Day 3 (Tuesday) – Morning Session –Emerging Technology

Russell Dengel (SSEC) began the new-tech session by talking about new types of mapping software called WMS that makes giving and viewing forecasts easier. These new technologies make viewing weather faster with google map technology. Viewable here: http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/wms-viewer/

Keith Stellman (NWS Shreveport) talked about smartphone and tablet technology and how it has evolved for storm damage assessment. The technology is compatible with the Storm Damage Assessment Toolkit (DAT), which allows for filtering of events, strengths, pictures. This is available on WMS and KML. Coming up, Cloud technology will be able to share all databases with the public. DAT is used at 40-50 WFO offices. MOSIS, ASTER, and other imagery is being integrated into the WMS feeds. The NWS is partnering with the USGS to use their GeoCloud database for storm surveys. The DAT is saving time and improving rating accuracy. The project will be fully operational in 2014. This will allow for real time tornado damage surveys and more accurate tornado tracking. Geotagging of pictures will help this process along by created day-of-event records even in NWS cannot get to the location of interest on the day of the event. There is hope that the DAT will be accessable to the EM community, but Keith cited security and NWS/NOAA red tape which could push this time line down the road a few years.

Joel Cline (NWS Liason to the DoE) spoke about wind energy. The Wind Forecasting Improvement Project is a private project to assess benefit of large area weather data collection to enhance near term forecasting.  It is important to have 10m, 60m, 80m, and possibly 120m wind farms. They are costly, but the effects on modeling are worth the cost. Challenges: wake effects, extreme events such as icing and hurricanes, and the cost of manpower. He proposed that all advancements in power production will come from wind turbines in the next 10 years. The size of each of turbine blades is the size of a 767 airplane. This is hugely a field project, but does have a large modeling aspect since there are few to no observations at 80m.

Tim Troutman (NWS Huntsville) gave a presentation from Alabama via google hangout on live video conferencing technology in the NWS. Requirements for video conferencing must have desktop sharing, a user friendly interface, and multi point video conferencing. NWS looked at GoToMeeting HD Faces, which has the ability to show desktops in one on one and in group chats, and Google Hangouts, which has a larger user base with up to 9 users in one group chat at a time. For group chats with the media, HD is a requirement.

Day 3 (Continued) – Afternoon Session –Weather Ready Nation

The Testbeds/pilot projects are here: http://www.testbeds.noaa.gov/

The keynote this afternoon is Laura Furgione (Acting Director NWS) who talked about the progress of WRN one year in. WRN was born due to the extreme weather in 2011. Just one year in, they have built a roadmap, but the road is still being built. Highlights from the first year include 6 pilots including numerous city hubs that focus on different types of severe weather and communication. 34 WFOs and numerous RFOs have AWIPS II, which will help with decision support in the years to come. We need to outreach to professional societies like AMS and NWA, to congressional meetings, and to our business partners to expand the reach and dialogue of WRN. We need to find a balance between increasing lead times while lowering false alarm rates. It will take a village of all attendees and meteorologists to make WRN effective. To help with disaster preparedness, the NWS has teamed up with planitnow.org .

Mike Hudson (NWS Kansas City) discussed the challenges of characterizing risk and how to get those characteristics to the public. The impacts based warning project was in place and then mother nature took a break from severe weather this summer. Surveys based on Impact Based Warnings have found that people want to know about forecaster confidence, danger, timing, longevity, confirmation, and each impact within a warning.  Discussion has been made for an alert in between watch and warning.

Kim Runk (NWS Central Region HQ/Operations Proving Ground) continued the discussion of WRN and the proving grounds for validating old techniques and trying out new capabilities. They are hoping to simplify NWS winter storm products and make them easier to understand, even for meteorologists.

Kyle Struckland (NWS Sterling) discussed one of the WRN pilot projects located near Washington DC, which deals with Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS). During IDSS, the 2012 4^th of July fireworks were disturbed by severe weather. In that situation, briefings with the US Parks Police were increased to hourly, and the fireworks were able to go on based on the briefings. IDSS also lent support during the DNC.

Tim Oram ( NWS Southern Region HQ) spoke about WRN and regional partners and the Regional Operations Center Pilot Project. They are reaching out with each WFO in the region to communicate ideas in a two way relay. Preparedness is a cycle that includes exercising, planning, organizing, training, evaluation, and correction. Southern Region conducted an exercise with Isaac and the RNC. They sent out members of the team to assist WFO Ruskin using coordination techniques including GIS, chat, image editing, EM response, presentations, and mobile meetings.

