[teaearlgraycold]

The system is training me to ignore it already. I’m in SF and we had a flash flood emergency alert. I never heard of or saw any floods. I could believe a street or two might have had a few inches of water at most. But honestly I’d bet against even that.

And then there’s this tsunami alert today.

[taatof]

> I never heard of or saw any floods.

There was a ton of flooding on flat roads and highways during the last week+ long storm session. I saw several lanes impassable on 101, and several spots in SF where a car could easily have gotten flooded.

All the alerts I got were basically "please don't drive" and not "you're gonna die!", which I think is totally reasonable.

[wbl]

SF topography means some places like the Mission and Dogpatch can have severe floods and the rest be fine.

[crazygringo]

Flash floods depend on your elevation.

I've gotten the warning and my street is perfectly fine... and then I look at social media and cars on the street are half-submerged just 20 blocks away.

You might not even be aware of elevation differences when they're gradual.

[s1artibartfast]

It is also unclear to me how someone is supposed to differentiate a real emergency from an "Extreme threat/danger" and what authority they should look to, besides their common sense.

I guess people can go on twitter and read some random posts.

[bsder]

Flash flood alerts are one of the few that I don't get annoyed about seeing. A big rain up in the mountains can result in a huge chunk of water somewhere downstream a couple of hours later. This significant displacement of time and space between cause and effect warrants caution and notification.

[anyfoo]

One superfluous tsunami warning after an outlier 7.0 earthquake, and already "the system is training [you] to ignore it"?

[sib]

This is similar to the "severe weather alert" I just received on my phone when the temperature will range from 47' to 67' F (8' to 19' C) in Los Angeles today, December 5, with clear, sunny skies and no noticeable winds.

Of course, when I tap on the notification and open the app, I see that it's actually driven by an air quality alert because the AQI will be 112 (which isn't even that high.)

Come on guys - the dictionary defines weather as, "the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness."