A six-month pilot program encouraging employees to "ask why" has ended.

The goal of the pilot program was to give all employees, both inside and outside the Washington, DC, beltway, a vehicle to provide insights on all aspects of NWS activities and operations. In the first three months of the pilot program, January - March 2003, employees made 16 ask why submissions; from April - June 2003, the number of submissions decreased to three, all from one region.

"We hope our culture continues to support asking why without the need for a formal program to get that message across," said Ted David, NWS Chief Financial Officer/Chief Administrative Officer.

Back to Top

NWS Begins IFPS Era; Transition to Operational NDFD Expected to be Gradual Process

The NWS's transition to the new Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) probably went unnoticed by most of the world, but on September 30, 2003, all NWS forecast offices in the Central, Eastern, Southern, and Western Regions began officially generating 10 text forecast products using IFPS.

"Today marks an important threshold for the National Weather Service, our first step into the digital forecast era with the initial implementation of the Interactive Forecast Preparation System," said Deputy Assistant Administrator for Weather Services John Jones in a September 30, 2003, message to NWS employees. "My thanks to all who played a role in developing and implementing this important capability. This includes the hard work of field offices, Regional Headquarters, development labs, and NWS Headquarters."

"The switch to IFPS reflects a major cultural change for the NWS. The Weather Forecast Office (WFO) staffs have admirably adapted their work habits and skills to produce elements of a forecast, rather than individuals producing complete products by themselves. WFOs are coordinating more along bordering forecast areas and are coordinating more with the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center throughout the forecast preparation process," said Bob Glahn, IFPS Program Manager.

A month-long operational readiness demonstration (ORD) of IFPS between mid-June and mid-July 2003, gave the NWS enough confidence in the process to make the initial IFPS capability operational, said Jack Hayes, Director, NWS Office of Science and Technology. The ORD also helped NWS identify challenges that remain before the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) is deemed "official." In his message to employees, Jones said the NWS plan is to transition the majority of the grids to official status over the coming year.

Jones said the underlying grids used to produce the text products will be made available for external customers in the NDFD on an experimental basis, to "allow the NWS time to evaluate forecast grid quality, get customer feedback, and refine the underlying Information Technology architecture."

In a Public Information Statement (PNS), the NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services (OCWWS) extended the public comment period on NDFD through December 1, 2003. "The evaluation of these elements will be completed while they continue to be available as experimental. The process and decision whether to declare them official will be completed no later than March 31, 2004," according to the PNS issued by Glenn Austin, Acting Chief, OCWWS Public and Fire Weather Services Branch.

According to Deirdre Jones, Director of OST's Systems Engineering Center, improvements are being planned for AWIPS that will enhance IFPS capabilities. Linux workstations will be deployed this fall. A large component of IFPS will be moved from the workstation to another server in the AWIPS architecture. Other higher performance hardware will be phased in gradually.

Operational testing has shown several areas where forecaster training will reduce the effort needed to issue quality grid forecasts. "We are committed to provide and update forecaster training, especially in the areas of service backup, forecast collaboration, and best practices," said Greg Mandt, OCWWS Director.

Hayes credited the IFPS Science Steering Team, formed last spring, with helping the NWS evaluate grid quality and recommending courses of action to address IFPS science issues.

"We have entered the digital forecast era and an exciting time in the history of the NWS," Hayes said. "We continue working on the science and technology issues related to IFPS and NDFD in order to continually improve our new digital services."

New Modeling Capability Shows Potential for Improving Predictions

NCEP's Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) is accelerating operational implementation of a modeling capability that has the potential to produce major improvements to seasonal climate and weather predictions.

"We are coupling an ensemble of higher resolution versions of the Global Forecast System atmospheric model and the GFDL Modular Ocean Model, with promising results," said EMC Director Steve Lord. Preliminary results of the "seasonal hindcasts" - forecasts run from historical cases - have showed that the new coupled model produced 20 to 40 percent more accurate tropical sea surface temperature (SST) forecasts in the three- to nine-month range than the current operational coupled model.

"Since much of the skill of seasonal forecasts arises from the accuracy of tropical SST forecasts, we believe this improvement may be significant for achieving greater skill in forecasting events such as El Niños," said Lord. El Niño describes the warm phase of a naturally occurring sea surface temperature oscillation in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This oscillation is associated with the atmosphere, is known as ENSO, and is a major component of the variability in winter storms over the U. S. and Canada. More accurate forecasting of El Niño events will result in more skillful seasonal U.S. temperature and precipitation forecasts.

Efforts to improve climate forecasting support NOAA, Department of Commerce, and White House goals. This enhanced modeling capability bolsters Mission Goal 2 of NOAA's Strategic Plan to "Understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond."

Department of Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans is the Vice Chair of the Committee on Climate Change Science and Technology Integration of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. This group released a July 2003, strategic plan which "responds to the President's direction that climate change research activities be accelerated to provide the best possible scientific information to support public discussion and decision making on climate-related issues."

"This new capability is a major breakthrough in operational climate prediction," said NCEP Director Louis Uccellini. He said the NOAA and Department of Commerce Chief Information Officers are developing computing strategies to accelerate the necessary calibration and validation, and that effort "will lead to the operational implementation of the new climate prediction capability by August 2004."

Back to Top

Senator Allen Visits Forecast Office

Senator George Allen of Virginia, and several staff members visited the Wakefield, VA, Weather Forecast Office (WFO) recently to thank the staff for their excellent performance and dedication during and after Hurricane Isabel.

During his September 16, 2003, visit, Sen. Allen noted the storm was well forecast, and made it clear that his thanks extended to the entire NWS for their efforts. The WFO staff gave the Senator preliminary verification statistics for the Isabel track forecasts, which showed the 5-day error for Isabel was comparable to the 2-day error average over the last 10 years.

"We also emphasized the number of coordination calls we had with emergency managers," said Meteorologist-In-Charge Tony Siebers. "Senator Allen told us that he talked to many local Virginia citizens, and everyone had praise for the job that the NWS did. People were prepared and lives were saved because of our work."

Back to Top

NOAA Grant Establishes Atmospheric Science Education Program at Maryland College

In an effort to attract more minority students to careers in atmospheric science, NOAA has awarded a grant to Sojourner-Douglass College in Baltimore, MD, to establish an Atmospheric Science Education program.

NWS Deputy Director John Jones said the grant "is part of our continued efforts to increase educational opportunities for under-served populations and to promote a diverse, highly skilled workforce for the future."

The Atmospheric Science Education Program will be designed to attract and engage minorities to study atmospheric science at an early age, then ultimately pursue careers in the field. The program will contain three parts - a "kids college" for students from kindergarten through the 12th grade, a summer camp, and teacher training program.

Read the NOAA news story here.

Employee Milestones

• Click here to see NEW APPOINTMENTS/TRANSFERS to NWS through September 30, 2003.
• Click here to see RETIREMENTS/DEPARTURES from NWS through September 30, 2003.