Straight Talk:
Teamwork in the Digital Era

By General D.L. Johnson
NWS Director

One of the first priorities I set when I came onboard as your Director was resetting our relationship with the National Weather Service Employee Organization (NWSEO). Recently, in support of this effort, we invited NWSEO Vice President Dan Sobien to join me, committee members, and regional directors for an expanded meeting of the Operations Committee of the Corporate Board at our Training Center in Kansas City where we engaged in spirited discussions about NOAA's National Weather Service operations in the digital era.

We agreed we have a lot of work to do over the next few years to determine how we can build on our success to accommodate growing expectations and new requirements, and how to expand our service perspective to include other parts of the NOAA team. We also agreed there are important things we should do in the meantime.

For example, we need to continue to increase our focus on high-impact events, especially in the short term - an effort which began with the implementation of the Operations Philosophy. We need to strengthen our partnerships with and support to emergency managers and other elements of homeland security. Over the next few years, we will explore ways to deliver a full suite of environmental services and information by taking advantage of emerging technology and building on the success of our modernization.

NWSEO said, "By allowing the NWSEO to participate and openly debate the merits of changes to operations, the parties have made a giant leap forward in their ability to bring NWS operations to a new level as a team." NWS looks forward to continuing to work issues of mutual concern with everybody on the weather, water, and climate team.

NOAA's National Weather Service has a decades-long history of remaining highly relevant to the country's needs by refreshing our mission delivery, improving our services, and meeting expanding needs by maximizing efficiencies afforded by advances in science and technology. I'm convinced we can use these same principles to continue to be highly relevant in our fast-changing world and keep our future bright.

Back to Top

Editor's Note:
Mixing It Up a Bit

NOAA's NWS Focus has been receiving a lot of story and photo submissions lately, but we get some complaints that many of the items we use in Focus follow a formula--Office X staffed a booth at Y show, and fun was had by all!

Don't get us wrong, we appreciate all the information and pictures you send us, but we'd like to mix up our content some more. How about sharing a funny office anecdote (keep it clean of course, and hopefully in good taste), or maybe you have a fun or insightful (not inciteful!) quote you can share. Have a humorous photo (again, clean and in good taste)? Send it on, we'd like to consider using these things to broaden what goes into Focus. We can't promise we'll use everything you send us, but we'll look for ways to do that if we can. If it's something you would genuinely be interested in, even if the story or photo didn't feature your office, you probably have a good item.

Got an idea for someone we should write a profile about? Send it to us and we'll work with you to figure out if it would interest Focus readers. As always, we welcome interesting stories that show how NOAA's NWS is working in the community or collaborating with another NOAA line office or partner to fulfill our mission. With your help we'll give you more reasons to look forward to the next issue of Focus.

Back to Top

Space Enviroment Center Hosts Space Weather Week 2005
By Barbara Poppe
NOAA/NWS Space Environment Center

About 260 space weather forecasters, researchers, and industry analysts affected by space weather from around the globe gathered in Broomfield, CO, for Space Weather Week April 5-8, 2005.

The NOAA/NWS Space Environment Center hosted the conference, along with co-sponsors--Air Force Research Lab, National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Earth-Sun Systems Division.

"It was the best Space Weather Week yet, even when each conference seems like it can't get much better!" said Ernie Hildner, SEC Director. Attendees also expressed their delight with the wealth of space weather information presented in the more than 100 oral and poster presentations.

Presentations ran the gamut from power grid problems, to space weather's impact on conventional aviation, to space weather support issues for NASA's space exploration initiative. NASA's Space Radiation Analysis Group discussed the potentially dangerous electron belt enhancements in 2004 that resulted in radiation alerts for the International Space Station crew. Satellite company representatives discussed satellite performance during hazardous space weather events. A first for this annual conference was the participation of the Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation group.

Space weather's role in NASA's new space exploration initiative drew much attention. Cary Zeitlin, the principal investigator for the Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) on the Mars Odyessy, discussed radiation measurements in the Mars environment. He also shared details on the early demise of MARIE, due ironically, to an unrecoverable anomaly during the "Halloween Storms." Professor Larry Townsend of the University of Tennessee discussed the dangers of radiation to deep space travelers, and introduced details of the planned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), scheduled for launch in 2008. The LRO will have the "Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation" (CRaTER) instrument on board.

The Airline Meeting, as a follow-up to last year's workshop, was held Monday morning with members of the International Committee on Space Weather Impact on Airline Services and many NOAA staff members and other interested individuals. They discussed the possibility of developing policies regarding radiation hazards to crew and passengers. Some of the attendees at this meeting also presented at the Space Weather Week session on Airlines Tuesday morning.

"The most important hazard associated with polar flying is space weather," said Mike Stills, of United Airlines. Giving a detailed description of the impact of the 5-day January 2005 solar storms, he estimated the loss to United for polar flights to be over $1 million.

The space weather impact on climate and weather was also highlighted during this space weather week. The influences of solar radiation storms on ozone, space weather effects on tropospheric weather, and solar forcing of climate, were just some of the talks in this session.

Poster sessions ran all three days and drew a great deal of interest. They will likely be the subject of intense interest in the coming year. An evening reception on Wednesday was a time for casual interaction spiced up with a well-received presentation about the rings of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens probe, given by the Larry Esposito, the Principal Investigator for the Cassini Ultra-Violet Imaging Spectrograph. The conference also accommodated a meeting with vendors of space weather services to meet together and with NOAA staff, as they have every year. Many good reflections on the progress made and the desires for the future were aired and considered for action this year.

Presentation graphics are available at the SEC web site and as CDs for those who want them.

Back to Top

New Water Vapor Sensing System Successfully Tested

A new water vapor sensing system being developed by NOAA's NWS was successfully tested on March 29, 2005.

Through a partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, United Parcel Service (UPS), and SpectraSensors, NOAA is developing a new water vapor sensor which will eventually fly along with the packages and passengers of many of the Nation's commercial air carriers.

The Water Vapor Sensing System (WVSS) sensor consists of a diode laser which samples the air and reports environmental humidity to meteorologists every six seconds. The sensor is contained in a cigar box-sized housing. Randy Baker, UPS Staff Meteorologist, documented the March 29 morning ascent and descent atmospheric profiles from WVSS-instrumented aircraft and applied the information to a particular forecast challenge, spring fog in the Ohio Valley and particularly at UPS main base of operations, Louisville International Airport Standiford Field. Baker concluded the consistency between soundings with different WVSS sensors and with ancillary sensor data was found to be very good, helping him to make the correct short-term prediction of no significant visibility reductions from fog.

Installation of the first 25 WVSS units is projected to be completed by May 31 with a field assessment scheduled for mid June. A national installation of WVSS sensors on UPS and other commercial aircraft is planned, contingent on field test results and program funding. WVSS will provide the first operational, climate quality, water vapor sensor information available routinely in between the 12 hour intervals when NOAA launches its radiosonde weather balloons.

This weather sensor development activity is part of NOAA's contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.

Back to Top

Western Region Develops Earth Day Web Resource

NOAA/NWS Western Region Headquarters has developed a list of web-based resources that everyone can use to prepare for Earth Day on April 22, 2005.

The link, http://ww2.wrh.noaa.gov/earthday/, provides information about NOAA's vital part in monitoring and protecting the earth's environment and reflects upon the agency's historical role to predict environmental changes, protect life and property, provide decision makers with reliable scientific information, and foster global environmental stewardship.

Back to Top

Cost Management Question of the Month – April 2005

The Comptroller Division has been publishing questions of the month regarding our Cost Management System in Focus. We have not published a question for approximately four months. We are resuming again this month.

Pat Bak from CASC was the November 2004 cost management question of the month winner. The question was:

Which region had the lowest IFPS costs during the 4th Quarter? Please state the region and the dollar amount.

The correct answer was Pacific Region at $277,472. Congratulations, Pat!!!

The April 2005 cost management question of the month is:

What cost object code corresponds to the following cost object definition? "Research and similar activities related to improving long-term (i.e., beyond two weeks) weather forecasting."

a) 1.24
b) 7.57
c) 2.17
d) 2.32
e) 3.2
f) 5.6

The following link provides a clue and contains the answer. Please refer to the National Weather Service Cost Management Program Guide for Fiscal Year 2005 at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/cfo/comptroller/cost_management.htm.

E-mail your answer to Agnes.Brown@noaa.gov no later than April 29, 2005. The first correct answer wins a NOAA shirt.

Back to Top

Also On the Web...
Water Forecasting Article in BAMS

In the current issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), a paper by NOAA/NWS experts describes AHPS forecasting services and their implementation status.

Authored by John McEnery (Texas Tech University), John Ingram, Qingyun Duan, Thomas Adams, and Lee Anderson, the article is titled NOAA's Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service: Building Pathways for Better Science in Water Forecasting.

Back to Top

Snapshots

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