Fair Weather Effective Partnership in Weather and Climate Services (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Private Sector Comments
Appendix D: Private Sector Comments
Pages 149-192
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From page 149... ...
Meetings were held between the commercial weather industry and the National Weather Service over this concern. The ultimate result was that while taxpayer money was spent to recreate what had already been developed in private industry, the National Weather Service limited itself to ongoing daily preparation of its index for approximately 50 cities, valid, for noon only, at each location.
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From page 150... ...
Not having the necessary expertise, the EPA approached the National Weather Service early in 1993 about developing a U.S. Ultraviolet Index similar to the Canadian index.
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From page 151... ...
151 2. For many decades, the National Weather Service has utilized an index called Wind Chill to attempt to describe the effect of temperature on humans during windy conditions.
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From page 152... ...
The National Weather Service has announced that it will put into use the new Wind Chill index this winter of 2001-2002. They have also announced that they are only making certain adjustments to the old Wind Chill index that was used last year and that next year, in the winter of 2002-2003, they will make further changes to the new Wind Chill index they will use this year.
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From page 153... ...
The results of these tests enabled TAG/TI to further improve the wind chill formula, which has been integrated into the computer models that produce NWS weather forecast products. All the work done by the Weather Service to upgrade the index was carried out as part of the normal work of the NWS Office of Climate, Water and Weather Services.
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From page 154... ...
4. This program from the National Weather Service (http://www.crh.
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From page 155... ...
This is duplication by the NWS and not required for public safety or consistent with the Weather Service's core .
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From page 156... ...
6. This is the form of ~ National Weather Service AIRMET (hazardous weather for small aircraft)
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From page 157... ...
The FAA has tasked a product development team to develop methods to better gather, display, and utilize official National Weather Service aviation weather information. The FAA also created a team composed of govern
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From page 158... ...
The ADDS web site, http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/, prominently states: "The Federal Aviation Administration funds and directs the Aviation Digital Data Service and the experimental weather products that it displays. These products have not been developed by and are not endorsed by the National Weather Service." International Flight Folder Documentation Program.
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From page 159... ...
This is in conflict with commercial weather services: custom flood warning systems contracted by businesses or other entities. River forecast centers forecast long duration slow rise river response.
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From page 160... ...
The National Weather Service (NWS) , as part of its mission to protect lives and property, has issued flood forecasts and warnings since its inception.
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From page 161... ...
NWS would be within their core mission if they just gave access to base reflectivity and let commercial weather service providers develop va~e-~ded products that have commercial vane. The NWS Office of Hydrologic Development (OHD)
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From page 162... ...
This service would be in direct competition with commercial weather providers such as ours that already offer arid provide like services. The relevant findings and background may be found at the following link ftp://ftp.nws.noaa.gov/om/assessments/allison.p~f.
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From page 163... ...
We really appreciate your efforts to allow technology development to thrive in the open marketplace. The National Weather Service, as part of its mission to protect lives and property, issues warnings for river and flash flooding.
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From page 164... ...
The Tropical Storm Allison Service Assessment Team found that such a partnership, between the local NWS Office and the Harris County Flood Control District, resulted in a highly successful and coordinated warning effort. Finding 1 of the Service Assessment report identified two NWS forecast points where changes in software and internal procedures would produce more accurate forecasts.
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From page 165... ...
The National Weather Service "adopted" this technology in its AWIPS system for use in NWS storm warnings. Again, I have not seen any indication of credit to the inventors from the National Weather Service.
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From page 166... ...
Instead the UK Met Office walked off with all the business totally supported by their government. During 1997, the National Weather Service was approached by Department of Commerce trade officials on whether the U.S.
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From page 167... ...
Training of cooperative observers is also an extra duty for various NWS regional headquarters after they accomplish all their higher priority duties. I'm not aware of anyone with an on site inspection responsibility and authority to ensure data quality.
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From page 168... ...
Questions 15 and 16 touch in some way on essentially all of the weather information acquired, produced, distributed and retained by the National Weather Service (NWS) and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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From page 169... ...
Staff at NWS Weather Forecast Offices have specific responsibilities to carry out cooperative observer training and site visits. NWS has had a plan for improving cooperative observations since 1993, and received National Research Council endorsement of the overall technical approach proposed in the plan "Future of the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Network," Section 4.
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From page 170... ...
The modernized COOP network will provide the hourly temperature and precipitation data necessary for short-term forecasts as well as local information for inclusion in the climate record. While the CRN will depict each of its 250 sites with great detail, it does little to capture the regional and local nuances that the 8,000 site modernized COOP Network will depict.
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From page 171... ...
