Want to keep informed of changing weather conditions when you are not at home? Technology advances over the past few years have allowed National Weather Service information to be transmitted directly to your pager, personal digital assistant ( PDA), or e-mail. This allows you to automatically receive forecast products, as well as severe weather watches, warnings, and advisories.

Not only will this information be forwarded directly to you, but you can pick and choose which products you would like, and can limit the products to specific counties. For example, suppose you live in Carson county and would like to receive severe thunderstorm warnings directly to your pager. You can choose to only get the warnings for Carson county, or for Carson, Potter, and Randall counties if you would like to get information on the storms before they are likely to move into Carson county. You choose which products you need, and can add or subtract counties or products at any time.

If you have a wireless device, like a PDA, point your browser to http://mobile.srh.weather.gov . This site will identify your device as a PDA and give you choices to receive forecast conditions, current conditions, and current radar information.

To begin receiving information directly to your e-mail, pager, or cell phone, contact Steve Drillette at 335-3118 or by e-mail at steve.drillette@noaa.gov.

The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) is the National Weather Service’s frontline solution to provide improved river and flood forecasting and water information across America. AHPS builds upon the NWS long history of around-the-clock forecasting excellence bridging past successes with new sciences and technologies. AHPS will provide hydrologic information which better meets the changing needs of our diverse customers. Your local AHPS can be found on the Amarillo NWS home page at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/ and click on “Rivers and Lakes AHPS” on the menu bar located on the left side of the page.

Click for next picture Image

On this page you will find a map of gage sites (Image 1) as well as other useful information such as how much rain will fall over the next 24 hours and a detailed explanation of AHPS. If you click on a certain river gage site (i.e. Amarillo 19N) you will then go to a page that shows a graph of the observed river stage along with river’s flood stage (Image 2). This graph will have the latest stage of the river at that point which is defined at the top of the gage. If the river is expected to rise to flood stage or above, then you will also see a forecast trace on the graph which will show you how high the river is expected to get. You will also see a map of the river gage location at the bottom of this page (Image 3). At the bottom you will also find impacts if the river rises to these stages at this gage. If you go back to the main AHPS home page you will see that you can also get the latest pool height at local reservoirs such as Lake Meredith. Personalized information can be obtained for a river or creek by clicking on the "river at a glance" option on the right of the page and checking the information you wish to view. Then just click “Make my River Page!”.

Go and try out this new service. Let us know what you think by going to the AHPS feedback section under Hydrologic Resources on the front of the AHPS page.