Straight Talk:
Tsunami Update

By General D.L. Johnson
NWS Director

The Administration's two-year plan to strengthen the U.S. Tsunami Warning Program provides us with a tremendous opportunity to show NOAA working together. There are a lot of people across the agency doing a lot of good things but we must have one coordinated effort to reach success. I've named Therese Pierce, Chief, Marine Services Branch, to lead this project for NOAA and she has pulled together a cross-cutting team that is working at full-throttle capacity.

To support this effort, we will deploy a new generation of DART buoy stations. Last week Rick Rosen, NOAA's Research Director; Paul Moersdorf, Director of the National Data Buoy Data Center; John McNulty, Director of Operations; David Green, Tsunami Deputy Project Manager; and I traveled to NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory to meet with engineers and discuss design options. We agreed on a hull design for the buoy stations that will support NOAA's tsunami warning program and also could accommodate additional meteorological and ocean sensors. A study is currently underway to optimize the siting of these stations to satisfy their multi-observational roles. IF we want to equip the buoy hulls with meteorological sensors or ocean sensing array for salinity or temp, etc., we'll have to tell folks to come with money. We first need 05 and 06 money before we can bend metal. The President announced the program and the clock is ticking away. Our NDBC folks are the tip of the spear on this one -- Therese Pierce, John McNulty, and Paul Moersdorf will be the driving force to get the resources and the team fully engaged. The eyes of the Nation are upon us...

Back to Top

Experiment to Add Upper Air Data Takes Flight

By Jeff Last
Warning Coordination Meteorologist, WFO Green Bay

NOAA's National Weather Service offices in the central and eastern U.S. are playing a major role in an important meteorological experiment. The TAMDAR (Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Report) "Great Lakes Fleet Experiment," which started in January, consists of evaluating weather instruments recently installed on 64 Mesaba Airlines commuter aircraft that serve airports across the Great Lakes and surrounding areas of the central and eastern U.S. The TAMDAR instrument package measures temperature, humidity, wind, pressure, icing and turbulence, and reports the data in real time to the NWS. The experiment will determine if this new source of upper air weather data will result in more accurate weather forecasts and warnings.

Weather forecasts are largely dependent on ground and upper air weather data. While there are thousands of ground weather observations taken across the continental U.S. every hour, there are only about 70 locations where weather balloons take measurements above the ground, just twice each day. This results in large data gaps, in time and space, across the country. To fill some of these gaps, weather observations are currently collected from large, jet aircraft that fly mostly to medium- and large-size cities. Because TAMDAR sensors are flown on commuter aircraft that go to smaller cities, the weather observations collected from these flights will further fill in the gaps.

"The additional observations of temperature, humidity, and wind in the lowest 5,000 to 10,000 feet of the atmosphere should help us produce more accurate forecasts and warnings," said Richard Mamrosh, Senior Forecaster at the NWS Green Bay office.

Gene Brusky, Science Operations Meteorologist at the Green Bay office added, "A key component to the ultimate success of the experiment will be in the sensor's ability to measure moisture, an important variable in forecasting severe weather."

This project is a collaboration of several government and private agencies. NOAA's National Weather Service and Forecast Systems Laboratory will assess the usefulness of the TAMDAR observations in short-term forecasting and numerical weather prediction models. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) assisted in the initial design and testing of the TAMDAR instrument package. AirDat, Inc., was the primary designer and builder of the instrument. In addition, the NWS Green Bay, WI, office developed training for other NWS Weather Forecast Offices, and is collecting comments and case studies during the experiment.

For more information on the project, visit the TAMDAR web site at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/tamdar.

Back to Top

Space Weather Training Now Available

Now that the Space Environment Center (SEC) in Boulder, CO, is one of our nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NWS employees may have questions or may need to respond to questions about the SEC and how space weather affects people and equipment on Earth and in space. A 20-minute training module is now available on the NOAA Learning Management System (eLearning@NOAA) to help answer some of those questions.

All NOAA NWS employees have access to eLearning@NOAA at: http://e-learning.doc.gov/NOAA/. The module titled Space Weather: Welcome, SEC can be found in the course Catalog. First-time users of the eLearning@NOAA site can find login and navigation information by clicking on the "Information Desk" link on the main page and then clicking on the "Information Monitor" link.

Back to Top

Flood Safety Billboard Unveiled In Florida

NWS Southern Region Deputy Regional Director Steven Cooper (third from left) joined FLASH President Leslie Chapman Henderson (fifth from left), Dept. of Community Affairs Secretary Thaddeus Cohen (sixth from left), and others for the TADD billboard campaign launch in Tallahassee, FL. (Photo: Courtesy Florida Community Affairs Dept.)

The NOAA National Weather Service Turn Around, Don't Drown® (TADD) flood safety awareness effort added a new element recently--a highway billboard campaign in Florida. NWS Southern Region Deputy Director Steven Cooper joined Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) President Leslie Chapman-Henderson and Florida State Officials for the campaign kickoff on February 21, 2005, in Tallahassee, FL.