It would be prohibitively expensive, and in some cases impossible, to replace these external information sources with sources under NWS/NOAA control, which means NWS/NOAA will always have to assimilate information from both internal and external sources to support numerical modeling. Data Assimilation for Numerical Weather Prediction.
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From page 172... ...
. In 1991, four private sector companies, under contract from the National Weather Service, connected" to each andt every one of the NWS's new WSR
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From page 173... ...
Rather than the NWS trying to create network from scratch, ~ competitive contract should have been awarded to one of the NIDS or other private sector company to provide this service, or, better still, two companies for greater redundancy. The Commercial Weather Service's Association has written position papers supporting the National Weather Service's attempt to upgrade its network and provide redundancy.
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From page 174... ...
In September 1999, NWS compared the cost and benefits of the two alternate approaches, and selected the option to use the AWIPS WAN, primarily due to the significant cost avoidance by leveraging off the operational AWIPS WAN infrastructure already in place at all NWS offices responsible for the radar product collection. With regard to timeliness of service, an operational demonstration of the new Radar Product Central Collection/Distribution Service (RPCCDS)
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From page 175... ...
175 18. We believe there is ~ significant opportunity to enhance the performance and cost-effectiveness of the National Weather Service (NWS)
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From page 176... ...
This private sector OHM approach would also benefit NOAA and the National Weather Service by allowing them to focus on their core missions, which income more timely and accurate forecasts for the public. An expanded role for the private sector would also streamline the process for the introduction of new technologies, thus allowing the NWS to realize its strategic goals in ~ shorter time frame.
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From page 177... ...
The National Weather Service office sent personal message to 7 television stations, 5 radio stations, 2 various businesses and 29 government and other agencies (43 in al~ soliciting them to use this new NWS service. At least 9 of these are customers of 9 different commercial weather companies.
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From page 178... ...
21. The National Weather Service is directly entering the commercial weather business by soliciting existing customers of the commercial weather industry through the creation of specialized products and services for the use by newspapers (see Dodge City, Kansas, NWS Forecast Office web site)
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From page 179... ...
The search features on all of these sites conform with directions from OMB Circular A-130, discussed above, to make effective use of ongoing advances in information technology to promote the utility of government information to all citizens. The "city/state/zip" search function is also an important component in making information on government web sites more accessible to persons with disabilities.
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From page 180... ...
24. My area of interest is very narrowly focused: those text-based severe weather warnings, watches, and advisories issued by the National Weather Service and intended for public dissemination tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, flash flood warnings, etc.
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From page 181... ...
National Weather Service (NWS) warnings.
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From page 182... ...
First, a careful review of NWS policies and procedures which provide instructions for NWS forecasters regarding exactly how NWS warning products must be produced and formatted uncovered areas where greater precision is needed to ensure NWS produces consistent, machine-readable warnings. NWS Directives System Instructions 10-511 (Weather Forecast Office Severe Weather Products Specification)
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From page 183... ...
Case 1. In element A, the National Weather Service Summary reports low temperature for January 9, 2002, to be 22 d'egrees at 10:49am.
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From page 184... ...
The 4:27pm PST report from the National Weather Service office in Saniouquin Valley indicated that 0.18 of an inch of rain fell in Fresno onianuary 27, 2002, as of 4pm local time (element BJ. The hourly reports clearly indicated that 0.01 of an inch fell before midnight local time and that the total should really be 0.17 of an inch (element CJ.
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From page 185... ...
The National Weather Service climate summary through 4pm local time February 16 corresponded with the hourly observations indicating that 0.06 of an inch had fallen (element C)
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From page 186... ...
That total was maintained on the report through 4pm February 17 when another 0.7 of an inch was added to the reduced totals (element IJ. This example presents nine representative cases of seeming problems in various National Weather Service observational summaries and in the climate data records maintained by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
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From page 187... ...
are the result of inconsistencies due to multiple reports. The data for the interim climate summary uses temperature and precipitation information from ASOS.
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From page 188... ...
NWS standard format for climatological reports is defined in NWS Directives System Instruction 10-501 (Weather Forecast Office Statements, Summaries, Tables Products Specification, see http://www.nws.noaa.gov/directives/~. Planned Improvements.
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From page 189... ...
That certainly is a disadvantage to the other contractors. Finally, while the UK MET and other national weather services are attempting to become "commercial," it was my understanding that the U.S.
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From page 190... ...
FSL pushed their modeling capability as well as their meteorological workstation. FSL wants to do the flash flood warning system in central Vietnam?
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From page 191... ...
APPENDIX D understand the purpose of the equipment and how to integrate these products to improve their overall weather forecasting abilities. This type of training, if done by U.S.
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