Straight Talk:
CONOPS Ideas

For this Straight Talk column, I want to share with you a letter sent in from Bill Nichols in our Quad Cities office in Davenport, IA, and my response.

Colleagues:

BGen Johnson encouraged and asked for ideas from the field.

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Concept:

1. Primary Cluster "Head WFO" ROUTINELY develops 7 Day Forecast (other WFO's have this capability to act as backups to replace "Head WFO" for weather/equipment/training issues).
2. Database sent to other "Tertiary Cluster WFO's" for review/changes/comments.
3. Tertiary WFO's adjust any grids for local effects that fit "significant weather criteria" (TBD). Probably near advisory/watch criteria and POPS/Storms/Ice/Snow.
4. Grids resent to Primary WFO...merged with changes...final changes done by Primary WFO to ensure Consistency along WFO borders.
5. Primary WFO sends final product NDFD and to Cluster Tertiary WFOs who send out remaining applicable local public products.

1. Decision-making "Chain Of Command" or final decision maker...more effective Collaboration possible. Better use of organizational management principles.
2. Greatly reduces editing grids/workload overall at most/all WFOs. More time for other WFO responsibilities. Meet external stakeholder needs.
3. Greater backup flexibility.
4. For significant weather...affected WFO's routine workload prepared and parsed/delegated so can concentrate on updates and manage Watch/Warnings more timely.
5. Maximizes staffing at local level for High Impact Weather while efficient and effective use of staffing for routine products and quiet weather...training Outreach...local R&D and projects...also do other NOAA missions.
6. Synergistic potential for aviation (TAF's/TWEB's and CWSU duties).

If interested in more specifics, please contact me.

--Bill Nichols
WFO DVN

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions, Bill. Ideas like yours are exactly what we need. I hope they keep coming as we go through the exploration and discovery associated with our prototype process. We are stretching ourselves now and must be open to new ways of accomplishing our mission. We can't rely on basic assumptions based solely on what we have always done.

Most of the specific suggestions you made actually were considered by the ConOps Initiative Team in the process that led them to the "Cluster-Peer" concept. I am sure they would agree with some of the advantages you listed, but after much deliberation, the team determined, and the Corporate Board agreed, the Cluster-Peer concept would be most effective in expanding to clusters of field offices the collaborative process that works so well today within each of our offices.

As you suggest, the question of exactly how an office fulfills its service mission on a day-to-day basis has many potential answers. Our ConOps Prototype Team will continue working these issues into the actual prototype operation. In fact, team members will soon be meeting with regional SSD and MSD chiefs to engage them in discussion.

The Prototype Team will be testing a number of concepts to assess how we will provide the tools to the forecasters - for digital forecast generation and collaboration techniques, as well as allocation of resources. Once we understand the technical issues, the team will make recommendations for establishing prototype clusters which will involve field offices from each of the four CONUS regions.

The prototype clusters will explore if and how offices can work more efficiently through collaboration and sharing of forecast responsibilities. A likely method of moving into prototype clusters is to begin with a couple of offices, which serve as back-up pairs today, then expanding to multiple offices and multiple clusters.

We will continue to work on the "how" various parts of the organization (clustered-peer WFOs, CWSUs, RFCs, and National Centers) should collaborate to produce the best National Weather Service gridded forecasts, along with the rest of our routine and non-routine products and services.

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Corporate Board Committees Change

The NWS Corporate Board committee structure has changed. Details of committees, their makeup, and scope of each committee's responsibilities are available here:

http://www.weather.gov/corporate-board-information/faq.htm.

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Team Continues Radar Data Acquisition System Upgrade Installations

Deployment of the open system upgrade of the Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) radar data acquisition unit (ORDA) is continuing at a steady pace, with 136 systems installed as of July 27, 2006. The NEXT Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) program Product Improvement began in 2001, with award of a contract to RS Information Systems (RSIS) for re-host of the radar data acquisition unit (RDA) to an open systems environment. ORDA replaces the status and control computer, hardwired signal processor (HSP) and programmable signal processor (PSP) with a Linux-based computer and state of the art digital signal processor developed by SIGMET, now a division of Vaisala, Inc. The NWS Office of Science and Technology is leading this product improvement project with assistance of the Office of Operational Systems and NOAA Research's National Severe Storms Laboratory.

Greg Cate, NEXRAD Product Improvement Program Manager, said that "deployment of the ORDA is the foundation for future radar plans, including the addition of some exciting new capabilities. A dedicated group of installation contractors and an equally dedicated cadre of talented NWS electronic technicians are working at the NEXRAD sites to get the ORDA installed with minimal disruption to field operations."

The NEXRAD Product Improvement program approved national deployment of ORDA in November 2005, and the installation schedule ramped up to its current rate of five systems per week. The deployment schedule is available on the web, courtesy of the Radar Operations Center.

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NOAA Adds Additional Observation Platforms in Great Lakes

Nearly a dozen new weather observation platforms NOAA has deployed in the Great Lakes region are providing valuable information directly to recreational and commercial boaters and to National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists issuing marine weather forecasts and warnings.

