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NOAA's NWS Focus
September
8, 2003 |
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| Corporate
Board Considers Change and NWS Future Roles at Meeting
by Joanne Swanson
Executive Secretary to the Corporate Board/Meteorologist
The National
Weather Service Corporate Board held its bi-annual meeting
from August 26-28, 2003, at the Capital Hilton Hotel in
Washington, DC. The meeting gave the Board much to consider
as the NWS approaches a transition in leadership.
"This is an exciting time for the National Weather Service,"
said Jack Kelly, who is also serving in the position of
Deputy Under Secretary for NOAA. "It is time for us to stop
talking and start doing; change is not comfortable but it
is inevitable. NOAA's priorities are changing and the National
Weather Service should be ready to do what is necessary
to support those priorities."
The Board focused on learning more about the new NOAA
management processes of Program
Planning and Integration (PPI) also known as Matrix
Management, from NOAA's new Assistant Administrator for
Program Planning and Integration, Mary Glackin, and the
Planning,
Programming, and Budgeting System from Bonnie Morehouse,
Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation within NOAA
Finance and Administration. More information on this management
process and these offices can be found at http://www.osp.noaa.gov/links.htm.
The Board also considered some important issues surrounding
IFPS deployment and the next steps in looking at ways to
optimize our services.
The Board also heard from two international counterparts
in the United Kingdom and Canada. Peter Ewins, Chief Executive
of the Meteorological Office in the United Kingdom (UKMET),
which includes the Hadley Centre for Climate, spoke of
how
the weather business works in a quasi-public/private for-profit
operation. Ewins addressed the changes his organization
went through since its change to a for-profit status in
1996, and the mission implications of functioning as a
business
without a total dependence on government funding. For example,
the UKMET has moved away from "stovepipes" defined by
function, such as observations, and moved to an organization
structure
based on production, development, and research. He also
spoke at length about numerical weather prediction in
Europe
and the value of competition. Check out Ewins'
presentation by clicking here.
The second international speaker was Pierre Dubreuil,
Director-General of the Canadian Meteorological Centre
(CMC)
in Montreal, part of the Canadian Meteorological Service.
The Canadian Meteorological Service went through a large-scale
change and centralization five years ago, and were very
nearly privatized. They now consist of five storm centers,
two of which
produce all terminal aerodrome forecasts for Canada.
"Though downsized, they are a visionary organization who
have, for example, used climate forecasts to indicate likely
locations of wetlands in the 10-to-50-year future time frame,
in order to plan the locations of wildlife reserves," said
NWS Deputy Director John Jones.
The Board also heard from eminent hydrologist Soroosh
Sorooshian, Professor at the Department of Hydrology and
Water Resources of the University of Arizona (in transit
to a new position in California) on the future of hydrological
services. Sorooshian's remarks stressed the importance
of NWS/NOAA becoming bigger players in providing hydrological
and water resource information, and that the Advanced Hydrologic
Prediction Service is a good investment and will place
NWS
"on the map" with the water resource industry. [Warning! The following presentation is almost 42 MB in size! If you
wist to view it, right click on the link, choose "Save File to Disk," and view
it from your hard drive. Here is the link to the file in Microsoft PowerPoint format.)]
Vernon
Morris, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Co-Director
of the Graduate Program in Atmospheric Sciences, Howard University,
spoke on the topic of "The Future
Workforce," highlighting the successes to date of the
NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) and related
programs aiming to increase the pool of diverse students
pursuing education in the atmospheric sciences.
At the close of the meeting the board shared farewell
wishes for outgoing Assistant Administrator Jack Kelly,
who has agreed to serve NOAA as the Deputy Under Secretary
on a permanent basis, where he will continue to provide
leadership and expertise. Director Kelly acknowledged the
positive changes in the Board he has seen since its inception
under his direction, and the positive future that awaits
the NWS if we are ready to see a larger picture of NOAA
and play a bigger part in its priorities. "Implementing
a global observation system, climate prediction, services,
and research along with ocean prediction, services, exploration
and research are the main priorities at NOAA now, and
we
can be a big part of making NOAA and NWS a success in all
three."
