First Warning
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- For the novel by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, see First Warning (book).
First Warning is the name of an automated severe weather warning system made for broadcast television stations in the United States.
The system was created in the mid-1980s in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the tornado capital of the world, by meteorologist Gary England of CBS affiliate KWTV.
First Warning consists of a map of an entire state or just the viewing area of the television station with a list of the watches, warnings or advisories in colored text, in text beside a colored key or in text on a line colored key. When a new watch is issued by the Storm Prediction Center or warning is issued by the National Weather Service local forecast office, a scroll featuring information on the warning appears usually accompanying an alarm tone. The scroll is also used by television stations for information on non-severe weather.
Variations of this system are used on television stations across the country. A key example is NBC affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. On a variation of the First Warning system called the 4Warn Storm Alert, when a new watch or warning is issued, the screen showing that program shrinks and a map of the state of Oklahoma appears with a specific county name shown above the map and the county under that watch or warning blinking in the warning/watch color. Above it, a scroll showing the information. On the second run of the scroll, a live picture of their 4Warn Doppler is shown.
[edit] System upgrades
By the early and mid-2000s, the First Warning system received new upgrades as the system became able to toggle between watches and warnings and radar images. However, not all television stations have a radar function on their First Warning systems but the number of stations that have the function is slowly growing. Many television stations are also adding a function on their First Warning systems to allow the use of county-by-county radar images.
