GENERALizations: $128,000 Question

By General D.L. Johnson
NWS Director

What African American woman and former NOAA scientist contributed winnings from the $128,000 Question game show in 1977 to a scholarship fund for women who want to become meteorologists? Keep reading for the answer.

February is Black History month. In Silver Spring and across the country a host of events are taking place to commemorate the contributions of people of color that have helped shape our world. I hope you plan to participate. Simply showing up and being part of the audience is a small but powerful way to show support for your colleagues and community. This year's theme is the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. the Board of Education, a legal milestone that guarantees all of our children opportunities for equal education. Did I mention that Black History month events are for everyone and you don't have to be African American to participate?

The answer to the $128,000 question is Dr. June Bacon-Bercey. She was discouraged from becoming a meteorologist and thought that by contributing her winnings from this popular game show she could make the road easier for other women. An accomplished scientist and international expert on weather, this African American woman in 1979 became Chief Administrator of television activities for NOAA.

This is starting to read like a Women's History Month story as well! But that's in March and you'll hear more from me on that topic next month.

Back to Top

NOAA, NWS Budgets Set for FY 04; Admiral Lautenbacher Rolls Out FY 05 Request

FY 04 Enacted

NOAA and the NWS received their Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 budgets when President Bush signed the FY 04 Omnibus Appropriation Bill into law January 23, 2004.

The appropriation provides $3.7 billion for NOAA, and $824.9 million for the NWS, an agency increase of $70.2 million from the FY 03 appropriation.

The FY 04 budget provides a total pay raise of 4.1 percent for Federal employees. The additional 2.1 percent added to the previously-approved 2 percent raise will be retroactive to the first pay period of 2004, once the President issues an executive order clarifying how the 2.1 percent portion of the raise will be split between locality pay and base pay.

A key part of the approved FY 04 budget funds a new facility to replace the NOAA World Weather Building located in Camp Springs, MD. NOAA is working with the U.S. General Services Administration to select a site near the University of Maryland campus for the new multimillion dollar state-of-the-art facility, which will be specifically designed for climate and weather operational forecasts and related research. The new facility (NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction) will house the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Office of Research and Applications (NOAA Satellites and Information Service), and the Air Resources Laboratory (NOAA Research). Read more about the new facility in the NOAA news story here.

The FY 04 budget also provides:

• $7.1 million for a backup Weather and Climate Super Computer;
• $5.44 million for the All Hazards Warning Network to automate the collection and dissemination of civil-emergency messages over NOAA Weather Radio (NWR);
• $2.9 million for NWS Telecommunications Gateway Legacy System replacement;
• $3.6 million to maintain critical Western Pacific weather observation and services (funding transfer from the Department of Interior to NOAA);
• $3.74 million for NEXRAD Product Improvement to accelerate the deployment of the NEXRAD Open Radar Acquisition (ORDA) and the NEXRAD Dual Polarization improvements;
• $13.5 million to re-establish the NWS Construction Program and accelerate its completion, including Alaska facilities modernization and necessary corrective actions at NWS WFOs nationwide; and
• $2.24 million for NWS Facility Maintenance to fund NWS facility maintenance costs.

FY 05 Budget Proposal

The FY 05 President's budget maintains current operations and services and continues investments in technology infusion and service improvements, including expanding the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS) in the southeast, midwest, and mid-atlantic states.

The request also sustains funding for critical Homeland Security initiatives, including continuing operation of critical backup systems for the NWS Weather and Climate Supercomputer and Telecommunications Gateway.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator shared details of the President's proposed FY 05 budget at a NOAA constituents' briefing held February 5, 2004. He noted that this is the first NOAA budget to reflect the funding requests in terms of NOAA's strategic goals.

The FY 05 proposal calls for $836.8 million for the NWS, a net increase of $12 million or 1.4 percent over the FY 04 appropriation approved January 23, 2004.

Among the highlights in the President's proposal:

• $1.4 million for Cooperative Observer (COOP) Modernization, operations and maintenance for 460 modernized COOP sites in the northeast;
• $900,000 to complete the two-year acquisition/replacement program for the NWS Telecommunications Gateway;
• $5.5 million to provide operational Air Quality Ozone forecasts for the northeast;
• $2.0 million to establish a Coastal-Global Observing System (C-GOOS) in the NWS; and
• $1 million for the U.S. Weather Research Program/THORPEX, to accelerate improvements in 7-14 day forecasts

The FY 05 proposal also would add $2.2 million to NOAA's Space Environment Center and move it from the research arm of NOAA into the operational environment of the NWS.

The proposed increases reflect Administration support for the successful management of the NWS, according to Steve Gallagher, NWS Deputy Chief Financial Officer.