NWS, NOAA Ocean Service, and NOAA Research's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory joined forces to deploy these new coastal weather observation sites throughout the Great Lakes.

"Experienced seafarers know the more information you have, the better off you are on any body of water," said Richard B. Wagenmaker, Meteorologist-in-Charge of the NWS forecast office in Detroit and member of the joint team that created and coordinated the platform project. "These observation platforms now provide critical information on wind speed and direction, temperature and atmospheric pressure that are updated and broadcast every hour on the Internet for public consumption. Boaters can use the information to avoid perilous situations on the water and our forecasters will incorporate the data with other factors to improve weather and marine forecasts."

Platform locations were chosen following a study by NOAA and NWS personnel to determine gaps in the Great Lakes coastal weather observing network. "Observations are key to our understanding, analysis, and prediction of the Earth's environment," said Lynn Maximuk, NWS Central Region Director. "Information from these platforms is expected to help improve wind and wave forecasts, assist in the response to coastal hazards, strengthen coastal resource management and improve the safety of marine commerce and recreation in the Great Lakes." Each year, nearly 200 million tons of cargo, mostly iron ore, limestone and coal, are shipped over the Great Lakes' sometimes treacherous waters, which are also home to large recreational and commercial fisheries.

The Lake Erie platform was installed at Toledo Harbor Light #2; Lake Huron platforms are at Gravelly Shoal Lighthouse in Saginaw Bay and Fort Gratiot, MI; Lake Michigan platforms are at Big Sable Point, MI, Grand Traverse Lighthouse, MI, Kewaunee, WI, and Waukegan Harbor, IL; platforms in Lake Superior are located at Portage Canal, MI, and Saxon Harbor, WI. Other platforms are on Lake Michigan at Port Washington, WI, on Lake Superior at Silver Bay, MN. Some of the collection platforms are on buoys just offshore while others are affixed to towers adjacent to lake waters.

In coming years, NOAA plans to install up to an additional 32 weather data collection platforms in the Great Lakes to create a denser network of observing stations.

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New Local Numerical Weather Prediction System Released to NWS Forecast Offices

A new numerical weather prediction (NWP) package was recently released by the NWS Science and Operations Officer/Science and Training Resource Center (SOO/STRC) and the Forecast Decision Training Branch (FDTB). The SOO/STRC Weather Research and Forecasting Environmental Modeling System (WRF EMS) was developed for use by the Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs), University community, and private sector as a complete, full-physics, end-to-end NWP system that incorporates versions of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) WRF models.

Robert Rozumalski, the National SOO Science and Training Resource Coordinator, said he hopes that supporting WFO local modeling efforts will facilitate the use and understanding of NWP models, advance forecasting through an improved understanding of atmospheric processes, and increase collaboration among the WFOs and other agencies.

"Running the WRF EMS locally is a powerful tool for conducting training and science in the office, from studying local forecast problems and historically significant weather events to developing and testing new diagnostic forecasting techniques," Rosumalski said. "The WRF EMS was also developed to encourage collaboration between WFOs and the university community."

The traditionally difficult task of installing and running a NWP model is greatly simplified with the WRF EMS to facilitate its use in the WFOs. Even those offices with little or no modeling expertise on-station should have little problem installing and running the system. Everything from the acquisition of data to run the model to processing the forecasts for viewing in a variety of display systems, including AWIPS, has been considered in the development. There is even support for running the model on multiple computers at once to decrease the time required to generate a forecast.

Rozumalski provides full support to NWS and other governmental agencies for the WRF EMS including suggestions on computer hardware, tips for setting up and running the system, and providing data to run the model.

The WRF EMS has been sent to each of the NWS WFOs, in addition to users at seven universities, two government agencies (NASA and USAF), five private sector companies and in eight foreign countries.

For more information on the WRF EMS contact Robert Rozumalski at Robert.Rozumalski@noaa.gov.

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NOAA Donates Hurricane Katrina Artifacts to Smithsonian Institution

By Dennis Feltgen
NWS Public Affairs

In a special ceremony June 14, 2006, the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History received a donation of Hurricane Katrina-related artifacts from NOAA.

The formal exchange of letters transferring the artifacts to the museum. From left: Jack Dunnigan (NOAA NOS), David Shayt, (Museum curator who began the collection), Dr. Brent Glass (Museum Director), and General Johnson.

The project began last December when NWS Director David L. Johnson saw an article in USA Today about a curator at the Smithsonian Institution who was gathering artifacts from Hurricane Katrina. It was only the second time the Smithsonian has collected artifacts from a national event, the first being 9/11. NOAA Public Affairs worked with various NOAA offices to gather the artifacts, and the result is the collection that was provided to the museum.

"The NOAA team played an especially important role in this historical national event and I am pleased that these objects will be preserved for the future as part of the national collections at the Smithsonian," said Johnson.

