Fire Tour Gives Relevance to Theme of Working Together to Save Lives

Editors’ Note: NWS Director Jack Kelly recently visited the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Idaho and the site of a large wildfire in Oregon.

By Jack Kelly, NWS Director

During my recent visit out West, I saw our fire weather team in action providing support to wildland firefighting efforts. I was impressed with the commitment, dedication, and willingness of our employees to serve our partners and customers.

The level of service and excellence extended beyond our Incident Meteorologists (IMETs) on site. Our forecast offices do a great job providing forecasts and information to support firefighting efforts.

We’re starting the peak of wildfire season, and this year, to date, has been a record-breaker. Approximately 53,000 fires have burned 4.25 million acres nationally, which more than doubles the previous 10-year average of 2 million acres, and far surpasses the previous record-setting fire season of 2000 when about 61,000 fires burned 3.55 million acres by August 1.

We have responded to 117 IMET dispatch requests and our IMETs have logged more than 11,500 hours of support. We have met every request for IMET support, and I appreciate how the forecast office staffs cover for each other and cope with the strain these fires put on daily operations.

I was struck by how much the weather influences decision-making by the incident commander and the operations manager. Visiting the site of a large fire in east central Oregon, the Malheur complex, and seeing first-hand the teamwork of Federal, state, and local agencies, reminded me just how important accurate weather forecasts are to this operation. I gained a level of respect for the hard manual labor and back-breaking work that goes into the fight to protect our Nation’s resources from these fires.

The fire camp reminded me of a military operation. The camp was organized and everyone knew their mission and their individual role as well as their role as part of the larger team in meeting the overall goal to contain the fire and protect lives and property. Fire camps are usually in remote locations where electricity is supplied by diesel generators and there is no indoor plumbing. Fresh water and supplies are trucked in daily, while garbage and gray water are trucked out. Fire camps are hot, dusty, and smokey unless it rains; then its muddy and cold.

At the camp, NWS staff demonstrated our new Air Transportable Mobile Units (ATMUs) with FX-NET. The AWIPS-like functions and two-way satellite communications capabilities of the All Hazards Onsite Meteorological Support System promise to help our IMETS better prepare their forecasts and access data to help identify short-term and long-term weather changes. FX-NET was the technological envy of the fire camp.

We should be proud of the teamwork that helps control wildland fires. Several firefighters told me that the information our employees provide does more than help planners get fires under control faster; the information also saves firefighters’ lives. Our fire-fighting partners appreciate all of our support, from NOAA’s satellite imagery, Climate Prediction Center seasonal outlooks, and Storm Prediction Center two-day outlooks to WFO support, staff support at NIFC, and IMET support in the field.

These efforts show we are committed to working together to save lives.

NWS Corporate Board News: June Meeting Results in Reorganization and New Executive Secretary

The NWS Corporate Board voted at the June board meeting to reorganize its functions, and create an Executive Secretariat position to monitor progress and assist the board in achieving success.

The Board, a group whose functions are similar to those of a board of directors in a corporation, is comprised of the NWS Director and Deputy Director as well as the Regional and Office Directors, the Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, and the Director of Strategic Planning and Policy.

"The Board changed from a quarterly to a semi-annual meeting schedule," said John E. Jones, Jr., NWS Deputy Director. "With the recent changes, more of the Board’s business will be conducted by four smaller topical committees," he said. The committees are: Operations; Science and Technology; Workforce/Human Capital; and Finance and Investment Review. The Board’s Executive Committee has oversight of the four committees and has final approval authority for all committee decisions.

“Essentially, all decisions are now made in committees empowered by the Board,” said Jones. “Not all decisions must be made by the full Board. Decisions that can not be resolved within the working committee can be elevated to the Executive Committee for resolution. This will help to free the Board for more visionary/strategic effort.”

The Board also created a new senior staff position. Joanne Swanson is the Board’s new Executive Secretary. Swanson recently returned to NWS Headquarters from a detail as the NWS Liaison with the Program Coordination Office at NOAA Headquarters.

“The Executive Secretary’s role is to serve as the ‘conscience’ of the Board, monitoring progress, closing actions, attending all meetings, assisting in the development of full Board agendas, and facilitating communication,” said Swanson. “One of my goals is to improve the flow of information from the Board to employees.” Swanson’s duties also include recording and distributing decisions, actions and discussions, managing logistics for routine meetings, overseeing vendor contracts, and posting logistics and meeting materials to the Board’s website.

As her first action, Swanson completed the Corporate Board handbook that outlines procedures for operations, organization, and business approach. The Handbook is available on the Corporate Board's website.

“Our goal is to improve the Board’s efficiency and better communicate Board activities to our employees,” said Jones. Look for future NOAA's NWS Focus stories on issues identified at the meeting.”

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Paul Kirkwood, chief of the Dissemination Enhancement Team for NWS Southern Region Headquarters in Fort Worth, TX, is NOAA’s Employee of the Month for August.

Kirkwood was cited for his outstanding, innovative work in developing and implementing software designed to capitalize on the NWS’s powerful new Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) and the associated Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS).