"Agencies with clear, measurable, well-defined missions, and agencies which show positive performance results are rewarded with better budgets under terms of the President's Management Agenda," said Gallagher. "During FY 03 NWS met or exceeded 11 out of 14 performance measure targets for weather forecasts and warnings. NWS improved the average tornado warning lead time from 12 to 13 minutes, reduced the hurricane track forecast error from 130 to 107 nautical miles, and extended the average winter storm warning lead time from 13 to 14 hours."

NWS highlights in the FY 05 President's Budget are available here.

For more information about the FY 05 President's Budget proposal, contact Gallagher at 301-713-0718, or by e-mail at Steve.Gallagher@noaa.gov.

Back to Top

NWS Changes Long-Lead Forecasts Release Time to Meet Commodities Market Needs

On February 19, 2004, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) changes the release time for the official One- and Three-Month Outlooks and U.S. Drought Outlook products to 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time in place of the previous 3 p.m. Eastern release time.

The products will continue to be issued on the third Thursday of each month. Customers, especially in the commodities market and weather risk management sectors, have been requesting for years that CPC release its long-lead forecasts in the morning before the markets open, rather than in the afternoon, to provide U.S. markets an opportunity to react before foreign markets.

General D.L. Johnson, NWS Director, briefed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on this change during a general briefing on NOAA products and services on January 29, 2004.

The Commission was pleased with NOAA's responsiveness to their needs, and have enthusiastically accepted an offer for NWS to brief them at one of their Friday meetings to increase CFTC understanding of the outlook process and to present sample products.

Back to Top

By Mike Schaffner
Hydrologist, Tucson, AZ, Weather Forecast Office

Good planning and customer/partner collaboration were keys to the Tucson Weather Forecast Office's (WFO's) successful efforts in dealing with a changing hydrologic situation due to three wildfires in the past two years.

The Tucson, AZ, metro area was devastated by the Bullock and Oracle Hills Fires in 2002, and the Aspen Fire in 2003. These fires consumed the majority of the Santa Catalina Mountains which form the majestic backdrop for the Tucson valley.

Even before the 2003 Aspen Fire was fully contained, the NWS attended Burn Area Emergency Reaction (BAER) meetings and consulted with partners about the anticipated increased runoff and resultant flash flood concerns.

The 2003 monsoon rains brought a transformation to the Tucson WFO efforts in dealing with flash floods. The WFO operations section was adorned with burn severity maps and a telling aerial photo showing over 60 homes within the Federal Emergency Management Agency 100-year pre-fire flood plain. WFO staff performed damage surveys to increase their knowledge of drainage basins which would affect the metropolitan area.

After a particularly significant flash flood, which resulted in a death, I teamed up with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Resources Division to conduct two slope area surveys. Slope area is an indirect method, used by the USGS, to estimate discharge. This work was supported by the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center's (CBRFC) independent calculations of post-burn return period flows. Results showed that a watershed with just over 50 percent high and moderate severity burn produced two and a half times its pre-burn runoff. This work was published as a Western Region Technical Attachment and a USGS Fact Sheet (in progress).

Collaboration with CBRFC resulted in reduction of Sacramento model segments from six-hourly to hourly for two watersheds leaving the burn areas. Bill Reed, CBRFC Arizona Focal Point, toured the burn area, provided an overview of CBRFC's efforts to the Aspen/Bullock Post-Fire Flood Mitigation Task Force, and gave a seminar for the WFO Tucson staff.

Three areas of research are ongoing with respect to these three fires. One is a proposal, by our local Forest Service, to create a dynamic burn severity map that will be updated on a yearly basis. CBRFC is working on improved flash flood guidance for burn areas. WFO Tucson has partnered with University of Arizona , USDA, and CBRFC to create a site specific model that may one day be able to forecast floods emanating from burn areas in real-time.

Our partners are letting us know how grateful they are for the assistance we're providing.

"The NWS analysis of storm totals for post-fire events is invaluable for evaluating the changes of rainfall-runoff characteristics of the burned watersheds," said Chuck McHugh, Assistant Director of the Response, Recovery, and Mitigation branch of the Arizona Division of Emergency Management. "This information becomes a key planning element for protective mitigation measures that may range from simple public risk education to the relocation of threatened populations."

Back to Top

Also On the Web...Disaster Education Coalition Web Site

NWS, the American Red Cross, and several other government and not-for-profit agencies are partners in the National Disaster Education Coalition (NDEC). For the past decade, NDEC agencies have worked together to develop and communicate consistent educational information for the public about disaster preparedness. The group's new web site offers public education materials on many disaster topics for use by emergency managers, meteorologists, teachers, disaster and fire educators, public affairs/public relations personnel, mitigation specialists, media personnel, and/or any other person in the severe-weather, earthquake, disaster, or communications communities.

Back to Top