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| NOAA's NWS Focus |
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| April 28, 2003
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Ashby Hawse (left) and Richard Norton test
the new Radiosonde Replacement System, launching
old and new radiosondes in tandem. Caribou
provides a more challenging environment to
test the GPS
performance of the sonde because it has wind
conditions not readily available at the Sterling,
VA, test site. Hawse is an engineer with the
NWS Test and Evaluation office, Sterling VA,
and Norton is a hydrometeorlogical technician
at WFO Caribou.
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NOAA Weather
TV? NWS Evaluates Sets with All-Hazards Feature
Next month, NWS
employees at WFOs across the country will evaluate Thomson/RCA
Alert Guard - a technology that will bring the NOAA Weather
Radio (NWR) transmission into the homes of consumers via television.
Under the terms of a reimbursable special studies agreement,
RCA will send 22 evaluation television sets to
participating WFOs.
Through the agreement, employees will evaluate the televisions'
capability to receive NOAA Specific Area Message Encoding
(SAME) transmissions, according to Stan Johnson, NWR Program
Manager. "The SAME technology, allows consumers to program
their NWR receivers for specific geographic areas, such
as their county. This minimizes annoying false-alarms,"
Johnson said.
A
January 8, 2003, Thomson/RCA press release said
that the Alert Guard TVs enable consumers for the first
time
to monitor emergencies even when the television is tuned
to a cable channel, playing a VHS tape or DVD, viewing
a
satellite channel, or playing a video game.
In the same press release, Michael D. O'Hara, Executive
Vice President of Thomson/RCA's Worldwide Consumer Products
Marketing and Sales said, "With RCA Alert Guard, television
viewers can expect their family television to keep a constant
vigil on ever-changing conditions through the extensive
digital broadcasts of the NOAA Weather Radio network."
"The ability of NWR to effectively reach a larger
audience will be significantly enhanced by
Thomson's [RCA's] introduction of Alert Guard television
sets," said Ken Putkovich, Chief of NWS Dissemination
Systems. "Thomson's integration of what appears to
be a very high quality NWR receiver into a TV set, using
a 'smart' interface that makes programming extremely simple,
is an excellent example of what public/private partnerships
developed over the past ten years by the NWR Program Office
have achieved."
"Our goal is for all persons at risk to get timely weather
and hazard information" said Herb White, NWS Dissemination
Services Manager. "No matter what receiver is used, we hope
everyone makes the NOAA all hazards system part of their
family preparedness plan."
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Savings
on Travel to Reward Travelers with Cash
Employees who
save the NWS money while on official travel can now get
rewarded for their efforts.
The Gainsharing Travel Savings Program will award employees
50 percent of the savings, usually the result of using less
expensive lodging and/or from use of frequent flyer benefits
for the purchase of airline tickets or lodging.
In most cases, the cumulative savings to the agency must
be at least $200 before the employee is eligible to receive
an award. Taxes will be withheld (federal, state, local,
FICA) on the award amount.
More information and instructions are available at either
the NWS
best practices web site or the NOAA
travel web site.
Employees should not incur additional expenses in transportation
or other miscellaneous costs in an effort to reduce lodging
expenses. Employees who incur additional transportation
expenses must have those expenses deducted from their lodging
savings.
Employee participation in this program is optional. All
employees and managers can participate with the exception
of Senior Executive Service members.
This program was initially suggested by the National Weather
Service Employees Organization and is being implemented
with its full cooperation.
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NOAA Web
Page Gets Redesign
NOAA recently launched
a new look for its popular home page. The new design still
maintains the information and links that surfers have come
to expect. The improvements include a front-page link to the
latest weather conditions across the United States from NOAA's
National Weather Service. You can also find beach temperatures,
navigation charts, drought and fire weather information, and
the latest satellite images of world events. Read the full
news story here.
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Storm,
Flash Flood Training Modules Now Web-Based
Spring
is the time of year when many forecasters' thoughts turn
to.convective
weather and flood forecasting. To help forecasters to sharpen
their skills for these events, the Cooperative Program for
Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET)
has
just released web versions of two of its most popular CD
modules:
Convective storms remain among the most difficult to forecast
accurately. Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) are particularly
challenging because they include all of the severe weather
types associated with individual cells but can also include
longer-lived and more widespread events, such as large areas
of heavy rain and large swaths of damaging winds. The ability
to anticipate possible system structures, motions, and lifetimes
has important implications for forecasting convective events.
Dave Sharp, Science and Operations Officer in the Melbourne
WFO, says that the CD versions of these modules played
an important role "in raising the level of competency
and understanding...here at NWS Melbourne in the area
of severe local storms." Regarding the new web versions,
he commented "Having these available on the web for quick
operational reference will make it that much easier for
forecasters throughout the country to deal with convection
and the severe weather it brings."
In addition
to these modules, check out the COMET Program's other
modules listed under the "Convective Weather" and
"Hydrology/Flooding" topics in the main menu of the MetEd
web site (http://www.meted.ucar.edu).
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Late-Blooming
Forecaster Profiled by Newspaper
Ellie Kelch of
the Albany, NY, Weather Forecast Office was the subject of
a recent article in the Albany Times Union. The article
focused on Kelch's mid-life career transformation which took
her from a job at K-Mart to a position as an NWS meteorologist.
Read the story by
clicking here.
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NWS Office
Director Wins Leadership Award
NWS Chief Information
Officer (CIO) Barry West earned a Pioneer
Award from the Secure E-Business Executive Summit for
2003. The Secure E-Business Executive Committee honored
several
government programs and individuals with its 2003 SecurE-Biz
awards at a recent ceremony in Arlington, VA.
The SecureE-Biz leadership awards "recognize programs
that have helped further e-business transformation." West's
award was for his contributions to the Federation of
Government
Information Processing Councils (FGIPC) and work as NWS
CIO. West was honored for "taking the arrows to usher
in change to further implement the President's agenda."
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Pay Increase
Update
According to the
National Finance Center, a retroactive one percent pay increase
effective
January 12, 2003, will be processed in pay period 10 (official
pay date June 12, 2003), based on the Executive Order signed
by President Bush on March 21, 2003.
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NWS Performance
Measures Updated
The 2003 NWS National
Performance Measures graphics are now available for download.
As part of the Government Performance and Results Act,
each year government agencies update their performance measures
and significant service milestones. The NWS graphics for
2003 now include actual performance figures for 2002, as
well as performance measure goals through 2008.
This year, NWS includes an additional performance goal
and chart. Previously, a combined marine wind speed wave
height accuracy score was being tracked, but now there are
separate goals for both wind speed and wave height accuracy.
A one-page summary chart of performance goals is available
by clicking
here. A full package, including the summary chart and
graphs of each of the performance measures is available
by clicking
here.
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Take
a look at other NWS news, as submitted for the NOAA
Weekly Report
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Click
here to take a look at NOAA-wide employee news, as posted
in the latest issue of AccessNOAA
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Send
questions and comments to NWS.Communications.Office@noaa.gov
or mail to:
National Weather
Service
Communications Office
ATTN: W/COM
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3283
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