Generalizations
AMS 2005: "Awesome Teamwork"

By General D.L. Johnson
NWS Director

The recent American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in San Diego was a success and a job well done. Congratulations to all of our employees who demonstrated leadership in representing NOAA's National Weather Service through professional papers, posters, meetings, and volunteer service in the NOAA exhibit and community Weatherfest events.

With more than 140 Weather Service employees in attendance, I had a rare opportunity outside of Silver Spring to host an All-Hands session with a large number of employees from around the country. I talked about our successes of FY 04 and the challenges and opportunities in FY 05 and beyond. The following is a summary of my remarks.

Awesome Teamwork in 2004

"Awesome Teamwork" is how I summed up 2004 at both our employee All-Hands and also during the presentation I delivered to the AMS International Conference on Interactive Information Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology. In 2004, NOAA's National Weather Service achieved a lot and I appreciate everyone's dedication and professionalism. Among our accomplishments, we provided first-class service for extreme events including record-breaking hurricane, drought, tornado, and Alaskan fire seasons. We tripled our supercomputing power and launched the first-ever global ocean-atmosphere coupled Climate Forecast System. We helped move research to operations with a new Air Quality Forecast and have gone digital with the beginnings of the National Digital Forecast Database. In FY 04, we paved the way for a new partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for debris flow watches and warning. Debris flow is a general term used by USGS and covers a variety of slope failures. We're still crunching 2004 data for our Government Performance and Results Act measures and it appears that we did not meet five of our 14 goals. This is obviously a "special emphasis" area. In addition, we need to do a reality check to make sure we are measuring the right things and setting appropriate goals for ourselves for FY 08 and beyond.

NOAA Partnership Policy

There was a lot of talk at the AMS about the new NOAA partnership policy -- some positive, and some not. Basically, the new policy commits NOAA to actively seek and give due consideration to all views when we make decisions on new products and services or policies; develop our decisions with the goal of optimizing the environmental information enterprise; and serve the public interest in the decisions we make. You need to know there are new directives under development that you will need to be familiar with so we can fully comply. Speaking of partnerships - the tsunami tragedy in the Indian Ocean presents an opening for more communities to get on board and be both Storm and TsunamiReady. Let's see what we can do to boost our numbers and get these programs into many more communities.

FY 05 Opportunities and Challenges

In addition to our budget, I discussed with employees additional FY 05 opportunities and challenges to keep on the front burner:

1. U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy: We need to think beyond our current water services and demonstrate "wet" leadership. Gary Carter is leading the water resources initiative for this group.
2. AWIPS: This system is stretched to capacity and we need to fix it and plan for the next era.
3. CWSUs: The FAA needs to clearly identify the problems it is solving through its reorganization so we can best support the solutions. I have been involved in a dialogue to help this process.
4. Optimizing Existing Systems: We must have continuity of service which involves IT security. We can not have single points of failure.
5. Research to Operations: A huge drain on resources is the past poor planning we've done moving research systems into operations. We've seen some potential successes this past year (TAO buoys, National Profiler Network) and we are working toward a singular, solid requirements and program system.
6. Space Environment Center: Moving the Space Environment Center into NOAA's NWS is one of the best examples of moving research to operations and expanding our role in environmental services.
7. "Larger Teams:" We're helping to grow the collective weather, water, and climate enterprise. We support the draft NWS Strategic Plan for 2010 which states that we will ".work with our sister agencies in NOAA, other federal, state, and local agencies, the academic and research community, and the diverse and growing private sector. We recognize the decisions we make affect others, and we will seek an open dialogue to ensure the American people continue to receive the best weather services in the world."

NOAA's National Weather Service

At the All-Hands meeting I asked our employees to join me in supporting Vice Admiral Lautenbacher's goal of building a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and his efforts to promote one corporate NOAA. We need to build stronger connections between our expertise in weather, water, and climate services to NOAA's growing compliment of environmental services. In an effort to strengthen this connection, line office names have changed. Our name, NOAA's National Weather Service, gives us the best of both worlds - a stronger link to our parent agency and the full compliment of environmental services it provides, while maintaining our esprit de corps and customer name familiarity. I encourage all of you to express the Corporate Board Operations Philosophy in the field. Today, many of you are making the connection and doing great work with colleagues across the line offices. I am counting on all of you to look for more ways to connect with NOAA and demonstrate the leadership role that we play in helping NOAA achieve its mission.

