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Three Digital Gridded Elements Becoming Official December 1, 2004
An historic announcement was made by Brig. Gen. D.L. Johnson, USAF (Ret.), NWS Director, on September 16, 2004, when he declared three elements of the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) would become official on December 1, 2004.
"Making gridded forecasts available to customers and partners is a significant advance in our service to the public," said Johnson. "It is a result of a major shift in the way we prepare and distribute our forecasts."
The gridded elements becoming official NDFD products in December include: Maximum Temperature, Minimum Temperature, and Probability of Precipitation (12 hour). Like any new system, improvements need to be made. The primary effort will be on improving the reliability and accuracy of the elements and upgrading the backup server.
The nine experimental elements remaining are: Temperature, Dew Point, Weather, Wind Speed, Wind Direction, Significant Wave Height, Sky Cover, Snow Amount, and Quantitative Precipitation Forecast. The experimental elements will be improved and evaluated, and by December 15, 2004, the NWS will announce additional elements that will transition to official status by January 15, 2005.
Staff at selected Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) began prototyping experimental gridded, graphical, and alphanumeric products during 1999 as a part of the Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) Rapid Prototyping Project (RPP). The project provided forecasters with advanced versions of the IFPS software components which they evaluated on non-operational workstations to define requirements, develop forecast methodology, and experiment with development of modernized products. Initial efforts included local prototyping of experimental products. For example, gridded forecasts of sensible elements such as surface air temperature, an air quality clearing index, and the graphical Revised Digital Forecast.
Since that initial effort, the NWS has used an incremental approach over the past five years to transition digital forecasting to operations. This has been accomplished by refining the forecast methodology and grid editing tools and procedures included in the IFPS initial operating capability delivered to the field in the Build 5 AWIPS Release.
The WFOs use IFPS to prepare a database of gridded data from which official and experimental products are generated. Implementing IFPS has provided the NWS the opportunity to prepare new experimental digital products and make them available to customers and partners in national and regional scale mosaics via the NDFD.
Beginning in 2001, staff from nineteen WFOs participated in a demonstration project for digital services through the activities of an Integrated Work Team (IWT) chaired by David Ruth of the Meteorological Development Laboratory (MDL). Recommendations for procedures and policy for creating, coordinating, managing and disseminating digital forecasts were made by this team.
"The NDFD would not have come into being without the sustained and dedicated leadership of the IWT," said MDL Director Bob Glahn. "They did a superb job in fostering cooperation and bringing a visionary idea to fruition."
Looking back at the team accomplishments, team chair Ruth stated, "It was my privilege to serve on the NDFD IWT. The team was comprised of motivated individuals from the regions, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and headquarters who shared the goal of increasing the usefulness of NWS forecasts. With considerable help from staff at nineteen WFOs willing to try out new practices, we managed to demonstrate how to accomplish this. The establishment of the NDFD lays the foundation for a new era of readily accessible detailed forecast information."
Carl Bullock, Chief of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research's (OAR's) Forecast System Laboratory (FSL) Modernization Division, congratulated the NWS on reaching this very important milestone. FSL developers created the IFPS Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE) capabilities which allow forecasters to prepare a gridded forecast database for product generation.
"FSL staff enjoyed working closely with forecasters over the past 14 years to evolve the GFE and related tools to its current operational status," Bullock said. "We look forward to incorporating more science into these tools to realize the full potential of the gridded approach to forecasting."
Johnson called the collaborative effort between managers, forecasters, FSL and MDL developers "an example of effective team work with tremendous accomplishments gained through organizational excellence, providing the NWS an opportunity to greatly enhance our services to customers and partners."
NDFD grids can be accessed via the Internet and downloaded using MDL software. Graphics of these grids are also prominently displayed on the NOAA and NWS home pages, through the efforts of NWS Webmaster Bob Bunge of the Office of the Chief Information Officer.
"Public response to the services and experimental products provided with digital databases has been very favorable," said Glenn Austin, Digital Services IWT Team
Lead, "and customers and partners have urged the NWS to transition these products to official to support their requirements."
Customers will be able to access historical data through an archive of NDFD forecasts maintained by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, NC.
Johnson said future efforts will focus on improving and evaluating the nine experimental elements, enhancing the IFPS tools, moving towards gridded verification, investigating how to more effectively communicate digital data with new technologies and services, and prototyping additional meteorological and hydrological parameters.
He said he was proud that the OAR/NWS team effort was coming to fruition, at least for the first three elements, and encouraged the team to "move out quickly to double that number in the next three months."
More details on the NDFD are available at http://weather.gov/ndfd/.
For additional information on the Digital Services program and plans, contact LeRoy Spayd at Leroy.Spayd@noaa.gov.
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