A final action item report from the NWS Partners Workshop in April has been completed and you are welcome to review it. Use this link to access the Adobe Acrobat document.
The NOAA GOES-L launch has now been delayed until no earlier than July 16, 1999. A firm date will be announced pending results of the Failure Review Board convened after the May 4th Delta III launch failure. A "flight constraint" remains in effect for the upper stage engines which are common to both the GOES and Delta III launch vehicles. Plans are in place to de-couple the GOES-L spacecraft from the rocket and return it to the initial integration facility for gaseous nitrogen purge of spacecraft components as well as reconditioning of batteries. once the current "flight constraint" is lifted, GOES-L will pick up the launch count at launch minus 20 days.
Secretary General Patrick Obassi was re-elected for another four year term. Term limits for WMO Office Holders passed congress. WMO Resolution 40 remains in effect on data exchange issues. A Resolution on Exchange of Hydrological Data passed. For further information, I have attached a Summary of WMO Congress XIII.
A final report on a meeting held last year of the WMO Commission for Basic Systems includes detailed information on decoding meteorological data reported in WMO format. The Extraordinary Session Report includes detailed information on the new CREX format (page 82) as well as changes which will impact decoding AMDAR, BATHY, and TESAC (page 139). More minor changes to SYNOP, TEMP, PILOT, BUFR, WAVEOB, SATEM and SARAD are included as well. The adoption of many of the changes is next year.
Significant interest exists from the public on tornado shelters. I found this excellent reference on WX-TALK for tornado shelter vendors. Point to http://www.execpc.com/~bkopp/safety.html. Then scroll down to Tornado Shelter Vendors and research.
The National Technical Information Service has an excellent NWS technical memo for purchase on line. Techniques for Issuing Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Warnings with the WSR-88D Doppler Radar covers the decision-making process as well as widely used and accepted warning techniques. The order number is PB97-147979KPB and the price is $25.50. Point to http://www.ntis.gov/ordering.htm.
On May 13,1999 at 1200 UTC, the 3-D variational (3DVAR) analysis used in the operational eta runs (00Z, 12Z, and 18Z) as well as in the Eta Data Assimilation System was changed to correct parameters influencing the balance between the analyzed mass and wind fields. In November 1998, these parameters had been adjusted in such a way as to draw more accurately for radiosonde data. However, this adjustment had the adverse effect of producing much weaker balance between mass and wind field analysis fields. The result was frequent poor Eta analyses especially over oceanic regions as well as poor forecasts especially at the longer time scales. The corrected 3DVAR produces more balanced mass and wind analyses at slight expense of the initial fit to the radiosonde data. Tests of the corrected 3DVAR analysis produced much higher forecast accuracy. Further details can be found on the web at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/tpb/3d-eta.htm.
NWS has accepted the first 992 new B2 radiosondes built by Sippican in its new production facility in Juarez, Mexico. This is the first lot of radiosondes built since July 1998 at which time they were produced in Pennsylvania. The acceptance of the new radiosondes will help to eliminate critical radiosonde shortages at many upper air sites. Lot acceptance covered thermisters, hygristers, and batteries as well as the radiosondes from the Juarez plant. The quality of all items has been judged generally higher than radiosondes produced previously at the Pennsylvania plant.
On June 7, 1999, Computerworld Smithsonian Award Program officials notified the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) program that they had been selected the 1999 winner from among five finalists in the information technology award category "Energy Environment and Agriculture." The AWIPS case study is now part of the Smithsonian Institution's permanent research collection. You can view the case study on line at: http://innovate.si.edu/briefingroom99/.
On June 10, 1999, the NWS accepted the last of 152 AWIPS systems at the Northern Indiana forecast office. Operational test and Evaluation of AWIPS continues through June.
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