Contact: Stephanie Kenitzer FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Kimberly Comba 7/8/96
The Storm Prediction Center will begin testing a short-term forecast of hazardous weather conditions across the United States, the Commerce Department's National Weather Service announced today. The test will continue for 11 months.
"The Hazardous Weather Update will be a single source of hazardous weather information for users -- the first time a 'one- stop' product like this has been made available," said Elbert W. Friday Jr., Commerce's National Weather Service director, at a briefing at the new Storm Prediction Center facility in Norman, Okla. "Now National Weather Service offices, emergency managers, the media and other federal and state agencies can find out, in general terms, where weather systems are going and how any hazards associated with them will develop during the next six hours."
Beginning July 10, the Hazardous Weather Update will provide an overview of major on-going storm systems moving across the United States as well as other hazardous weather events that have regional or national significance. The update, available through standard National Weather Service communications services, will only be issued by Storm Prediction Center meteorologists when hazardous weather affects substantial portions of the country. It will remain in a testing phase until May 1997; then users will help determine its future.
Friday, Congressman J.C. Watts of Oklahomaþs 4th District, Storm Prediction Center Director Joseph Schaefer, and administrators from the University of Oklahoma introduced the Hazardous Weather Update today at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the center's new facility on the University of Oklahoma's north campus. The update is the facility's first forecast product.
Hazardous Weather Updates will include general forecasts of where storm systems are expected to move and their anticipated impact. They will also give brief descriptions of weather watches, warnings and advisories associated with storm systems. The types of hazardous weather to be included in updates are: severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, locally heavy rain and flash flooding, heavy snow, blizzards, ice storms, and dangerous wind chill or heat indices.
The Storm Prediction Center, formerly a part of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center, is one of nine components of the National Weather Serviceþs National Centers for Environmental Prediction headquartered in Camp Springs, Md. The SPC is in the process of moving its operations from Kansas City, Mo., to the University of Oklahoma's Research Park in Norman, Okla., as part of the modernization and restructuring of the national centers. The center is expected to be fully operational in early 1997.
"This is an exciting step in the modernization of the National Weather Service and the synergy between the agency and the academic community," said Friday.
The NWS has partnerships with many academic and research institutions throughout the county. As part of its modernization effort, the NWS has located new, state-of-the-art forecast offices and river forecast centers on the campuses of 12 major universities and eight research institutions.
For latest SPC outlooks and statistics, visit the center's web site at: http://www.awc-kc.noaa.gov/spc/
###Editor's Note: The Hazardous Weather Update will be available to the media via the NOAA Weather Wire with the identifiers MKCHWU01 through MKCHWU09. For World Meteorological Organization/Family of Services customers, the Update will be under the header WWUS44 KMKC.