The National Research Council (NRC) released a new report, A Vision for the National Weather Service: Road Map for the Future on February 18, 1999. The report is the last in a series of major reviews of NWS modernization and restructuring efforts. The Report makes several important statements that may well affect future NWS operations and the public private partnership for the delivery of weather information.
Specifically, the authors of the Report conclude that the future success of the NWS will depend largely on its ability to develop sophisticated models of the atmosphere which will require state-of-the-art computers and modeling programs. While the Report assumes that the mission responsibilities of the NWS will not change, the authors encourage the NWS to form strategic partnerships with other government agencies, commercial weather services, and research laboratories to enable a broader variety of weather users to benefit from weather data.
A Vision for the National Weather Service: Road Map for the Future is available from the National Academy Press in hard copy (1-800-624-6242) or on the web at:
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-L launch date has recently been set for May 15, 1999. All schedule for the spacecraft (which will become GOES 11 once in orbit), launch vehicle, and range support are working as of this date. However the launch date is contingent upon a successful launch of EUTELSAT on April 12, 1999.
According to scientists from the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AMSU-A), data from the NOAA 15 satellite extends the range of useful, weather predictions. In a series of parallel forecasts in which a control forecast used vertical sounder data from TIROS to initialize the models and the experimental forecasts used AMSU-A data to initialize, the experimental forecasts were more accurate for both the southern and northern hemispheres. ECMWF scientists believe the results indicate that quantitative weather predictions will be lengthened by at least several hours and possibly up to six hours for extended weather forecasts (out to days). The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) plan to begin use of AMSU-A data within the next few weeks and ECMWF plans to incorporate the data within the next few months.
The massive non-linearity of the U.S. government budget process reminds me of the screen saver I call the plumbers nightmare. A single pipe appears on-screen and quickly morphs into a Rube Goldberg complex of unending multi-colored twists and turns projected backward/forward into ± infinity. We at IM have tried to take a simpler stab at an organizational diagram viewable as a jpg file.
On one of my late night jaunts into the dark Internet forest, I tripped over an entirely edible mushroom of information on the Aviation Weather Center's home page. Want that perfect weather fact to impress your client for any day of the year, then download the files from http://www.awc-kc.noaa.gov/wxfact/.
While we have referred to this particular reference page in a past edition, IM continues to receive requests for a convenient web reference for worldwide station acronyms. While there are a number of good locations, I still prefer the Office of Systems Operations' Meteorological Station Lookup page at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/siteloc.shtml. All U.S. stations have an initial ICAO location indicator of "k".
The NWS Operational Support Facility/Operations Training Branch has prepared an online training booklet and a second overview version for NIDS users available at http://www.osf.noaa.gov/otb/build10/nexrad.htm. These are both pdf files and require Adobe® Acrobat®. To download either document, right click on the appropriate link and select "Save target as."
After more than a year of planing and coordination, the first phase of NWS Y2K end-to-end testing successfully ran on schedule during the period January 28-February 1, 1999. The leap-day rollover test (simulating the February 28, 2000, to February 29, 2000, rollover) began at 1800 hours Universal Time (UTC) on January 29, 1999. The "millenial" rollover test (simulating the December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000, rollover) began at 1800 hours UTC on January 31 and ran through 0600 hours UTC February 1, 1999. All indications from test participants suggest that both tests proved successful. All machines performed correct date rollovers and continued to operate normally. Expected data was correctly exchanged between systems; no anomalies were found in any of the exchanged data; and background software involved in functions such as data ingest and bulletin generation ran flawlessly. The test participants are exchanging various data transmission logs for a more detailed analysis. The production (numerical) models run on NCEP's Y2K test system appeared to run smoothly and a number of Y2K "millenial" rollover data sets produced by the models have been captured. They will be available to external users on the NWS Y2K home page http://www.oso1.x3.nws.noaa.gov/y2k.
NWS personnel and systems participating in the test included the NWS Telecommunications Gateway, AFOS, Alphanumeric Backup Retrieval System (ANBURS), ASOS, NEXRAD, Upper Air, NWS River Forecast System, AWIPS, and NCEP. External customers participating in the Y2K test included the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency, U.S. Navy, the National Ice Center, NESDIS, the Atmospheric Environment Service's Canadian Meteorological Centre, the WSI Corporation, the PRC Corporation, United Airlines and Northwest Airlines. All participants teleconferenced into the NWS for the duration of the test. These important NWS partners reported no significant problems with receipt, transmission, or processing of data.
A second and final phase of Y2K end-to-end testing has been scheduled for the March 28-31, 1999, time frame. Results of both the January and March tests will be finalized into a report coordinated with other agencies and published in the April/May 1999 timeframe.
IM has just received the horrifying news that Dr. Zou Jingmeng, Administrator of the China Meteorological Administration for the last 14 years, Permanent Chinese Representative to the World Meteorological Agency (WMO) and a past President of the WMO, was found murdered after an attempted robbery in Beijing. No further details are available at this time.
Dr. Zou was a staunch ally of the United States in promoting free and open international exchange of all meteorological, climatological and hydrological data. He will be missed as much for his charming wit as for his wisdom.
Back to Top