The items donated by the NWS included a dropwindsonde, identical to those dropped into Katrina by NOAA aircraft; an exact replica of the Katrina tracking chart used by NHC hurricane forecasters; a 2x3 foot poster of the visible GOES-12 satellite imagery of Katrina at peak intensity over the Gulf of Mexico; a 2x3 foot poster of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) Katrina model forecast versus the actual track for each of the six days the model was run; a 16x20 inch copy of the Urgent Weather Message issued on August 28 by lead forecaster Robert Ricks at WFO Slidell, LA, and the personal rosary used by Ricks during Katrina with a personally written narrative of its significance.

When Ricks was asked for his contribution to the collection, he said "Compiling this information really invoked some thoughts and re-living of these historic events, both good and bad. May we never forget those we have lost and those who still deal with the everyday struggles post-Katrina."

NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) contributed five 2x3 foot replica posters used to brief President Bush during his visits to New Orleans in the two weeks after the storm. The posters depict road closures, oil spill status, hospital status and flood depths. Also included in the NOS donation is a complete CD set of the aerial photography taken by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey of the areas hit by Katrina.

"By preserving these objects, we will help historians of the future to understand this natural disaster and the detrimental effects of its aftermath on the nation," said Brent Glass, director of the National Museum of American History.

The artifacts will eventually be placed into exhibits on presidents or a timeline of major events in the United States.

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General Johnson Welcomes NOAA Environmental Heroes to National Weather Service Headquarters

Two NOAA Environmental Heroes met with the NWS Director June 8, 2006, and were presented with service excellence coins.

Roy Sedwick, of the Lower Colorado River Authority, and Donald Morris, of South Florida Skywarn, were honored as NOAA Environmental Heroes for volunteering their time to further the National Weather Service mission of saving lives and property.

Donald Morris, of South Florida Skywarn, left, and Roy Sedwick, of the Lower Colorado River Authority, right, were honored recently as NOAA Environmental Heroes for volunteering their time to further the National Weather Service mission of saving lives and property, during a visit with Brig. Gen. D.L. Johnson, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), NWS Director, at NWS Headquarters.

"NOAA Environmental Heroes embody the dedication of those who volunteer their time and talents to help us fulfill our mission," said Brig. Gen. D.L. Johnson (U.S. Air Force, Ret.), NOAA Assistant Administrator for Weather Services and NWS Director. "Roy Sedwick and Donald Morris are two shining examples of the importance volunteerism and community service play in saving lives and property. We are most grateful for their services and hope this recognition will inspire others."

Sedwick has been an invaluable asset to the Weather Forecast Offices with interests in the Colorado River Valley in Texas and to the West Gulf River Forecast Center. He has been an instrumental supporter of weather preparedness and dissemination programs, including Skywarn, StormReady, Turn Around Don't Drown and NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards.

Morris is a professional chiropractor who pursued amateur radio operations four years ago. He leads a Skywanr team that volunteered more than 100 hours at Weather Forecast Office Miami. They worked day and night during hurricanes Katrina and Wilma as the storms made landfall and traveled across South Florida.

In their meeting with the NWS Director, both Heroes expressed how meaningful the NOAA and NWS recognition is in keeping them motivated. The Heroes toured NWS Headquarters before joining retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator, and NOAA Chief of Staff Scott Rayder for a luncheon in Washington, D.C.

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WFO Glasgow, MT, Hosts Open House to Celebrate 10 Years as Modernized Office

WFO Glasgow, MT, recently celebrated its 10th Anniversary as a modernized NWS office with an Open House. Nearly 500 people attended the event which included a special weather balloon launch, presentations, and tours of the office.

Partners who helped stage the event included the Valley Amateur Radio Club, the Datastreme program, Valley County Hazmat and Decontamination, and Nemont (the local phone/internet/cellular provider)

Attendees included cooperative weather observers, weather spotters, Montana Senator and Tribal Councilman Frank Smith of Poplar, former and current county commissioners, law enforcement and many, many people with an interest in weather from around the region.

In January 2006, NWS Glasgow WCM Tanja Fransen and a team of staff members set the date for the anniversary, and Fransen jokingly said that she would put in a request to the weather gods for partly cloudy skies, a high around 70 and a light breeze for the day. Five months later, two out of three occurred with a high of 69 and partly cloudy skies, but the Montana wind brought a breezier day than preferred with a peak gust of 30 mph.

Meteorologist-In-Charge Julie Adolphson welcomed the attendees after local boy scouts posted the flags, and Hydrometeorological Technician Jim Branda sang the national anthem. Valley County Commissioner Dave Pippin and Glasgow Mayor Dan Carney both highly praised the NWS and its commitment to the safety of the public. Mayor Carney noted that he remembered the majority of the locations that the NWS has occupied in its 63 year history in Glasgow. As a former fire chief, he greatly appreciated the improvements in the fire weather program and he is proud of the involvement of staff members in area civic organizations and clubs.

Four Cooperative Weather Observers were honored with length of service awards. The Valley Amateur Radio Club requested a special event call sign from the ARRL, and was given WX7 for the 10th Anniversary Event. In five hours, they were able to make 125 contacts in 36 states.

Photos from the event are posted on the WFO's web site.

Snapshots

Click here for a look at photos we've received from around the NWS.