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| Working
Together to Save Lives:
Timely Flood Warning Alerts Pilot, Saves Lives
A timely flash
flood warning which preceded a rare heavy rainfall event in
Las Vegas, NV, August 19, 2003, helped alert a local search
and rescue pilot who subsequently saved several people trapped
in flooded cars.
According to Meteorologist-In-Charge Kim Runk, a Las
Vegas Search and Rescue pilot reported receiving and acting
on
the NWS flash flood warning.
"Got into my helicopter and within 10-15 minutes, I was
pulling stranded motorists off the roofs of their vehicles,"
the pilot wrote. "In one case, a car was swept away by the
rapidly rising waters only seconds after pulling the driver
to safety. It was a clear case of minutes saving lives!"
The local area was inundated by flash flooding, and one
of Clark County Flood Control District's rain gauges recorded
2.8 inches of rain in an hour and three quarters: a deluge
in the Nevada desert terrain. Several gauge measurements
qualified as 1-in-200 year events. But it was the 2.4 inches
in 45 minutes at Kyle Canyon Detention Basin that was estimated
to be approximately twice as rare.
Statistics available in the newly-updated high resolution
atlas of precipitation frequency estimates [link here to
Precipitation Frequency story] (see related story) indicate
portions of the Las Vegas area experienced rainfall amounts
that are not likely to occur any more than once every 200
to 400 years.
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| New
Precipitation Frequency Estimates Published Electronically
Updated precipitation
frequency estimates for Southeast California, Nevada, Utah,
Arizona, and New Mexico were recently published by experts
in the Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center (HDSC) of
the Office of Hydrologic Development. The updates have been
published for the first time via the Internet using the new
Precipitation Frequency Data Server located at www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc/.
Civil Engineers and environmental planners use precipitation
frequency estimates to optimize the design of a broad range
of civil infrastructure from roads, culverts, bridges and
storm water drains to environmentally sustainable streams
and wetlands, or almost anything affected by rain. The estimates
are also a key ingredient in the Federal Emergency Management
Agency's flood plain mapping program and EPA's pollution
discharge regulations.
"The Precipitation Frequency Data Server makes getting
the new estimates very easy for our users," says Geoff
Bonnin, HDSC Director. "It's much faster and more convenient
than looking for rare hard-copy documents, and the web
gives
us opportunities to present more data in forms that weren't
available with the old hard-copy documents."
The updates replace NOAA Atlas 2, published in
1973, and Weather Bureau Technical Paper 49, published
in 1964. Previous publications made estimates out to 100-year
return periods but the new estimates go out as far as 1,000
years as a result of longer periods of record and better
statistical techniques.
With the updated estimates, HDSC has begun including ranges
of probabilities or confidence intervals. In the past, civil
engineering designs have assumed that precipitation frequency
estimates were precise. Confidence intervals are statistical
measures that account for the fact that the estimates are
not precise and may have a range of likely values. Bonnin
said he expects the addition of confidence intervals may
change the way local governments write their infrastructure
design regulations.
The new updates show there can be a considerable amount
of uncertainty in some areas, with fairly wide ranges in
the estimates. In the case of the recent heavy rain event
in Las Vegas, NV (see related story) the local area was
inundated by flash flooding, and one of Clark County Flood
Control District's rain gauges recorded 2.4 inches of rain
in 90 minutes: a deluge in this desert terrain. Using statistics
available in the Precipitation Frequency Data Server, HDSC
experts have determined that the 500-year 90-minute event
at that location in Las Vegas may be as high as 3.8 inches
or as low as 2.3 inches (at the 90 percent confidence level).