Look for more stories about AMS accomplishments in future issues.

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Working Together to Live With a Limited Water Supply

Editor's note: Office of Hydrologic Development Director Gary Carter's presentation at the January 2005 American Meteorological Society annual meeting in San Diego, CA, covered the topic of a limited water supply.

Organizations throughout the United States and worldwide indicate water availability will be the great challenge of the 21st century. Regions in which water was once plentiful are now experiencing shortages. The Nation's freshwater supply is critically stressed by a growing population, especially in environmentally sensitive areas along the coasts. According to the Council of State Governments, water wars in the United States, once limited to the semi-arid Western states, have now spread to the Midwest, East, and South of the country. The National Research Council indicates: "In this century, the United States will be challenged to provide sufficient quantities of high-quality water to its growing population." The Western Governors Association estimates that economic losses arising from the current drought in the West are "billions of dollars."

In order to meet this challenge, America's water resource managers require dramatically more predictive information than NOAA currently delivers. Freshwater forecasts must be produced in high resolution gridded format. Additional forecasts of water resource variables such as soil temperature, soil moisture, and evaporation are needed. NOAA will engage partner agencies and the research community in economically and ecologically sound watershed management.

Integration of NOAA's water-related activities will be necessary to address these water challenges. NOAA's National Weather Service has focused primarily on forecasting floods, although drought outlooks and forecasts in the normal flow ranges are also issued. Property losses and deaths attributable to floods are the largest and second-largest impacts from natural disasters in the United States, respectively. Water forecast procedures have advanced as a result of intramural and extramural research and development efforts. The flow predictions are used by NOAA's National Ocean Service estuary models and by NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service for species management in the brackish water areas.

To address growing water resource challenges, NOAA's National Weather Service is putting more emphasis on forecasting the full spectrum of flows ranging from droughts to floods. Seasonal volumetric outlooks, currently produced only at a few River Forecast Centers, are likely to become widespread. Groundwater levels and river flow observations from U.S. Geological Survey must be assimilated into flow forecasting models to increase their accuracy. Other Federal agencies NOAA routinely cooperates with in the water area are the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service and Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Department of Homeland Security. Similar cooperation extends to state, regional, municipal, and tribal water agencies, and numerous private utilities and water managers.

NOAA's water resources program will fully leverage existing national surface and ground water monitoring networks, and help justify the expansion of these networks. At the same time, advances in data assimilation and hydrologic science are necessary to produce the type and quantity of information requested by NOAA's water resource customers. High-resolution, integrated analyses of in-situ and remotely sensed environmental information will be assimilated for use by fresh and salt water forecasting systems.

While some of the scientific breakthroughs to produce improved water resources information have occurred, complex additional multidisciplinary research is necessary. Collaborative research both within NOAA and outside NOAA (academia, other governmental agencies, private industry) will be critical to achieving these goals. A Community Hydrologic Prediction System for watershed management will be developed by NOAA to support the operational implementation of advanced water quantity and quality models not currently available at NOAA. The open architecture of this new system will facilitate collaboration with Federal partners to enable NOAA to predict changes in freshwater resources and provide critical information to mitigate any adverse environmental impacts.

Better internal NOAA coordination will improve the accuracy and utility of these forecasts. NOAA's National Weather Service is positioned to lead this activity because of its unique capabilities in data acquisition and processing, existing operational water modeling infrastructure, and robust national service delivery system to provide predictions of water resource variables for forecast periods of hours to months.

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Forecast Office Gets Native American History Lesson from Forest Service Expert

By Bonnie Terrizzi
Hydrometeorological Technician
WFO Jackson, KY

The world exists for the education of man. There is no age, or state of society, or mode of action in history, to which there is not something corresponding in his own life.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Johnny Faulkner, Archeologist with the National Forest Service, demonstrates how early native Americans could work with flint and turn it into a weapon or tool depending on the need.

