Draft NOAA Strategic Plan Available for Review and Comment
By Ed Johnson
Director, NWS Strategic Planning and Policy Office

The draft of the NOAA's Strategic Plan for FY 2003 - FY 2008 is available for review and comment through February 14, 2003. Availability of the draft plan was announced in a January 17, 2003, NOAA news release.

The plan sets an agenda for investing resources through four overarching goals for achieving the agency's mission:

• Protect, restore, and manage use of coastal and ocean resources through ecosystem management approaches
• Understand climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond
• Serve society's needs for weather and water information
• Support the Nation's commerce with information for safe and efficient transportation

NWS Participates in Aviation Fuel Forecast Test

The NWS will partner with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Air Transport Association (ATA) to develop a test program to evaluate and modify existing regulatory criteria which determine when air carriers must add additional fuel based on weather forecasts to reach alternate landing locations.

"These criteria have not been reviewed in many years," said Mark Andrews, Aviation Program Manager, NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services. The requirement costs U.S. air carriers in excess of $200 million annually to carry additional fuel when data shows the additional fuel was not required.

Andrews said the partners plan to develop and soon begin testing less stringent criteria to reduce aviation fuel carrying costs while at the same time not compromising flight safety.

Job Aids Released for Science and Operations Officer, Development of Operations Hydrologist Positions
By Liz Page and Robert Rozumalski of the NWS Training Division

Ever wonder what the NWS Science and Operations Officer (SOO) and Development and Operations Hydrologist (DOH) jobs entail? How do those positions vary from office to office? Two publications have just been released to help answer those questions.

The SOO and DOH programs were initiated in 1990 to provide the scientific and technological leadership needed in the modernized NWS offices. Since the beginning of the programs, the duties of the SOO and DOH have evolved to meet the ever-changing and unique needs of individual forecast offices and national centers. As a result, between NWS offices and from region to region, the positions have diverged from their originally defined roles. To provide people with a better understanding of the current direction of and to help those involved refocus the SOO and DOH programs, the NWS has created job aids to document the current range of duties and suggest a path for further evolution of the programs.

"The job aid will guide us back to the roots of the SOO program, which are to infuse the latest forecast and warning techniques from the research community into our operations through our training programs," said John Eise, SOO at the Milwaukee, WI, Weather Forecast Office (WFO).

The job aids acknowledge the diversity within the SOO and DOH programs and provide broad guidelines for planning how SOOs and DOHs can allocate their time to meet their office needs. In addition, helpful references are listed at the end of the document to support SOOs and DOHs in accomplishing their goals.

"The beauty of the end result is that the document now serves to provide both the initial framework and guidance for carrying out the basic job duties, but yet, is still flexible enough to recognize office-to-office variations (according to differing service programs) and diversity, which have always been considered to be 'landmark strengths' of the SOO Program," said Jeff Medlin, SOO at WFO Mobile, AL.

The SOO Job Aid was a collaborative effort by a regional science officer and a select team of SOOs. The DOH Job Aid was coordinated by a team of regional and national headquarters personnel from feedback solicited from each River Forecast Center. Both documents were facilitated by the NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services (OCWWS) Training Division, and ratified by Directors from the NWS regional headquarters offices, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, OCWWS, the Office of Science and Technology, and the Office of Hydrologic Development.

Access the job aids from the National Weather Service Training Center web site, http://www.nwstc.noaa.gov/index.html, or download the WordPerfect documents directly through these links (right click on the links to save the files to your computer): DOH Job Aid and SOO Job Aid.

NWS Partners with EPA and AMS to Develop a Sun Safety Kit

NWS, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the American Meteorological Society have announced a new outreach/education tool to teach children about ultraviolet (UV) radiation and sun protection called the SunWise Meteorologist Tool Kit.

"Now our meteorologists can enter a classroom and talk to teachers and students about the impacts that sun has on their daily lives and how to protect themselves against skin cancer and other health issues," said Ron Gird, NWS Outreach Program Manager.

The new SunWise Meteorologist Tool Kit was designed to raise awareness of UV radiation, ozone depletion, and simple sun safety practices for school children from kindergarten through the eighth grade.

"The kit has a duel focus of health and environmental issues, said Jason Samnow, Climate Scientist with the EPA. "We want to raise awareness of stratospheric ozone depletion, as well as sun safety practices. Raising awareness at an early age can reduce the chance of developing skin cancer later in life. This is an important subject and has long-term health and environmental impacts."

The kit was developed with the needs of schools and educators in mind, notes Gird. The program provides teachers and students with maximum flexibility in terms of how the elements can be used--as stand-alone teaching tools or in conjunction with existing school curricula. The kit contains interactive activities for school presentations, a UV-sensitive frisbee, an application for the school to receive their own free SunWise kit and several brochures, booklets and fact sheets. For more information, go to www.epa.gov/sunwise/.

Meatball Meteorology: Iowa Meteorologist Connects with Students on Weather

Brad Small, Senior Meteorologist with the NWS Des Moines, IA, Weather Forecast Office, participates in an ongoing series of real time video conferencing with Iowa grade school and high school students in cooperation with Iowa Public Television's Schools to Careers program.

Iowa's interactive teleconferencing can reach hundreds of students via the state-created Iowa Communications Network (ICN), a state-of-the-art fiber optic network used for education, training, and video conferencing.

In December 2002, Small conducted two sessions, each reaching a dozen or so classrooms, with more than 500 students. He introduced the kindergarten through fourth grade students to weather by reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and then answered questions about the National Weather Service and careers in meteorology.

Help Is On the Way With New Disaster Web Portal

A recently launched web site should help victims locate the resources they need to recover from a disaster. Disasterhelp.gov, developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, combines the resources of all the relevant federal agencies into one central location.

The site addresses such frequently asked questions as: How do I apply for disaster assistance? How can I get in touch with my family? What if my home was destroyed? Where can I get food and water?

According to Steve Kuhl, National Warning Coordination Meteorologist Program Manager, "Over the past year, the Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services partnered with 35 other federal agencies in developing this site. The site has a wealth of useful emergency information in one single location. There is a also a link to our NWS national web site located on the right side of the Disasterhelp.gov main page." An e-mail announcing the web site was sent to all Warning Coordination Meteorologists.

The major objective of the initial deployment of Disasterhelp.gov is to provide first responders, emergency managers, and homeland security advisors an online capability to collaborate with other members of the disaster management community. Ultimately, the web site will become part of a larger initiative aimed at greatly enhanced disaster management on an interagency and intergovernmental basis.