The NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) will follow these procedures to notify government officials of potentially hazardous winter weather in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Greater Washington, D.C. commuting area this winter.

The NWS Baltimore-Washington Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Sterling, Virginia, will send a message to this list whenever the WFO issues a winter weather watch, warning, advisory or materially changes the forecast amount and/or timing of snow or ice events affecting the OPM Greater Washington, D.C. commuting area as well as nearby areas, such as Baltimore.

The purpose of these messages is to alert federal and local D.C. area government officials to winter conditions that might cause the closure of the federal government or otherwise affect commuting.

These messages will:

• describe the event
• summarize any interaction the NWS has or expects to have with OPM, the Council of Governments (COG), etc., and
• contain a link to the "winterstorm" web page (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/winterstorm). The web page has links to a WFO produced forecast snow/ice map(s), the complete watch, warning, or advisory, and other forecast and observational information.

If you wish to add/delete email or pager/cellular addresses for your organization, please contact:

      Arthur.Kraus@noaa.gov or at (301) 713-0090 x161