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| Training:
National AWIPS Case Study Library Released
A new online
library should give NWS forecast offices access to a wide
range of operationally-focused training materials.
In August, the NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather
Service's (OCWWS's) Training Division released the National
Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Case
Study Library (CSL) as part of the Science and Operations
Officer/Science
and Training Resource Center (SOO/STRC). The CSL
is the online repository for operational data and support
documentation
used in training.
"The goal of the Case Study Library is to organize the
best of the WFO-developed, AWIPS-based training efforts
into a single location and make these valuable resources
available to each office," said Robert Rozumalski, National
SOO/Science and Training Resource Coordinator.
The Case Study Library provides a means of exchanging
training materials used with the Weather Event Simulator
(WES), Display 2-Dimensions (D2D), and Display 3-Dimensions
(D3D). Office trainers may select from a collection of peer-reviewed
case modules identified by educational objectives and organized
for easy identification so offices can best meet their particular
training needs.
The CSL will provide resources for training in a variety
of areas, including:
- Warning decision-making
- Forecasting techniques
- Forecasting tool operations
- Data type operations
- Scientific principle applications
- Specific weather phenomena experience
- Case study research project data
Training includes case modules on AWIPS-formatted data
on DVD and a companion study guide to help trainers provide
meaningful instruction regardless of whether they have prior
expertise in a particular subject area.
"We are encouraging forecast offices to submit locally-developed
training materials to the National Case Study Library,"
said Eli Jacks, Acting Chief, OCWWS Training Division. The
Training Division is using NWS SOO expertise in a peer-review
process to ensure the modules maintain a high level of quality
in terms of scientific content and applicability to operational
forecasting. Jacks said authors of case modules are identified
in the CSL.
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| Utilities,
Emergency Managers Get Digital Forecast Database Introduction
From NWS
Emergency managers
and two regional utility companies learned how they could
use the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) during demonstrations
given by staff at the Reno, NV, Weather Forecast Office (WFO)
recently.
Roger Lamoni, WFO Reno WCM, and other office staff, hosted
a web information review and NDFD introduction for local
emergency management and operations staff of SBC Nevada
and the Sierra Pacific Power Company during August 2003.
Sierra Pacific Power was interested in using the NDFD
since it calculates gas requirements, and daily and real
time electricity loads, using an hourly and daily "Effective
Degree Day" (EDD), according to Gas Plant Supervisor Mike
Rodriguez. EDD is calculated using forecast temperature,
cloud cover, and wind.
"By importing NDFD data to calculate these parameters,
Sierra Pacific hopes to increase the accuracy of temperature
and weather forecasts, and thereby more accurately estimate
gas requirements, which ensures reliability and eliminates
unnecessary gas purchases," Rodriguez said. "Accurate short-term
consumption forecasts also improve the reliability of the
power supply, eliminating unnecessary spot power purchases
and more accurately predicting additional power purchases
as weather and temperature changes increases electricity
demand."
Currently, Sierra Pacific calculates an EDD only for the
Reno-Tahoe International Airport and applies this value
system-wide. Using NDFD data, Sierra Pacific may be able
to generate hourly EDD graphics and data across their entire
service area. Lamoni said Sierra Pacific was excited about
the new capabilities, and is optimistic about new services
that private vendors could develop using the NDFD.
WFO Reno plans to host a hands-on meeting with Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) employees of these companies to
give them an opportunity to ask questions and explore ways
they can access and manipulate the NDFD data to suit their
companies' needs. In conjunction with local emergency managers,
WFO Reno also plans to hold a meeting in December 2003 to
introduce NDFD capabilities to government and media representatives.
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| Take
a look at other NWS news, as submitted for the NOAA
Weekly Report
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Click
here to take a look at NOAA-wide employee news, as posted
in the latest issue of AccessNOAA
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| Send
questions and comments to NWS.Communications.Office@noaa.gov
or mail to:
National Weather
Service
Communications Office
ATTN: W/COM
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3283
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