Faulkner presented a fascinating program on the ancient peoples that lived in east Kentucky, long before the more modern Indian tribes that we usually think of when talking about the Native American people. He rolled the clock backwards for us, some 10,000 years BC, where the archeological record in eastern Kentucky is among the oldest record in the country. Artifacts found within the Red River Gorge have allowed scientists to study an ancient culture living successfully as the last ice age was drawing to a close. Known to the scientists as Paleoindians, they were truly the first Americans. As with the Anasazi of the desert southwest who had an amazing culture and then just vanished, so too did the ancient people who occupied east Kentucky. The archaeological record shows a gap of about 5,000 years between the Paleoindian culture, and the next people who occupy the archaeological record. The Paleoindian were followed by four other distinct cultures prior to the Indian tribes that were prevalent when the white man made his presence known.

In addition to being an Archeologist, Faulkner also is a skilled re-creationist. This means that he actually recreates and uses replicas of tools found at historic sites. Whether tackling the tedious and tiring task of shaping a granite stone into the required shape of a stone ax, or the relatively quick method of crafting a flint spearhead, he is dedicated to keeping alive the skills necessary for survival of these ancient people. Instead of the standard knife strapped to a belt that goes unnoticed by most people, Faulkner has a knife fashioned out of a deer's jawbone with the teeth intact.

"The teeth are the best thing ever for scaling fish," he said. The blade is fashioned from flint and is sharp enough to shave the hair from your arm, and attached to the deer jawbone with sinew. The sheath is actually tanned skin from the leg from a snapping turtle, claws included. East Kentucky's Red River Gorge, nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the East, is nationally regarded by rock climbers.

"It is vitally important for us within the Forest Service to find a way to protect these fragile and environmentally sensitive sites, while still accommodating the needs of today's recreational usage," said Faulkner. Many of the fragile remnants of "Rock Houses" where the ancient people made their homes or camps are threatened with the growing popularity of the sport of climbing.

"Our staff works closely with Daniel Boone National Forest personnel because of our fire weather program, but many of us were not aware of the vital role that the Forest Service plays in preserving the cultural heritage of the United States," said Shawn Harley, Meteorologist-In-Charge of WFO Jackson. "Mr. Faulkner's presentation allowed us to better understand the rich and diverse past of our area, and I think all of us now have a greater appreciation for the people who originally lived in eastern Kentucky."

WFO Jackson Forecaster Karen Oudeman, said, "One day, we will be a part of Earth's ancient history, and learning about the ways of Indians more than 10,000 years ago encourages you to make the best of the short time we have upon this earth and to preserve the earth and our heritage for many generations to come."

For more information about the ancient history in eastern Kentucky, visit the Daniel Boone National Forest web site.

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High School Job Shadowers Check In To Storm Prediction Center

Westmoore Senior Jessica Cantrell shadows SPC Lead Forecaster Rich Thompson. Photo by Jeff Peters, SPC Forecaster.

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, OK, hosted five high school students for their fall 2004 job shadow program, a local program which was initiated by SPC Forecaster Jeff Peters in the past year.

The program expanded beyond the Norman school district to the two high schools in Moore, OK. In addition to learning about SPC operations and shadowing an operational forecaster, the students also got a tour of the SPC/NSSL computer room.

"This allows them to learn about how SPC receives, transmits, and stores weather data," said Electronic Systems Analyst Doug Rhue, who provided the computer room tour. Rhue's tour also included the numerous satellite dishes on the roof and either NEXRAD or the new Phased Array Radar.

Students also spent time with SPC Administrative Officer Peggy Stogsdill to learn about her duties, which include budget work and managing human relations, such as staff health benefits.

SPC Director Joe Schaefer said with the success of the job shadow program, especially with two November newspaper articles detailing the unique opportunity, along with a picture of students at forecaster workstations, more students likely will be interested in participating in the SPC job shadow days planned for 2005.

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Also On the Web.Retiree Profiled in Conservation Magazine

Since he retired from the NWS Training Center, Dick Myers and his wife Esther have made conservation their passion, restoring habitats for rare plant and animal species. Read about the Myers and their hobby in the November issue of the Missouri Conservationist, a publication of the Missouri Department of Conservation.

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Snapshots

Click here for a look at photos we've received from around the NWS.

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