With Damaging Winds and Tornadoes Possible NWS in Wyoming is Off-Line

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As of 4:10pm MDT, a severe thunderstorm warning is out in Wyoming but the NWS is essentially guessing as both of Wyoming's radars are down and have been since mid-evening yesterday. Warnings are being issued out of the NWS at Billings, MT and Rapid City but they are all essentially flying blind without the radars. The Denver radar can give somewhat of a view in southeast Wyoming but that is about it. 

If there were violent tornadoes or flash floods in the center of the state, the NWS would not be able to measure and warn of them. 

This happens far too often and it periodically occurs during periods of floods, tornadoes, large hail, etc., as it is today. 

As explained many times, the National Weather Service is a mess and was a mess long before President Trump was sworn in. The leadership of NOAA and the NWS seem to be unable to fix it. That is why outside advice and expertise is needed to fix this. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 16, 2025 at 7:19 PM

    Products are going out via backup offices in both cases. A comms outage doesn't necessarily mean the radar is down. If a radar is colocated with the office, it is very highly probable that the radar is up. The local staff would be closely monitoring it. While not ideal, the office that is down will be able to provide radar analysis and potential warning information to their backup office via other means. Not ideal, but it is not like there is no local radar data.

    The comms issues are a big problem that goes back more than a decade. It has never been prioritized enough by top NWS management.

    ReplyDelete

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