NOUS41 KWBC 282042

PNSWSH

Service Change Notice 13-8

National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC

342 PM EST Mon Jan 28 2013

To: Subscribers

-Family of Services

-NOAA Weather Wire Service

-Emergency Managers Weather Information Network

-NOAAPORT

Other NWS partners and NWS employees

From: Claudia Bell

Meteorology Program Manager

NWS Western Region Headquarters

Subject: Text format for Fire Weather Planning Forecast

in NWS Western Region will become Operational

on February 26, 2013

Effective Tuesday, February 26, 2013, at 1800 Coordinated

Universal Time (UTC), the alternate text format of the Fire

Weather Planning Forecast (FWF) will become operational in the

NWS Western Region. This product format has been in experimental

status. Based on favorable public comments, it is being made

operational.

This change will improve fire weather services to primary

partners and users in Western Region by reducing the time needed

by NWS forecasters to edit the FWF. The FWF text format uses

left-justified asterisks to begin each line of text. The

asterisks help maintain proper word wrapping and indentations in

a text editor, significantly reducing the amount of time needed

to edit the product before dissemination. The rest of the FWF

product is left unchanged as are all other fire weather products

and services.

An example of the text format FWF is online at:

For more information, please contact:

Claudia bell

National Weather Service

Western Region Headquarters

Salt Lake City, UT 84138

801-524-5137

National Service Change Notices are online at: