The National Weather Service Modernization and Associated Restructuring A Retrospective Assessment (2012) / Chapter Skim
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3 Execution of the Modernization and Associated Restructuring
3 Execution of the Modernization and Associated Restructuring
Pages 19-44
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. Many national weather services in NWS established the Transition Program Office to sup- other countries use operating models that differ from NWS.
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NWS had strong union tain its international obligations, most notably through participation at the field office staff level (National the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) , and Weather Service Employees Organization; NWSEO)
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From this and other GAO reports, it is possible to con- 2. Were the cost and schedule issues encountered struct the overall view of cost and schedule performance during the MAR out of the ordinary for projects of shown in Table 3.1.
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are accounted for, MAR cost and properly included in the GAO reports. The difference schedule issues appear to be high but not substantially between summing the program element costs shown out of line with experience on similar projects.
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. Weak procurement processes lead to leading to an ill-advised procurement plan, which elimi- poorly-defined objectives, incomplete understanding of nated a critical development phase while at the same technical and programmatic risks, inadequate mitigatime requesting substantial technology advances.7 While tion processes, overly rigid processes, and selection of each of the MAR elements had distinct issues, the com- contractors without sufficient experience or with design mon internal contributing factor appears to have been flaws in their proposals.
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, Modernization Transition range Weather Forecasts. For example, Japan cites staffing of 5,555 Committee [MTC]
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However, AWIPS Risk Reduction and Requirements Evaluation publically available, systematic, long-term validation of (DAR3E) and the Norman AWIPS Risk Reduction and surface weather forecasts over the United States is not Requirements Evaluation (NAR3E)
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The When AAI, Inc. was let the contract for full pronew observation strategy deployed automated sen- duction of ASOS in the early 1990s, there were already sors to perform much of the work previously done by 55 "limited production"-run ASOS sites located in the human weather observers.
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of ASOS enabled a reduction in the number of NWS of horizontally versus vertically polarized waves (e.g., field offices and reduced the staffing levels needed to Oguchi and Hosova, 1974; Seliga and Bringi, 1976) , a make surface observations.
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. ras, Unisys, and WSI each paid a one-time access fee The National Weather Service and the National Oce- of $780 per radar site and a recurring maintenance fee anic and Atmospheric Administration should create of $1,395 per site via a NIDS Access Agreement (Baer, technical advisory panels for each of the major systems 1991)
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They concluded there was sufficient into a single, national system, the joint National Polar- proof-of-concept in "body-stabilized" spacecraft and orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System instrument design heritage, and NOAA was facing
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. timely and consistent flow of forecast information from central computing facilities to forecast offices In spite of the technical, cost, and schedule issues associated with the program, it is important to stress 10 The National Centers are the NWS office responsible for the substantial improvements in the frequency, spa- providing worldwide forecast guidance products.
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composed of representatives of NWS lation systems as well as numerical prediction models administrative, development, and field offices, as well as required a full order of magnitude greater capacity what became the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) in than was being used at the NMC at the beginning of Boulder, Colorado.
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During the critical 1997 to 2002 development that the deployment of AWIPS into the forecast offices period, PRC and the government developers worked would be substantially delayed and affect the capability extremely closely on integration and test efforts. After of the NWS to utilize the data from the new observing development at PRC offices, development versions components of the MAR.
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The FSL dealt with this change capability of WFOs to efficiently ingest, manipulate, by creating a series of prototype AWIPS-style sysand analyze tremendous amounts of data, thus helping tems that were tested by selected forecast offices. The to improve accuracy and timeliness of forecasts and resulting feedback was used to improve, upgrade, and warnings ( Jackson, 2011)
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were responsible for severe weather warnings within and 204 Weather Service Offices (WSOs) were replaced their area of responsibility, in addition to statewide by 122 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs)
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The National Weather Service Employees Organi- Changes in Customer Linkages zation (NWSEO) played a crucial role in the process, becoming more engaged than ever before in defending Customer service advanced significantly with the and helping define the future role of its constituent creation of the WCM position at WFOs.
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. Associated Restructuring, there was insufficient Before the MAR, communication links were mostly communication between National Weather Service one-directional.
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The Space Weather Prediction Center did not become part of NCEP until 2005 when it moved from the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. SOURCE: National Weather Service.
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. " These products would then be the other NOAA line offices involved in carrying out digitally transmitted to forecast offices via the AWIPS the MAR: NESDIS and OAR/ERL.
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Services: A Call for Federal Leadership and Action sum Of the 163 planned NEXRAD radars, 144 were marized the situation in 1995. The report noted that to be located at sites within the CONUS operated by aviation weather is a specialized area that falls outside both the NWS and the DOD, while 19 were to be the mainstream of general-purpose weather services placed at locations in Hawaii, Alaska, the Caribbean, and makes the point that aviation meteorologists need the Atlantic, the Pacific, and Korea (GAO, 1995f )
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Although this position was embraced by only a portion of the Research Community private sector, the environment polarized the two communities. At the time of the MAR, the convergence of Partnership with the research community was growing market needs for advanced weather services key to the success of the MAR.
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. role of the MTC was to ensure that no degradation of weather services would occur with the closure of Finding 3-5 any WFSO or WSO, by reviewing the certifications Partnerships between the National Weather Ser- prepared by NWS.
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Though and required additional upgrades to be added to future the NRC National Weather Service Modernization software builds, adding additional costs. The GAO Committee recommended similar technical advisory reported that a systems architecture that described the committees for each of the major MAR systems, none overall blueprint for AWIPS was lacking (GAO, 1994)
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a Member succeeded in preventing the closing of a forecast office or other NWS facility, but on occasion a planned radar location was altered. Some frustration Congress arose from the different interpretations of degradation To the benefit of the NWS there were a number of of service: whether degradation could be determined members of Congress who supported the opportunities from meteorological criteria, or whether it was related for improvement of weather services presented by the to a change in the number of jobs or money spent in MAR.
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