Mike Smith (CCM Accuweather) spoke about the Joplin tornadoes and the impacts of the false alarms. It turns out that 24 consecutive tornado sirens for Jasper Co, MO on May 22, 2011 were false alarms. One of which was an early tornado warning that did NOT include the city of Joplin, but the sirens WERE sounded. The tornado was invisible to the public, and sirens were turned off. The public had no idea there was a tornado, but a warning was out. The news media was on the tornado, but sirens remained off. Spotters report the tornado multiple times as the tornado moves into Joplin while it does EF5 damage, and finally the sirens were turned on for 3 minutes…warning still active. As the tornado went through St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, sirens remained off. People inside the city were told that the tornado was going north of the city…including those on staff at the medical center, and the NWS had 6 minutes of NWS warning. Recommendations from Mike: do not train the public to ignore sirens and broadcasters need to back up the NWS.

NWA Town Hall – Numerous panelists gave mini-presentations on what they do, which ranged from nursing and EM to an ice cutter and the coast guard. Then, the results of a survey taken in Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were shown. Less than 50% of respondents to a survey have greater than 50% confidence in day 1 temperature forecasts, which fell significantly at day 7. Similar results were shown for precipitation forecasts, although the results were much lower at day 7. The most impactful weather was tornadoes and freezing rain, while relative humidity and cloud cover were placed least impactful. Then, the panelists were asked a number of preplanned questions given numerous situations. Toward the end of the meeting, the audience was given a chance to ask and answer questions.

Day 1 (Continued) – Sunday Late Afternoon Session – SOCIAL MEDIA BOOT CAMP

@rwillet – Renee Willet (TWC): A basic overview of each form of social media (twitter, facebook, ect.). Something new that I learned about was Storify, which combines facebook, twitter, YouTube, and instagram into one live feed based on a particular news story or topic. Numerous tips were given for using social media including the point to check your sources when retweeting or sharing. People who follow you on social media are seeking information, recognition, connection, and entertaining or engaging content. You can do this by asking and answering questions, and by simply being yourself. Rules for Engagement: Never assume anything is private. Do not feel threatened: report fans that are harmful or too personal and do not return attention.

@timbrice17 – Tim Brice (NWS El Paso): A brief overview was given for Google+ and Hootsuite. One advantage for G+ is that you get direct control of what is shared in circles. Another + is hangout, which allows direct sharing of ones desktop for presentations or just for sharing information. Hootsuite brings every social media platform together. You can post and monitor every platform at once.

@Tiffany_Sunday – Tiffany Sunday (Emerging Technology Strategist): A brief overview was given of LinkedIn as well as a few tips, which included using the personal “I” in your summary, a strong showing of personality, the suggestion to update your page once a month. She stated that technology rolls over every 18 months, and your page should keep up with major updates. You should use Klout, Kred, or RebelMouse to get your social media rankings once a year. Do this when you check your credit score…it is just as important. She theorized that one day social media could dictate the stock market, and your social media brand could dictate how good bank loans could be. You should keep your social network independent of your station, and you should own your name on the web…FirstName.LastName.com. When looking for contracts on air and in the office, you should be able to negotiate higher salaries and better worth with your social media clout. Protect your social network by ensuring that it is included in any contracts that you sign.

Day 2  – Monday Early Morning Session

General and brief recognition of NWA committee members and students ensued at the beginning of the session. Taking the switch off, Tom Skilling (WGN) gave a shout out to former interns. Skilling began the talk by overviewing his graphics and by looking back upon the last 45 years in the field of operational meteorology. One of the biggest changes over the last half century has been the advances in computing, which Skilling described as being instrumental in the beginning of the hydrological and atomic bomb era. “Meteorologists” during the early periods of that era were prepared to break down the atmosphere in order to model it. They thought it was possible ‘to do something about the weather’ and possibly change it with atomic energy. The first 12 hour computer model was run on March 5^th, 1950 took more than 13 days, all done through punch cards and heavy multiplications and divisions on the side. Later in the 70s, facsimile machines were able to produce baroclinic 500mb maps with a hand drawn appearance. Another large change in the last 45 years has been the visually stunning beginning of the satellite era, which was born here in Madison at the U of W. Despite upgrades and technological advances, the sociological effects are lagging by a good distance. Advances in lead time and forecasts, people continue to miss warnings and continue to be medically impacted.  A quick overview of Phased Array radars, which is the next generation of radar beyond Dual Pol, which are expecting to be deployed in 2020. When these deploy, meteorologists will have the ability to control the radar and zone in on certain cells or storms instead of having to wait for the radar beam to come back around for another scan. Supercomputers at U of W are now pulling in ensemble and satellite data to model storms out into the weekly timeframe. Upon the close of the presentation, Skilling showed a montage of videos and news events over the last 45 years that really opened my eyes into how much technology has changed and how the ability of reporting is almost more important than the meteorology itself.

