Thanks for your Feedback and Submissions

Welcome to the second edition of NOAA's NWS Focus. We appreciate the positive feedback we got from readers after our premier issue last week, and we want to hear from more of you. What kinds of information do you want from this online publication?

One of our primary sources for articles comes to us through established management channels in the form of Weekly Report submissions from NWS Regions, Centers, and Program Offices other NWS newsletters.

The NWS Communications Office consolidates these weekly reports of information and upcoming activities or issues, and submits a select number of items to the NOAA Program Coordination Office. That office reviews all Weekly Report submissions from the NOAA line offices and determines which items will be included in the NOAA Weekly Report to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, who in turn uses this report to determine what information he passes on for attention at the White House. To see the NWS Weekly Report in its finished form, click on the Weekly Report link at our homepage, www.nws.noaa.gov/com. The NWS has recommitted to improving the quality of information in this report, and the effort has already led to what NWS Director Jack Kelly called "an historic event" last week when four of the key NOAA items reported to the Secretary came from the NWS. Once we have the Weekly Report done, we select some key items and reformat them for NOAA's NWS Focus.

This is a busy agency, and we know there's a lot of information that could be shared. We want your story ideas (and your questions, too). E-mail us at NWS.Focus@noaa.gov

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What To Do When Lawyers Call

Glenn Tallia, Senior Counselor for Atmospheric and Space Services and Research for NOAA's Office of General Counsel, recently sent an e-mail to all employees reminding us of the procedures to follow when contacted by attorneys or legal staffs seeking official NWS records or testimony.

When people call seeking official, certified NWS records, refer them to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) at (828) 271-4800. If they seek expert testimony, advise them that we are prohibited by Federal regulation from providing expert interpretation of weather records, but interpretation can be provided by private consulting meteorologists. You may refer them to the following Web page for a list of consulting meteorologists: www.nws.noaa.gov/im/more.htm For the complete text of the General Counsel notice, see www.nws.noaa.gov/com/legal.htm.

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NOAA's Chief Information Officer is tasked to develop a NOAA-wide document exchange standard to be issued in June. "Current NWS policy regarding office automation products (such as word processing software) reflects the reality of today's electronic office products," said NWS Chief Information Officer Carl Staton. He said incompatibilities between major office automation products and the current lack of a NOAA-wide comprehensive document exchange format standard make it impractical to standardize the use of a specific vendor package for all NWS employees. Current NWS policy is that Corel Suite is provided by headquarters through the NOAA-wide Corel license, and serves as a default office automation product for NWS employees. This product addresses the majority of employee needs for conducting the day-to-day business of the organization and provides tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, address books, and a database, if desired.

Organizations may also make a business decision to purchase alternative products (such as the Microsoft Office Suite which includes Word, Power Point and Excel) to address compatibility issues and/or to address a specific business requirement for which the Corel Suite is not best suited. However, the organization procuring the product is responsible for integration, training, maintenance and licensing issues. Documentation and record keeping for software distribution and inventory must be current and available in preparation for compliance with expected software inventory policies. For more information on the specifics of this policy, see the full policy memo on the CIO website at www.nws.noaa.gov/cfo/htmls/inf_tech/policy_office_automation_products.htm.

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A project conducted under the Senior Leadership Potential Program, by Mike Hudson, WFO Springfield, MO, is moving us towards developing a NWS Internet corporate image. This image, crafted by a cross-cutting design team representing different facets of the NWS, features consistent navigation to our most sought information on the Internet. The image also brings a corporate look and feel to all NWS web sites.

The NWS Corporate Board recently charged an implementation team to bring this design into reality. The new corporate web page will debut in June on both www.weather.gov and www.nws.noaa.gov. The implementation team will then work to bring the Internet corporate image to all NWS web site front pages and local forecast and information pages by this fall.

You can view mock-ups of the corporate image design at: www.wrh.noaa.gov/nwscwi and are invited to post comments, ideas or suggestions to the message board at this site.

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NOAA Honors Environmental Heroes

Every year NOAA honors up to 25 individuals or organizations for their efforts to preserve and protect our Nation's environment. This provides an opportunity for you to nominate some of the thousands of people who help the NWS provide timely and life-saving weather forecasts to the Nation.

You may know of a very deserving Skywarn spotter or cooperative observer who volunteers time and work to help make our forecasts more accurate. There are also the hydrologic spotters who help us with stream gauges during flooding. Volunteer ship observers help us collect environmental information, amateur radio operators assist with emergency communications during severe weather, and many, many more.

You can help recognize and honor these people outside of NOAA who have volunteered their time or who have worked closely with NOAA through their respective organizations (non-commercial). Just provide the name of the person or organization, a brief description of their volunteer service, and the role it plays in the Weather Service's mission to help protect lives and property, to Susan Weaver (Susan.A.Weaver@noaa.gov - 301-713-0622). NOMINATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY COB MARCH 26, 2001.

NWS will evaluate the nominations and submit the top ten candidates to NOAA for their selection of the final 25. The awards will be presented by the nominating parties in conjunction with Earth Day events in April 2001.

