TANGIPAHOA PARISH FIRE AND PUBLIC ZONE RECONFIGURATION

Effective on May 31, 2011, The National Weather Service office in Slidell, Louisiana will reconfigure its current fire and public zone for Tangipahoa Parish in Southeast Louisiana.  The reconfiguration will provide better forecast services by breaking up the parish into two separate fire and public zones for climatologically, geographical and meteorological effects.

Justification

The fire and public zone that covers Tangipahoa Parish (LAZ038) is a zone with a large north south extent stretching from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi border. The extent of this zone encompasses two fire and public zones both to the east of it and west of it. LAZ038 would be split basically in half connecting the boundary of LAZ037/LAZ050 to the boundary of LAZ039/LAZ040. The proposed zone break-up would especially reduce confusion related to tropical and coastal flood watch/warning products that include southern Tangipahoa Parish. Under current zone configuration, tropical and coastal flood watch/warning products appear to encompass the length of the parish from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi border, rather than confined to the true threat area of the southern portion of the parish. Likewise, the zone break-up would assist with winter weather products when only the northern fringes of the parish are expected to receive winter weather. The majority of the population is in the southern half of the parish, and when winter products are issued there is quite a bit of confusion on the location of the winter weather threat.