Mark Bardou (NWS Chicago) opened the next talk on the Chicago Aviation Initiative by giving a general breakdown of the airports in the AOR of the WFO. He ran through the interface improvements for the aviation industry, which include bringing TAFs, radar, satellite, and all other information into one source.

Rick Di Maio (Department of Aviation, Lewis University) did a study on convectively induced turbulence and MCS. He focused on the anvil within an MCS using pilot reports from pilots near the systems. Eddy Dissipation Rate is a metric used by pilots to scale turbulence in order to keep passengers on planes buckled up during turbulent events. The most turbulent part of a MCS is the northern part of the anvil; however the southern end can also have large amounts of turbulence.

According to Chad M Gravelle (CIMSS/CIPS), analogs can be used to forecast medium range severe weather based on pattern recognition techniques. Products can be created on pretty much any index or measurement (temperature, wind gust, flight rules, severe thunderstorm probabilities, precip, ect.) The Storm Prediction Center uses medium range analogs to produce medium range convective outlooks. This technique, by CIPS, has a 31 year history and 11,160 potential analogs. It was stressed that meteorological patterns are not created equal nor do they ever truly happen twice.

David Beachler (NWS Chicago) uses ensemble models to accurately forecast high profile high impact events with more confidence. Standardized anomalies are also very useful tools we can use to gain leverage on a forecast.

Day 2  – Monday Late Morning Session

Dr. Kathryn Sullivan (NOAA) was the next keynote speaker, and talked about the vision of a Weather Ready Nation.  In the last year, tornado lead times improved to 18 minutes, and flood outlooks were accurately predicted 4 months in advance. The plan incorporates integration between social science and the physical sciences and a shortening of the warning period to a Warn on Forecast. Warn on Forecast is a forecast that contains a warning that instantaneously (and theoretically today) creates action. We also need a better communication method with the public. The case here mentioned was Hurricane Irene, which killed more people inland than at the coast where the categorized winds were. NWS is the hub for NOAA’s vision for a WRN. In order to achieve WRN, NOAA is funding pilot projects for research. The challenge ahead is go pave the unfinished road toward a WRN. As a first true look into WRN, Jonathan believes that everyone should take a good look into the program and pick an avenue to create this WRN.

Mentioned: http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/reports-in-brief/Weather-Services-Report-Brief.pdf

                Matthew Seybold (NESDIS) began the late morning satellite and remote sensing session by talking about the current satellites and updates from NOAA. NESDIS has over a dozen satellite products that are dispersed through AWIPS and all other government agency. There are currently three satellites in orbit (GOES-12 -> E Atlantic; GOES-15 [West]; GOES-14 [East replacement]). When GOES 13 failed, GOES West was put on full-disk for a short time, and then GOES 14 became operational and continues to slowly drift east to take the spot of GOES East. While this transition is happening, frame adjustments are occurring each Wednesday at 19Z. VIIRS will be implemented for Alaska users on October 10^th in AWIPS.

Tim Schmit (Advanced Satellite Products Branch) continued the discussion from the birthplace of the satellite era. The Advanced Baseline Imager is part of the 5^th generation GOES-R satellite, which will be launched in 2015. ABI will scan every 5 minutes for the CONUS and every 15 minutes full disk. Mesoscale images will be taken every 30 seconds, with the ability to map lightning. ABI will be very customizable, with options for lower level, upper level, ozone, atmospheric windows, CO2, snow cover.  ABI will have 16 bands compared to 5.

Jim Gurka (NESDIS/GOES-R) added to the previous discussion by adding in a few figures about lightning detection, which will be a full disk product. GOES-R is being tested via MODIS imagery and current GOES satellite. Announcement: [A convective initiation product may be possible down the line with GOES-R, which would effectively see clouds before they are actually there]. This data will be put into HRRR, which has been shown to significantly improve the model’s output. Updraft strength is being tested to improve satellite output, which may be useful for severe weather and tropical hot towers. Fog measurement will be MUCH more accurate with the added channels, which appears to be a huge improvement in aviation weather forecasting.

