Internet sites are abuzz and outraged over a bill he has proposed that would limit what the National Weather Service can put directly on its own Web site in the way of weather-related information. Santorum is being mocked as a madman, a censor, and worse. What else is new? According to the Daily KOS, a popular Web site among Democrats and liberal ideologues, "Santorum hates sunny weather."

National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005 (Introduced in Senate) S 786 IS1S (Star Print) 109th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 786To clarify the duties and responsibilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES April 14, 2005 Mr. SANTORUM introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation A BILLTo clarify the duties and responsibilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the...

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone? That information is available for free from the National Weather Service. But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

I would suggest people pay attention as to what their Reps are up to. The guy who runs Accu Weather has given this guy lots of money. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/04/21/m1a_wx_0421.html

SEVERAL dozen European victims of Asia's tsunami disaster have filed a lawsuit demanding that Thai authorities, US forecasters, and a French hotel chain prove that they reacted adequately. In what is believed to be the first tsunami claim worldwide, US lawyer Edward Fagan and two other lawyers have filed the suit with a New York district court on behalf of more than 60 plaintiffs from Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The suit was filed against the Thai government, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its Tsunami Warning Centre, and the French hotel group Sofitel, said...

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE 500 AM CDT FRI JUN 25 2003 MEDICAL ASPECTS OF LIGHTNING: LIGHTNING HAS BEEN THE SECOND LARGEST STORM KILLER IN THE US FOR THE LAST FORTY YEARS... EXCEEDED ONLY BY FLOODS. THE ONLY CAUSE OF DEATH FROM LIGHTNING IS FROM CARDIAC ARREST AT THE TIME OF THE INJURY... ALTHOUGH SOME MAY APPEAR TO HAVE A DELAYED DEATH A FEW DAYS LATER IF THEY ARE RESUSCITATED BUT HAVE SUFFERED IRREVERSIBLE BRAIN DAMAGE. ACCORDING TO 'STORM DATA'... A NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PUBLICATION... AN AVERAGE OF 87 LIGHTNING FATALITIES OCCURRED PER YEAR FROM 1959-1995. DUE TO UNDERREPORTING......

NWS Davenport, Roof Damage, No injuries..... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- MASA ["May-sah"] Milwaukee Area Skywarn Assc, Inc, Nonprofit & Tax Exempt. Skywarn: the Identification, Evaluation, and Reporting of dangerous weather. Desktop Doppler Radar with auto refresh: www.mke-skywarn.org/radarmkx.htm SKYWARN RECOGNITION DAY is now set for December 6th 0000-2400 UTC. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Davenport, IA, Aug. 21 --Being part of the agency that forecasts weather didn't protect NOAA's National Weather Service Quad Cities forecast office in Davenport, Iowa, from severe damage caused by a Wednesday evening thunderstorm and high winds. According to Meteorologist in Charge Jim Belles, the forecast staff passed operations to the Des Moines forecast...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ Northeast cities still digging out from a Christmas Day storm were getting blasted by yet another nor'easter expected to drop up to 2 feet of snow by Saturday. ``I've had my white Christmas and that's enough,'' said Tom Guilianelli, 33, filling up his delivery truck Friday at a gas station in suburban Albany, where 12 to 18 inches of snow was expected. The storm will dump 12 to 24 inches on New York's Catskills and the Berkshires in western Massachusetts by Saturday afternoon, said National Weather Service meteorologist Larry Bach in Albany. ``This storm will be...

Special weather statement National Weather Service San Francisco ca 530 AM PST Thu Dec 12 2002 ...Wet stormy weather on the way... A Major rain event is expected to hit the district over the next several days. There will be a series of Pacific storms rolling into the California coast...With the first rains expected to Reach mainly the North Bay region this evening. Rains will continue in the North on Friday...And will be spreading South over the entire san Francisco and Monterey bay region. The strongest in the storm series is likely to occur Saturday and Saturday night...With very...

The fourth annual SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) http://hamradio.noaa.gov/ is December 7 (UTC). That's when Amateur Radio operators set up stations at National Weather Service (NWS) offices and contact other operators around the world. The event is sponsored by the ARRL and the National Weather Service."The purpose of the event is to recognize the vital public service contribution that Amateur Radio operators make during National Weather Service severe weather warning operations," said David Floyd, N5DBZ, warning coordination meteorologist, at the NWS Goodland, Kansas, office. "It also strengthens the bond between Amateur Radio operators and the local National Weather Service office."For several...