Tampa, Florida, U.S.A - City mayor, Bob Buckhorn is declaring  from June 24th to June 30th , 2012, Lightning Safety Awareness Week, noting that education is the key to understanding lightning’s dangers.  Lightning safety advocates from the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI), the Lightning Safety Alliance (LSA), the National Weather Service (NWS) and other partnering organizations joined Mayor, Bob Buckhorn and Tampa Fire and Rescue Chief, Thomas Forward for a press conference at the Tampa Firefighter’s Museum at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 21st  to kick-off Lightning Safety Awareness Week and share educational resources. Dave Andreychuk of Tampa Bay Lightning was on hand at the event to help introduce a newly-produced, radio Public Service Announcement (PSA). The PSA will be used by the NWS to promote lightning safety to men ages 20-50, as 80% of lightning victims are typically male.

“People often underrate the dangers of lightning, yet it is a leading storm-related killer,” said Donna Franklin, director of the National Weather Service’s Lightning Safety Awareness Team. “Lack of awareness about what to do during a thunderstorm seems to be a common factor in many lightning injuries and deaths, which is why the National Weather Service launched the annual lightning safety campaign in 2001.”

“Tampa is known as the lightning capital of the country,” said Brian LaMarre, meteorologist-in-charge of the Tampa Bay area’s National Weather Service. According to the NWS, on average 54 people are killed by lightning every year in the United States.  Unfortunately, Florida usually leads the count with ten deaths across an area known as “lightning alley” stretching across central Florida—focusing on theTampa Bay region.”Tampa averages almost three million potentially deadly flashes each year—so lightning is a concern for us in terms of personal safety and property loss,” explained LaMarre.

“Lightning safety week is a perfect time to remind the fire prevention community and first-responders about the dangers of lightning and provide the public with information to help protect families and property,” saidBud VanSickle, LPI executive director. “Collaboration with like-minded partners, including those participating in our 2012 Tampa kick-off event, helps us align existing efforts and pool our expert resources accordingly, to better address lightning safety needs.”

The collaboration is part of LPI’s educational initiative to remind the public and the fire safety community about the dangers of lightning, an underrated and often forgotten weather hazard. LPI recently partnered with the Lightning Safety Alliance (LSA) launch a lightning safety initiative to provide educational resources for outdoor recreational facilities. The “Safer Design for Safer Play” initiative dovetails with new efforts by the National Weather Service to promote greater lightning safety at outdoor venues.

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Meteorologists testing the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System, version 2 (AWIPS2), at the NWS Weather Forecast Office in Omaha Nebraska experienced potentially life threatening technical issues and missed critical information as they disseminated warnings. The problems highlight catastrophic infrastructure issues within the NWS as the agency tries to manage multiple technical problems with their already delayed AWIPS2 roll out.

Meanwhile, the NWS plans on removing the Information Technology Officers from all weather forecast offices nationwide as part of the Presidents FY13 budget request, the very same people the agency would count on to fix these technical problems.

The National Weather Service houses an AWIPS at each of the 122 weather forecast offices across the country. AWIPS is the cornerstone for all of the forecasting and warning programs. The agency is in the process of upgrading to a faster, more efficient system, AWIPS 2, but is experiencing technical problems as the implementation takes place.

Currently, the weather forecast office in Omaha, Nebraska is the only office to fully implement AWIPS2; Boulder, Colorado and Houston, Texas are in the process of implementing the system. In Omaha, the forecasters did not even know they were in a Tornado Watch as the typical alerting systems and notifications failed to operate correctly. Additionally, products that warn citizens of potential dangers also alerted areas that were not of concern. Finally, forecasters were not able to see portions of neighboring radars that might have had a better coverage of the storm.

“The National Weather Service is making rash decisions that could have catastrophic consequences,” said Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. “It makes no sense to implement AWIPS2 before the program is ready and then fire all the IT guys who are responsible for fixing the problems.”

AWIPS2 is scheduled to be implemented in the Oklahoma City area (Norman, OK) in about two weeks and unlike Omaha, Norman will not have a backup AWIPS1 system. “They clearly have not worked all of the bugs out of the system, and now they are going to place this machine in the heart of Tornado Alley, right at the beginning of the tornado season, they are going to kill somebody,” Sobien stated.

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