A similar billboard promotion is planned for Texas this spring. The TADD concept originated in Texas and expanded to a national effort which is now nearing its third year. Turn Around, Don't Drown® was launched as a joint effort of the NWS Southern Region and FLASH on May 21, 2003. It is designed to enhance public awareness of the dangers of driving or walking into flooded areas. Approximately 80 percent of all flood fatalities in the Nation result from people either walking or driving into moving water. A colorful poster, a TADD sign, window sticker, FLASH card, and a NWS flood safety brochure are all available at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tadd. Visitors are encouraged to download, reproduce, and distribute the images through community civic organizations, schools, government agencies, or private businesses.

The TADD billboard announcement was part of Florida 's Hazardous Weather Awareness Week activities. Different weather hazards are highlighted each day of the week.

Back to Top

Forecast Office Recognizes Valuable Partner in Fire Weather Program

Northern Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center dispatchers Melody Rothleutner, Cindy Hansen, and Ken Wesche; WFO Rapid City Fire Weather Program Leader Pat Murphy; Center Manager Sheri Fox; and dispatchers Angie Hinker and Cheryl Carpenter pose with their reward. Dispatcher not pictured is Hillarie Jackson. Photo by David Carpenter, MIC, WFO Rapid City.

The Rapid City, SD, Weather Forecast Office (WFO) recently recognized the Northern Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center for its outstanding support and performance in getting potentially life-saving weather forecasts and warnings to firefighters in the field.

Staff from the NWS attended an informal ceremony along with several state and federal land management agency representatives to present a plaque of appreciation to the dispatch center. This ceremony and plaque officially recognize the centers partnership role in NOAA's National Weather Service's mission to save lives and protect property.

The Northern Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center opened in early 2003 and has been the primary contact for disseminating routine forecasts and red flag warnings to numerous federal and state land management agencies for two full fire seasons. The center is staffed with people from the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs, in addition to the State of South Dakota , and serves many other federal and state land management agencies in Wyoming , Nebraska , North Dakota, and South Dakota .

Dispatch center staff members have performed at a high level, and demonstrate a keen understanding of the weather needs of both their customers and the NWS forecasters, according to Fire Weather Program Manager Pat Murphy.

"Much of the NWS's job in forecasting is communication, and the dispatch center has been our voice to the firefighters," Murphy said while presenting the plaque.

The dispatch center staff has opened a two-way communication between the forecast office and fire fighters in the field, from all federal and state agencies. Their understanding of the weather and coordination with everyone in the field, has helped WFO Rapid City to convey important weather forecast information to the people making life threatening decisions, or that may be in harms way. Additionally they have been able to get more reliable current weather conditions from the fire site, which aids forecasters in maintaining a higher level of situational awareness and safer fire fighting.

Northern Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center Manager Sheri Fox said she hopes the relationship that has developed between this center and WFO Rapid City can serve as a model for other offices and dispatch centers to work together more closely.

Back to Top

Salt Lake City Staff Member Volunteers Time to Radio Reading Service

Dennis Hall, Radio Program Manager, Utah State Library Division, Program for the Blind and Disabled demonstrates the station's operational capabilities to Brian Mcinerney, Senior Service Hydrologist, WFO SLC. Photo by Warning Coordination Meteorologist Kevin Barjenbruch.

NOAA employees are a part of their local communities, and one NWS hydrologist in Salt Lake City, UT, is volunteering some of his time reading for the blind.

Brian Mcinerney, Senior Service Hydrologist at WFO Salt Lake City (SLC), spends an hour each Wednesday, recording broadcasts for the Utah Radio Reading Service, a program of the Utah State Library Division, Program for the Blind and Disabled.

Recently, Mcinerney guided Dennis Hall, Radio Program Manager, on a tour of the Salt Lake City Office. Hall, an admitted weather enthusiast, expressed his appreciation of the tour and Mcinerney, stating "what a joy it is to work with him."

Mcinerney is one of approximately 20 individuals, recording local and regional news articles, for the Service. Also included are magazines articles, plus old time radio and special feature programs.

The Radio Reading Service is available to approximately 1,200 patrons living along the Wasatch Front of northern and central Utah and in the Cedar City and St. George areas of southwest Utah. The programming, which features a weather segment each weekday, is broadcast daily on sidebands from KBYU-FM Radio in Provo and KREC-FM Radio in St. George.

The broadcasts can be received only on specially tuned radio receivers, available to patrons of the Utah State Library for the Blind and Disabled. The receivers are loaned, free of charge, from the Library for the Blind.

Back to Top

Employee Milestones

• Click here to see NEW APPOINTMENTS/TRANSFERS to NWS through February 28, 2005.
• Click here to see RETIREMENTS/DEPARTURES from NWS through February 28, 2005.

Back to Top

Also On the Web.Hydrologists Profiled for 'New Hot Paper'

NOAA NWS scientists who authored a paper titled The Distributed Model Intercomparison Project (DMIP): Motivation and Experiment Design are profiled on the web for the first published intercomparison of distributed and lumped hydrologic models.

Authors Victor Koren, Senior Research Hydrologist, Hydrologic Modeling Group Hydro Science Branch, NWS Hydrology Laboratory; and Michael Smith, Research Hydrologist Leader, Hydrologic Modeling Group are the subject of a brief question and answer interview on their paper. Read about it here.

Back to Top

Snapshots

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

Back to Top