Road Weather Management Program
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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

Title:

The Killer Tornado Outbreak of 3 May 1999: Applications of OK-FIRST in Rural Communities

Abstract:

The OK-FIRST program was developed, beginning in October 1996, as a formal educational outreach program of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. The goal of OK-FIRST was to develop a transportable, agency-driven information-support system that helped public safety agencies harness the information age. The desired impact of OKFIRST was documentable improvements in how public safety agencies (fire, police, and emergency management) responded to weather emergencies. Today, over three years later, more than 100 public safety agencies ? in support of their respective missions ? have received formal training in how to access and use many new forms of environmental information via OK-FIRST (e.g., data from the Oklahoma Mesonetwork, volume-scan data from 15 WSR-88Ds, and other data from the modernized National Weather Service [NWS]). The most revealing testimonials about the effectiveness and robustness of OK-FIRST occurred on 3 May 1999 ? a day of unparalleled killer tornadoes that impacted central and northern Oklahoma.

Source(s):

University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Climatological Survey

http://home.mesonet.org/dmorris/1_2.pdf

Date: NA

Author:

Crawford, Morris

Keywords:


Emergency management

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