More information: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes_r/proving-ground.html

More about GOES-R: http://www.goes-r.gov/

Kathleen Stabala (CIMSS) says that polar orbiter MODIS products will prove to be useful for northern CONUS and Alaska forecasting. Polar orbiter data will never take over control from GOES, but does serve as a direct compliment. MODIS data is being shown more often in WFO AFD. Suomi wil have Day/Night visible, which will feature auroras, cities, low clouds, and moon shadows at night. This satellite will debut extremely detailed nightly visible smoke and fog

 Day 2 (Continued) – Afternoon Session

We attended an afternoon Dual Polarization workshop with Weather Central. Packet is available.

Next, we attended the Tropical and Marine Weather subsession with Derek Ortt as the first speaker. We first learned that tropical cyclones that have more water vapor in the mid-levels are more likely to intensity. Systems with more environmental water vapor in their cores strengthen faster. The minimum TPW for TC genesis is about 49mm, but this doesn’t guarantee genesis. The difference between developing disturbances and non-developing disturbances is about 5.5mm.

Finally, we listened to Sarah Monette (CIMSS), who studied tropical overshooting tops (TOTs).  TOTs disappear in intense cyclones because of the cirrus shield that comes from the eye and eyewall of strong hurricanes. TOTs are seen in the outer bands in all stages of a hurricane’s life cycle. Based on TOTs, RI is can be forecasted, and storms associated with the analyzed TOTs can be given a chance of rapid intensification.

For the late afternoon concurrent session, we went to the Hydrology, Heavy Rain, and Flooding subsession. Andrew Orrison (HPC) gave a discussion about MetWatch, which is meant to improve QPF and mesoscale rainfall prediction and is a prototype project in testing. MetWatch is going to be watching specific flash flood and mesoscale systems. New product: Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions, which will give an idea of the possibility of flash flooding: unlikely, likely, or possible. They will also give an idea of when an event will happen: ongoing, ending. Very similar product to the SPC mesoscale convective discussions. This will be extended to the medium range (4-7 days) in December for night forecasting.  Products will become more concise and storm dependent.

Brian Billings (State Cloud State University) discussed a relationship between the island of Taiwan and typhoons using COAMPS-TC. When Winds are forced upwards, more intense rainfall is expected, and when wind is forced downward there will be a rainfall shadow. He used Typhoon Morakot to show relationships between track and rainfall.

Michael Jurewicz (NWS Binghampton) discussed the very wet 2011 September brought on by Katia and Lee. He spoke about Predecessor Rainfall Events (PREs), which must have 4” of rain within 24 hours and are separated from any tropical cyclones. It was shown that Katia’s outflow amplified the ridge, jet core increased 50 kts, allowing for predecessing rain to fall ahead of Tropical Storm Lee .

According to Bruce Jones (Midland Radio), the NOAA weather radio network now covers 98% of the United States population. Coming up soon, Wireless Emergency Alerts are similar to texts. WEA alerts are Sprint capable and will be all-phone capable eventually. Alerts are limited to 90 characters. Reasons to get a NOAA Weather Radio: they cost $30 once and do not have to be renewed. You have a smoke detector for indoors, why not get an alert for everything outdoors? GPS will be coming to weather radios in 2-3 years for less than $50, and will go off only when inside local polygons.

The rest of the later afternoon session was lent toward radar and more specifically Dual Polarization and how each vendor uses the products. Kevin Laws from NWS Birmingham gave a brief discussion about how to correct the problem of single pol aliasing, which is a radar problem that often gives incorrect velocity readings during high wind and/or tornadic events. He gave numerous approaches and insights into how to relay bad radar information correctly to the public through either dealiasing or meteorological sense. The best tip is to use your head on air if the data on screen doesn’t make sense.

The remainder of the late afternoon session was spent detailing dual polarization products including Correlation Coefficient (CC), Differential Reflectivity (Zdr), and Specific Differential Phase (KDP). Each presentation seemed more like a plug for each vendor than an introduction to the new products and many of the presentations were repetitive.

Baron Services broke down how each new variable can be used on air and displayed their new Tornado Debris Signature algorithm, which is learning algorithm that will improved over the next few years based on the number of tornado occurrences their radars encounter.

Weather Central’s Ray Hawthorne and WSI’s Mike Massaro teamed up to produce the final presentation of the session, which really looked at how each vendor presents the new dual pol parameters. Anyone who was at the banquet in the spring will be amused to see that the event that Ray broke down was the April 14^th severe weather event that took place during and after the banquet. WSI suggested a new product in the future that combines reflectivity, velocity, and the three dual pol products to get an idea on how the five parameters overlap when looking at tornadoes and tornadic debris. This would improve forecaster and weathercaster confidence when on the air.