National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Series of storm systems to impact the west, severe weather and heavy rain in the south central and southeast U.S

Another round of heavy rain, mountain snow, strong winds, and potential travel impacts will be possible over portions of the western U.S over the next couple of days. Over the south central and southeast U.S, the threat for strong to severe thunderstorms capable of damaging winds, heavy rainfall, and potential flooding will continue into the weekend. Read More >

National Weather Service Organization

National Program

Office of the Chief Learning Officer

Weather.gov > National Weather Service Organization > Office of the Chief Learning Officer


Contact
John Ogren (acting)
john.ogren@noaa.gov
816-994-3001

The Office of the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) provides professional and technical training to enable NWS employees to reach optimum performance in present assignments and future responsibilities. The Office goals are to teach job-specific, communication, leadership and practical skills for all employees; teach latest scientific and technical concepts to support research to operations; emulate the NWS working field environment in an educational setting; and provide students the ability to work and experiment with concepts or equipment off-line as part of learning. Training methods include a mix of synchronous and asynchronous instruction in a virtual and classroom environments to ensure maximum training effectiveness and employee performance. OCLO staff work with NWS senior leadership, Program Funding Leaders, NWSHQ staff, and Regional/NCEP representatives to set nationwide training policies, procedures, and priorities. Key focus areas include managing training directives, coordinating training in other service directives, coordinating implementation issues of training policies with the NWSEO issues, and coordinating with OPM and DOC on mandated training. The OCLO manages all training infrastructure which includes the NWS Learncenter within the Commerce Learning Center (CLC), NWS Training Portal website, Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training (COMET) Cooperative Agreement, Facility and IT security, and IT refresh/software renewals. The OCLO coordinates with the DOC and NOAA CLOs on department-wide training initiative and requirements.

 

+Forecast Decision Training Division

+Warning Decision Training Division

Contact
Edward Mahoney
ed.mahoney@noaa.gov
405-325-1006

The Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD) develops and delivers training and education on the integrated elements of the warning process involving a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS) forecast office and its partners. WDTD uses the latest technology available including GOES and Polar satellite data, Dual-Pol Doppler radar and short range numerical models to develop training and simulations which replicate the warning environment at local offices. WDTD instructors develop and deliver a variety of in-residence, teletraining, and web-based synchronous and asynchronous training content to improve human performance to meet this warning mission. Its primary goal is to increase expertise in warning decision making among NOAA/NWS personnel and their core partners so that they can better serve the public during warning operations and build an effective Weather-Ready Nation (WRN). WDTD develops training on Root Cause Analysis to diagnosis the human, technological and scientific factors in the warning process. WDTD facilitates NOAA’s Research to Operations mission by being collocated and working closely with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and the University of Oklahoma’s (OU) Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS).

+Decision Support and Communications Services Division

Contact
John Ogren (acting)
john.ogren@noaa.gov
816-994-3001

The NWS has initiated Impact Based Decision Support Services (IDSS) to provide better, more useful information to partners, emergency managers, and decision makers to foster an appropriate public response as part of Weather-Ready Nation plans. This involves realigning warning messages in terms of societal impacts, and expressing levels of confidence that these impacts will occur and requires training on this new method of communicating. The Decision Support and Communications Services Division provide training to Warning Coordination Meteorologists (WCMs), Service Coordination Hydrologists (SCHs) and other NWS employees who routinely deal with the media and other external partners. Training offerings include Decision Support Services (DSS) Bootcamps, WCM/SCH workshops, and a host of online modules for improving communications.

+Electronics and Information Technology Division

Contact
James Poole
jim.poole@noaa.gov
816-994-3002

This Division provides maintenance training services on highly specialized NWS equipment to staff responsible for maintaining infrastructural systems. The target audience typically includes Electronic Systems Analysts, Information Technology Officers, IT Specialists, etc. Training on upper-air equipment, radar, surface observing systems, radio transmitters and the console replacement system is essential to ensuring continuity of operations during a potential system failure. Other courses focus on developing proficiency in various operating systems and computer languages for use in AWIPS and other field systems which use computers to process and provide data and information. Special courses to operate sophisticated equipment, such as AWIPS, are developed and taught. The division also hosts safety training classes such as fall protection for climbers and environmental training for facilities.

+Leadership Academy

Contact
Jeffrey Zeltwanger
jeffrey.zeltwanger@noaa.gov
816-994-3017

This Division is charged with developing and managing NWS Employee Development for all employees. The NWS Leadership Academy will be expanded to create an end-to-end employee development program. Employee development would range from new hire through project management, management and supervision, to executive leadership. It includes use of learning paths in the NWS Learncenter for each major job description, mandatory training, and agency succession planning. Learning paths include all major NWS key areas including, but not limited to, Meteorology, Hydrology, Climatology, Electronics and Engineering, Information Technology, Budget and Administration, Project Leadership, Management, Supervision, and Executive Leadership.

 

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