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Technical Implementation Notice 11-03

National Weather Service Headquarters Washington DC

310 PM EST Thu Jan 20 2011

To: Subscribers:

- Family of Services

- NOAA Weather Wire Service

- Emergency Managers Weather Information Network

- NOAAPORT

Other NWS Partners and NWS employees

From: Eli Jacks

Chief, Fire and Public Weather Services Branch

Subject: Two Experimental Fire Weather Outlook Elements to be

Added to the National Digital Forecast Database

for CONUS Only Effective February 23, 2011

Effective Wednesday, February 23, 2011, at 1400 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), two Fire Weather Outlook elements will be added to the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) on an experimental basis over the Conterminous United States (CONUS) only. These elements are generated by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s (NCEP) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, OK.

These two Fire Weather Outlook elements will be added to the NDFD CONUS sector and to the 16 pre-defined NDFD CONUS subsectors for the valid times shown:

- Fire Weather Critical and Extremely Critical Areas (Days 1-7)

- Fire Weather Critical Areas for Dry Thunderstorms (Days 1-3)

More details regarding these new elements are available in the Product Description Document (PDD) in the online catalog of experimental NWS products and services.

http://products.weather.gov/detaile.php?selrow=416

With this implementation, these forecasts will be available from NDFD in the standard methods:

- GRIdded Binary version 2 (GRIB2) files via Hypertext Transfer

Protocol (HTTP) and File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

- eXtensible Markup Language (XML) via Simple Object Access

Protocol (SOAP)

- Graphics via web browser

Users who pull NDFD elements in GRIB2 format, either via the internet or via the Family of Services (FOS) server access service, may need to update their procedures and/or scripts in order to access these new elements.

For customers who key on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) super heading to access NDFD elements, the list of super headings for these experimental elements is online at:

http://www.weather.gov/datamgmt/doc/spc.html

Customers who use the NDFD in XML via web service or the online graphical NDFD images can use the same methods they currently use to acquire these new experimental elements. The Fire Weather Outlook NDFD graphics will be labeled experimental.

More information about accessing these new elements using all of the standard NDFD access methods is available online at:

http://www.weather.gov/ndfd/spc_firewx.htm

Information on accessing and using NDFD elements is online at:

http://ndfd.weather.gov/techincal.htm

If February 23, 2011, is declared a critical weather day, this implementation may be postponed. In that case, users will be notified of that decision via an updated Technical Implementation Notice as far in advance as possible.

Comments and feedback on the experimental Fire Weather Outlook NDFD elements will be accepted through June 3, 2011. Links to online surveys for NDFD customers are:

GRIB2 users:

http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=ndfd-grids

Users OF XML SOAP service:

http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=xmlsoap

NDFD online graphics:

http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=gfp

These new Fire Weather Outlook elements will remain experimental until NWS assesses feedback and completes a technical analysis. At that time, the NWS will determine whether to move these experimental elements to operational status, discontinue them, or revise and retain them as experimental elements.

For questions regarding these products, please contact:

Dr. Phillip Bothwell

Senior Development Meteorologist

NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center

Norman, Oklahoma

Phillip.Bothwell@noaa.gov

For general questions regarding NDFD data, please email:

NWS.NDFD@noaa.gov

For technical questions regarding NDFD data, please contact:

David Ruth

Mesoscale Prediction Branch Chief

NOAA/NWS Office of Science and Technology