Visitors and Delegations
10 Most Recent Events
April 2005 - Peoples Republic of China
A 26 member Chinese delegation coming under the auspices of the China Meteorological Administration and China Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges will meet with the National Weather Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency and other related agencies and associations to share their expertise in regards to the Federal role in the emergency response disasters. The purpose of their visit is to learn about National Weather Service approaches with respect to emergency response to natural disasters in the U.S.
April 2005 - Russia
A delegation from the Federal Service on Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring of Russia (RosHydromet) will visit the following NOAA facilities: National Weather Service - Silver Spring, MD; National Centers for Environmental Predication - Camp Springs, MD; Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center and Weather Forecast Office - State College, PA; and, the National Climatic Data Center - Asheville, NC. The delegation will also visit Meteorological Service of Canada.
March 2005 - Tunisia
NWS will participate in a five day workshop in Tunis with the National Meteorological Institute (INM) of Tunisia. The workshop will be funded by the U.S. State Department. The objective of the workshop is for the NWS to present an overview of its operations including organization, observation systems, and weather and climate forecasting techniques. The INM hopes to use the workshop to define what is needed to modernize its weather services.
March 2005 - India
A fifteen member Indian delegation will visit the NWS as part of the NOAA support to the USAID Disaster Management Support Project. The objective of these consultative meetings will be to finalize the training plan under the Climate Forecast System (CFS) component of the project and to develop a calendar of activities for 2005. During this visit the Indian scientists will visit NOAA facilities in Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida, and Oklahoma and will interact with NOAA scientists involved in the CFS.
December 2004 - Romania
Mr. Stadiu Florin, Vice Minister of the Romanian Ministry of Water and the Environment lead a delegation visiting the National Weather Service Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. The delegation was welcomed by David L. Johnson, Director of the National Weather Service. The delegation was provided with a briefing on the organization of NWS, use of hydrologic forecasts and hydrometeorological data in water management, mitigation of flood and drought disasters, and the National Weather Service support to the DEStructive WATers (DESWAT) program in Romania.
December 2004 - Peoples Republic of China
A six member delegation from the Yangtze River Basin Commission visited the National Weather Service Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD in mid-December. The objectives of the delegation were to discuss hydrometeorological data collection and weather and flood forecasting and warnings. Of special interest were discussions regarding the U.S. responsibilities and procedures for warning development and dissemination.
November 2004 - Peoples Republic of China
An 11 member delegation from China's Ministry of Water Resources will visit NWS as part of a Yangtze River Flood Control an Management Project (YRFCMP). The visit to NWS is part of two week tour during which the delegation will have visiting several NOAA facilities throughout the United States.
The principal objectives of this study tour are to examine hydro-meteorological data collection, flood forecasting, modeling and data retrieval systems; provide exposure and explanations as to the logic behind their flood control decision support systems; and study the interrelationships between, and scope of activities of, various levels of governments in the United States. These objectives are important to Yangtze River basin flood management and the overall success of the YRFCMP (Yangtze River Flood Control and Management Project) as issues relating to forecasting, management and flood control of large river basins are similar to those in the United States. Comparisons of parameters used by forecasters and flood control decision makers in the US and exposure to other ideas will broaden the scope and usefulness of the DSS (Decision Support System) being developed for the Yangtze basin.
November 2004 - Taiwan
Mr. Liu of the Taiwan Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) will visit the Aviation Weather Center (AWC), Kansas City, MO. The visit is part of Taiwan's development of an aviation weather system modernization program. CAA would also like to explore of the possibly of developing a cooperative training program with NWS. Jack May of AWC will provide Mr. Liu with and tour and overview of AWC.
November 2004 - Peoples Republic of China
A eight-member delegation from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) visited the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Camp Spring, Maryland where they were given a briefing on NCEP's operations followed by a tour of the various forecasting stations.
The NCEP visit was followed by a visit to the National Weather Service (NWS) where William Bolhofer provided the CAAC with a briefing on the overall structure of NWS; Kevin Johnston followed with a briefing on NOAA's Aviation Services and Kevin Browne concluded with a presentation outlining FAA's relationship with NWS.
CAAC visited the Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Sterling, Virginia where Jim Lee started the tour with a twenty slide PowerPoint overview briefing followed by a tour of the operations deck, where AWIPS and NOAA Weather Radio were demonstrated.
The CAAC study tour to the United States concluded with a visit to the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) Kansas City, Missouri where Fred Johnson and Clinton Wallace provided them with an overview and tour of Aviation Weather Center Operations.
November 2004 - Korea
A 12-member delegation from the Korea Meteorological Administration
(KMA) visited NWS facilities for a two-week period in mid-November as part of their "Training on Typhoon Policy and Technology for National Prevention and Mitigation Services" program.
This was a fact-finding information-gathering delegation. KMA embarked on establishing a typhoon center similar to TPC, but limited in scope to the Korean peninsula and adjoining waters. The Government of Korea wants to provide more timely and tailored Tropical Cyclone (TC) forecasts than currently available from the Tokyo RSMC. It would be a seamless top-to-bottom approach from a national disaster mitigation response system down to providing specific information at the local level.
Some specific TC interests of the group include: How does our national disaster response system work; how is our emergency response manager network organized; how does the NWS integrate TPC forecasts into our national network of forecasts; when is the TPC no longer responsible for a TC forecast and how do we integrate satellite data into our TC forecasts. Scott Kiser answered some basic policy questions from the HQs perspective and William Bolhofer provided the delegation with a general overview of the National Weather Service.
KMA also went on to visit Weather Forecast Office in Sterling, VA where Jim Lee started the tour with a twenty slide PowerPoint overview briefing. After this, the tour went out to the operations deck, where AWIPS and NOAA Weather Radio were demonstrated.
The tour concluded in Miami, FL where they visited the Tropical Prediction Center (TCP) and Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC)
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