“Paul is an example of how the initiative and contribution of just one person can make a significant difference,” said Bill Proenza, Director, NWS Southern Region. “His software development within AWIPS, and its compatibility with the highly-acclaimed Weather Event Simulator, makes this excellent training tool even more valuable. His achievement provides all NWS field offices with a true weather event archiver that will greatly benefit training and performance.”

Kirkwood developed a unique system for archiving critical Doppler radar system (WSR-88D) data. A valuable functional support tool for AWIPS, the new system is also compatible with the Weather Event Simulator. Its ability to absorb a full range of meteorological data, including surface and upper air observations, radar and model data – helps solve a critical training need.

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Donna and Craig Vie for Speech Technology Award

They only began to hit the airwaves a few months ago, but the voices of “Donna” and “Craig,” heard by millions of listeners on more than 720 NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) broadcast stations, are already being recognized for helping to communicate potentially life saving weather information.

The recognition is an award nomination for the National Weather Service’s use of Speechworks text-to-speech technology in the latest generation of NWR synthesized voice broadcasts.

Speech Technology Magazine is sponsoring the Second Annual Speech Solutions Awards to recognize “the individuals and companies whose efforts have propelled the industry forward.”

Automating NWR transmissions with text-to-speech technology has enabled the NWS to issue multiple independent warnings over multiple transmitters simultaneously, allowing speedier delivery of severe weather warnings and more lead time for the public. Local forecast offices fine-tune the voices to correctly pronounce geographically-specific names.

Anyone can cast a vote on the Speech Technology Magazine website at http://www.speechtechmag.com/submissions/awards2002.html. The Speechworks/NWS award category is “Best TTS Solution/Telephony.”

The magazine will honor award winners at the SpeechTEK 2002 conference in late October in New York City.

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Forecast Office Earns Award for Health and Safety Excellence

The Los Angeles/Oxnard, CA, Weather Forecast Office (WFO) received the NOAA “Best of the Best” Award for Excellence in Environmental Compliance, Health, and Safety on August 1, 2002. The award was presented during the annual NOAA Environmental, Health, and Safety Conference (http://www.ecs.noaa.gov/) held in Silver Spring, MD. DOC and NOAA personnel attended the conference to discuss various issues including FY02 environmental and safety program status, budget, policies, and FY03 program development.

The award recognizes the NOAA facility or site that demonstrates environmental, health, and safety excellence at the highest level. Russell Bacon, the WFO Los Angeles/Oxnard environmental focal point, accepted the award for the office.

"Local management made the environmental, safety, and health programs a priority, investing financial and human resources to insure the programs were setup and run properly,” said Todd Morris, Meteorologist-In-Charge of the Los Angeles/Oxnard, CA, WFO. "Without the dedication of Russell Bacon and the team effort by the entire staff the programs would not have been a success."

Follow this link to see a picture of the award presentation.

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NWS Helps Rescue African Upper Air Data

NWS is helping meteorological services in African developing countries convert paper records of upper air data into a digital format to permanently archive weather information. The project may also include surface data if funding permits.

The African Desk of the NWS’s Climate Prediction Center participated in the pilot project to save African upper air data during a trip to Senegal, Niger, and Mozambique from July 8-24, 2002.

“The data recovered by this project will help the NWS with reanalysis and validation of its numerical models,” said Wassila Thiaw, African Desk Coordinator. “This involves running past model scenarios and comparing the output to actual observations to see if the results of the model are realistic or accurate.”

Countries participating in the pilot project also include Angola, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. Each country received equipment to photograph the paper records and copy the photographs to a CD-ROM. The CDs are mailed to the United States, where a contractor will key the information into a data base. The NWS is donating the project equipment to the participating countries to help develop their archiving systems. The data will ultimately be archived at the National Climatic Data Center and made available to the scientific community.

Some Thrift Savings Plan Functions Temporarily Unavailable in August During Changeover

Conversion to the new record-keeping system will limit or delay some Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) services between mid-August and mid-September. Interfund transfer requests will have to be submitted on paper from August 16 through September 15; electronic transfer requests won’t be available during that time. Contribution allocations and electronic requests for Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) will not be accepted between August 31 and September 15, 2002. Paper requests for PINs received during that time will be held for processing on September 16.

The new TSP record-keeping system will be online September 16, 2002. The new system will allow for daily valuation of accounts and daily processing of transactions. Following the changes, the TSP also will report account balances in terms of shares as well as dollars; offer a greater number of withdrawal options; and provide on-line service via the Internet for loans and withdrawals, according to information on the TSP website.

Also On the Web...Survey Says Managers Need Timely Financial Data

Government managers don’t have access to timely financial data and it hinders their ability to improve performance and measure costs, according to the results of a recent survey of more than 800 senior executives and managers in government. Results of the survey, conducted jointly by Government Executive magazine and the Association of Government Accountants, are highlighted in a July Government Executive magazine article. Included in the article are comments by one of the designers of the survey, NWS Chief Financial Officer/Chief Administrative Officer Ted David.