[sbe-eas] National FIPS Code

[Frank Lucia]

Hi All
 
There are FIPS codes that descibe individual cities and landmarks and these were looked at to determine if they would fit the EAS/SAME protocol.  These very descriptive FIPS had additional numbers beyond the State/County numbers.  But at that time NWS forecasts were almost always county based.  Also the very descriptive FIPS lookup tables are very large.
 
Frank

--- On Mon, 11/28/11, sbe-eas at fetrow.org <sbe-eas at fetrow.org> wrote:


From: sbe-eas at fetrow.org <sbe-eas at fetrow.org>
Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] National FIPS Code
To: sbe-eas at sbe.org
Date: Monday, November 28, 2011, 10:27 PM


Polygons very rarely have the north-south lines go north and south, they generally go southwest to northeast, because that is the GENERAL direction of nasty weather, and the reason they don't follow the western state lines.

Polygons make sense to meaterologists and they are descriptive on TV, but useless on radio.  Most people don't know their coordinates, nor how to figure out if they are between those points.

In the DC market, the counties are around 500 square miles, small, as is most of the Northeast.  Even still, the NWS is now is dividing up the counties.  They will say things like, "western Fairfax County, northern Prince WIlliam County, and southern and eastern Loudoun County in Virginia..."  I'm sure they are doing something similar out west.  In Nevada they might say, southern Nye county, near Pahrump.  Nye county is 18,159  square miles, or over 35 times more area than Loudoun County, VA, which is 517 square miles.

The polygons are great for TV and the Internet, but we need to be more descriptive on NOAA Weather Radio or broadcast radio.

Going further, there is no reason we couldn't have a FIPS code for all of Nye County, but also break the county down into smaller areas and have FIPS codes for those smaller areas.  They might be 400 to 1000 square miles.

Then again, what's the point?  Only Pahrump in the south, and Tonopah in the north have FM radio, or daytime AM radio.  Pahrump has very badly run TV translators, run by the town.  They work, sometimes.  I have no idea about Tonopah, but they may have TV from Reno.  Tonopah is very small compared to the just over 30k people in Pahrump, which is actually a bedroom community to Las Vegas, but over a mountain range from Las Vegas.  SOME FMs are on Mount Potosi, which lies between Las Vegas and Pahrump, so they cover the Pahrump Valley.  OK, too much detail.

The point is, we can deal with it.  We just need to figure out what we want to do, then do it.


> From: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>

> Subject: Re: [sbe-eas] National FIPS Code

> To: "SBE EAS Exchange - a mail list for discussion about the Emergency Alert System and other emergency communication issues." <sbe-eas at sbe.org>

> Date: Sunday, November 27, 2011, 9:49 PM

> [...]

> The National Weather Service proposed adding the convention for the National FIPS code in 1997. Just like the "entire state of" codes don't technically exist in FIPS, NWS suggested adding "000000" as a "convention" in NWR/SAME and EAS. FEMA and the FCC also proposed using adding the convention "000000" for a national code.? If you read the comments on the FCC dockets, its was not the government objecting.

> 

> There will probably be similar problems discovered with CAP after it is deployed.? Will CAP also end up being "frozen," because of objections to

> changing anything after the equipment is deployed?

> [...]

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