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GPO Sets Style for 21st Century

When the Government Printing Office last updated its Style Manual in 1984, Ronald Reagan won his second White House term, Amadeus was movie of the year and no one had heard of the information superhighway. This veteran guidebook, updated for the first time in 16 years, has set the rules of grammar and punctuation for all U.S. Government printed materials and correspondence since 1894. The 2000 update is its 29^th edition. You can order copies of the Style Manual 2000 through GPO's online bookstore at bookstore.gpo.gov. An online version of the Style Manual is available at www.access.gpo.gov/styleman/2000/browse-sm-00.html.

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Service Assessment Report on Northern Idaho and Western Montana Summer 2000 Wildfires Released

On March 12, the Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Service released the service assessment report entitled Northern Idaho and Western Montana Summer 2000 Wildfires. In the document preface, NWS Director Jack Kelly says that although fires threatened many parts of the country during the Summer of 2000, this assessment "centered on the Northern Rockies due to the unprecedented magnitude of the suppression effort, the extraordinary level of weather services provided and the critical role timely and consistent weather information played in fire fighter and public safety and suppression activities." The assessment was distributed to the Congressional Delegations and Governors of the two states and a media advisory was issued. The report which documents NWS performance is available online at www.nws.noaa.gov/om/omdis.html.

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Processing Power Upgraded for AWIPS Hubs

The NWS Office of Science and Technology recently upgraded 13 AWIPS system hubs to accommodate increasing data and information loads. Most AWIPS systems experience periods of heavy usage that can result in short, seconds to minutes, response-time delays to forecaster requests for data. Tests suggested that adding memory to one component of the AWIPS hubs would significantly improve system performance. Five hundred megabytes of internal computer memory were added to the data server computers at all of the 13 network hubs across the Nation. Each hub, in turn, links to as many as two dozen AWIPS sites. These hubs play a key role in distributing weather forecasts and warnings to the public through vehicles such as the Internet and NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts from the NWS. "After upgrading the memory, performance statistics show that the modification improved system responsiveness by as much as 50 percent, enabling forecasters to receive and review incoming information and issue warning and forecasts more quickly," said Dierdre Jones with OST's Systems Engineering Center.

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Emergency Managers Speak Up for Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Services

Emergency management community representatives emphasize the value of improved river forecasts throughout a new video presentation on AHPS. Water Predictions for Life's Decisions, The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Services (AHPS) explains AHPS capabilities and concepts and illustrates plans to improve water prediction in the near future. Multiple copies of the 20-minute video and a shorter 4-minute version were distributed to all NWS regional and field offices. Beginning this year, NWS offices in parts of the upper Midwest and Ohio Valley will receive AHPS products. As funding becomes available, AHPS will expand into other parts of the country. Both versions of the video are available in digital form on the web, along with a fact sheet, brochure and an online and downloadable slide presentation. For more information go to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/ahps/ or contact Larry Wenzel, Office of Hydrologic Development, at 301-713-0006 x147 or larry.wenzel@noaa.gov.

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Real-time Aircraft Weather Data Available to Forecasters on the Web!

Rich Mamrosh, WFO Green Bay, wants our forecasters to know that meteorological data collected by commercial aircraft, are available for our use, and can help improve forecasts and warnings. Through an agreement with the NWS, several airlines including United, American, UPS, Federal Express, Delta, and Northwest, make meteorological data collected by hundreds of commercial airliners. The data, called ACARS or MDCRS, includes flight-level wind and temperature data for nearly all of the U.S., as well as soundings taken at many cities when aircraft ascend and descend. Meteorologists from a dozen NWS forecast offices participated in an assessment of the data in 1998 and 1999, and found it very useful in forecasting convection, precipitation type for winter storms, damaging wind events, low ceilings and visibilities, turbulence, and maximum and minimum temperatures.

Everyone using this data needs to know that our agreement with the airlines does not allow the data to be distributed in a free and open basis. Therefore, while we can distribute the data to NWS offices, we must not make this data available to other potential users, including commercial weather services. The real-time data is housed on a web page maintained by the Forecast Systems Laboratory which allows access by computers at NOAA installations, http://acweb.fsl.noaa.gov. If the web page does not recognize your computer, send an email to Bill Moninger, moninger@fsl.noaa.gov. For more information, contact Rich Mamrosh at 920-497-8771, richard.mamrosh@noaa.gov.

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Are You Aware?

The Fall 2000/Winter 2001 issue of Aware is out. This quarterly publication, compiled and edited by Linda Kremkau, Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services, helps keep our employees and the hazards community informed of NWS programs and hazard awareness activities. To reflect the recent headquarters reorganization, Aware now includes information about climate and water programs. According to Kremkau, Aware is one of the most popular means of communicating up-to-date information from NWS headquarters and the field, with over more than 1,300 printed copies being distributed to NWS offices, emergency managers, educators, and the general public. The current issue is also available online at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/aware.PDF.

In addition, AwareNow offers constant online updates to Aware. It can be accessed at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/awarenow.htm.

NOAA Weather Radio Fact Sheet for Hearing Impaired

NWS WCM Jim Purpura, WFO Norman, OK, and National Severe Storms Laboratory Researcher Vincent T. Wood compiled a fact sheet for hearing impaired individuals on NOAA Weather Radio and weather safety. Check it out at www.nssl.noaa.gov/~wood/NWR/spc-nds-nwr.html.

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