Jack Kelly, Director of the National Weather Service (NWS), has initiated a series of actions "to lead America's Weather Service into the 21st Century." An initial committee of nine NWS individuals has been established to oversee the implementation of recommendations contained in the Kelly Report to the Secretary of Commerce entitled An Assessment of the Fiscal Requirements to Operate the Modernized National Weather Service. This committee headed by Vickie Nadolski (e-mail: vickie.nadolski@noaa.gov) has begun the work necessary to establish a formal advisory group representing users of NWS products and services in both the public and private sectors. This group will meet periodically during the year to mutually discuss issues, problem areas, programs, and to develop solutions.
A second committee has been established to develop a strategic vision and a plan to transition the NWS into the 21st century. This committee chaired by Gary Grice, Deputy Director of the Storm Prediction Center, will consider both internal and external factors that will impact the NWS during the next five to ten years and will draft future goals and directoves.
Finally, a committee chaired by the Director of the NWS Western Region, Tom Potter, will examine the organizational structure needed at NWS to lead the agency into the next century.
A number of new weather observations from Federal and non-Federal Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) sites are now available on the Family of Services. These sites include:
| 1FO-Ardmore/Executive Airport Oklahoma | W44-Asheboro North Carolina |
| CCO-Newnan, Georgia | ETB-West Bend Wisconsin |
| CJR-Culpeper, Virginia | ISQ-Manistique, Michigan |
| CPK-Chesapeake, Virginia | OEO-Osceola, Wisconsin |
| DNN-Dalton, Georgia | SFQ- Suffolk, Virginia |
Several web sites provide lists of AWOS sites both in the U.S. and Canada. Canadian AWOS sites can be accessed at http://www.tor.ec.gc.ca/readac/index.html, Non Federal U.S. AWOS sites at http://www.faa.gov/aua/ipt_prod/terminal/asos/nfawos.htm, and Federal AWOS sites at http://www.faa.gov/aua/ipt_prod/terminal/asos/awoslist.htm.
NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory runs a Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (Hysplit4) to compute air parcel trajectories as well as complex dispersion and and deposition simulations. As a result of a joint effort between NOAA and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, the model has been recently upgraded. New features include improved advection algorithms, updated stability and dispersion equations, a new graphical user interface and the option to include modules for more chemical transformations. This experimental Hysplit4 tarnsport model is accessible on the web for predictions of the smoke from Mexican and Central American fires. The appropriate URL is http://www.arl.noaa.gov/ready.html.
A series of daily GOES-8 visible images documenting progression of the smoke pall associated with the Mexican/Central American biomass fires has been posted on the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies GOES gallery at http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/980513.html. The imagery show the day to day variability in the areal extent of the smoke pall and transport of smoke across the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the Central United States.
The presentation on GOES temperature soundings given at the 1998 AMS Conference in Phoenix has been posted on the web. The article includes sounding derivation and case studies. Point to the following URL: http://orbit7i.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/phoenix.html.
A balloon release at 12 UTC from Tempe, Arizona, should begin on or about June 8th, 1998 and continue through mid to late September. The releases will use the WMO identifier for Luke Air Force Base (74005). Exact coordinates of the release point are: 33o 26' 47" North,
111o 57' 07" West at an elevation of 1243 feet. The data will be transmitted under the following headers PHXMANPHX and PHXSGLPHX. The Vaisala RS80-15lh loran sondes will use the CLAS system for collecting and processing data.
A report assessing the effectiveness of NWS products and services before and during the period of severe thunderstorms on May 27, 1997, that produced an F5 tornado in Jarrell, Texas, can be downloaded and viewed with Adobe Acrobat software from the web at the NWS Office of Meteorology home page. This page also contains a number of other disaster surveys including a service assessment of the March 1, 1997, Arkansas tornado outbreak. The URL is http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/omdis.htm.
A team of NOAA and university scientists in mobile meteorological stations and with truck mounted radars will again attempt to intercept severe storms in the Great Plains through mid- June. Researchers are hopeful that the close up observations of super cell thunderstorms will provide a three dimensional view of a complete life cycle of a tornado. The research is a follow up to the VORTEX project in 1994 and 1995 and last year's SubVORTEX. This spring's experiments have been given the name SubVORTEX-RFD (short for rear flank downdraft). In another experiment called ROTATE--short for Radar Observations of Tornadoes and Thunderstorms Experiment--scientists will study the whole tornado genesis, structure, maintenance and life cycle processes. To obtain a VHS or broadcast quality format video tape of VORTEX and SubVORTEX research video highlights call 301-881-0270.
Ever get totally frustrated with an acronym that appears to have no reasonable translation into an English language word? Try three web sites that have comprehensive lists of abbreviations used in NWS products and as acronyms for NWS systems:
http://www.nwstc.kc.noaa.gov/d.HMD/HMD_HOME.HTML
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~spc/products/acronyms.html
http://www.awc-kc.noaa.gov/info/domestic_contractions.html
The National Climate Data Center (NCDC) has posted technical reports and published papers dating back through 1993 on their web site. The technical reports include A Comparison of NEXRAD Raifall Estimates with Recorded Amounts and The Spring of 1997: Reviewing Four Significant Weather Events. Point to the following URL: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt/techrpt.html#1997. The selected published papers include Indices of Climate Change for the United States. You can find an index of the papers at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/papers/papers.html.
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