Understanding Violent Weather Fundamentals of Forecasting

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Understanding Violent WeatherFundamentals of
Forecasting

• Lynn P. Maximuk
• Meteorologist In Charge
• WFO Pleasant Hill, MO
• October 24, 2005

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IT Has Changed The Weather Forecast World

• The NWS primary product is information not text
  messages
• Partners and customers demand more of the most
  current information possible, available when
  they want it
• High resolution graphical and tabular data for
  improved service

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Digital Forecast Goals

• Leverage national and local expertise to
• Provide high resolution forecast information
• Ensure meteorological consistency
• Focus on high impact events
• Provide Information in multiple formats

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National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD)

• Multiple input sources Time and Space
• WFOs
• National Centers HPC/SPC/CPC/AWC/NHC/TPC etc.
• NWS product not local office product
• Offices produce a piece of the product
• Meteorological consistency a must
• One stop shopping

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Digital Data

• Will continue to evolve
• Add a vertical dimension
• Watch and warning information
• Observational information
• Climatological information
• Tap into GIS capabilities
• Readily useable formats

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Modern Technology

• New ways to prepare forecasts by depicting the
  underlying forecast information
• Flexibility extracting information to meet
  partner and customer needs formats without
  bounds
• Ability for rapid updates

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Service and Information Flow

• Frequent updates in short term hourly
• High spatial resolution 5km nationally and
  2.5km locally
• More detailed forecast information for weather
  parameters important to partners and customers to
  feed their formatters and decision software

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How to Obtain NDFD Data

• Data, decoders and detailed information available
  at the following web sites
• Weather.gov/ndfd
• Weather.gov/ndfd/technical.htm
• Database contents, format, etc.
• Available in GRIB2, NetCDF and XML

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Data Extraction Ideas

• The Sky is the Limit!

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Traditional Forecast Format
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Detailed Forecast Information
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Decision Aid
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Polygon Warning Experiment

• Warnings were issued for the threat area of a
  storm, counties fell out as needed from this
  threat area.
• Extensive outreach on key issues conducted spring
  2005.
• Multiple warnings in effect for a county.
• Impact on EAS
• How to visualize the polygons?

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Polygon Warning Experiment

• Customer feedback
• Many emergency managers expressed that one of the
  reasons they rated services improved this year
  was because of the refined box used in
  warnings.
• Some radio stations lukewarm (especially with
  regard to tornado warnings and EAS), as they get
  more warnings for the same county.

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Media perspective on polygons

• Cones Of StormTracks are already familiar with
  viewers
• Text Crawls already cut whole county warnings
• Challenge is to marry audio message with new
  video display
• Learning curve with Media and NWS

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Polygons in action