Why Should We Change And RFC Goals for Improvements

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Why Should We Change AndRFC Goals for
Improvements
Diane Cooper Hydrologic Services Program
Manager NWS - Southern Region Headquarters 2007
Hydrologic Service Program Manager Conference
Southern Region Breakout July 13, 2007
Acknowledgement To Rusty Billingsley for
providing many of the slides.
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Why We Should ChangeStatus Quo is Increasingly
Dangerous

• Why?
• Technological rate of change is accelerating
• Weather data and information are becoming a
  commodity
• Government is inherently bureaucratici.e.,
  private industry will react faster to change than
  we will
• We are increasingly a smaller piece of the
  weather enterprise

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Reflection On Our Changing World

• Suppose its 1995 and you are predicting 2005
• Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 1.0 introduced
• Netscape, Ebay, and Amazon.com come to life
• eCERN holds a two-day seminar for the European
  Media (press, radio, TV), attended by 250
  reporters, to show WWW. It is demonstrated on 60
  machines, with 30 pupils from the local
  International High School helping the reporters
  "surf the Web"
• Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve,
  America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide
  Internet access
• 6.5 Million Hosts, 100,000 WWW Sites on internet
• MP3 format comes of age
• USB standard released
• Red Hat Linux formed (actually 94)
• Compaq Computer reaches number one world market
  share
• OS2 Warp ships, PC DOS 7 ships
• Intel introduces 120 MHz Pentium processor
• IBM unveils its new IBM PC 300 desktop systems,
  with 75-MHz and 90-MHz Pentium CPUs. Complete
  systems start at US2000.
• IBM buys Lotus
• IBM releases the ThinkPad 760CD (120 MHz), with
  the industry's first 12.1-inch thin-film
  transistor display
• Sun Microsystems introduces new Ultra 1 and
  Ultra 2 workstations
• Sony Electronics introduces the 32-bit game
  system, PlayStation
• Cell phone subscribers reach 34 million

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Reflection On Our Changing World

• For 2005, would you have predicted
• Homeland Security would be a big deal
• You could put your entire song collection on a
  device as big as your thumb
• A desktop could be had for a few hundred bucks
• Microsoft and Dell would be the big players
• Stock market crash after incredible bubble
• Thumb drives
• Satellite radio
• Wireless everywhere
• 70 emails a day
• Reality TV would be a hit
• Half a terabyte disk drives for 300 bucks (500
  gig)
• Laser printers for under a 100 bucks
• DVDs, cell phones, digital cameras everywhere
• The enormity of the Internet
• GIS
• Gridded forecasting (GFE)
• E-commerce

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Our Changing World The NWS in 1995

• AFOS continues as operational system
• AWIPS in trouble 400M spent already
• PCGRIDDs in use
• Some offices get UNIX workstations (SOO Sacs)
• SWIS/MicroSwis
• A few offices experimenting with web sites, web
  is just a curiosity to most
• ASOS commissioning continues

This is just one decade ago!
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Why We Need to ChangeTechnological Rate of
Change is Accelerating!
Accelerating Change this isnt your fathers
rate of change!
Premise change is occurring exponentially but
you expect it to be linear based on the current
rate of change! because we're doubling the
rate of progress every decade, we'll see a
century of progress--at today's rate--in only 25
calendar years. Ray Kurzweil Law of
Accelerating Returns
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Why We Need to Change
What is Accelerating Rate of Change ????
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Why We Need To Change
Other Component.Weather information as a
commoditymany people are providing it, so what
is our nich?
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Why We Need to Change
Reality 1 Technological rate of change is
acceleratingwe underestimate it
significantlymaking any 2015 prediction
suspect. What we are likely to think will happen
in 2015 should occur technologically by 2008
Reality 2 Weather information and data are
becoming a commodityOthers are in this business
too!!!
or threatening?
Is this exciting
How do we appropriately plan for and respond to
this???
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Why We Need to Change?
If everything is going to _at__at_ Why am I so
busy? Why does the phone ring off the hook when
the weather gets bad? Why does our offices look
like this?
Customers/partners have increasingly
sophisticated requirements they are also being
inundated by an explosion of information They
want and need you to make sense of it all for
them!
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Why We need to Change

• They want you to make sense of it all for them!
• Unprecedented support in the 2005 hurricane
  season
• Louisiana EOC
• Texas DEM
• FEMA
• WFO local support
• Unprecedented support in the 2005/6 fire season
• IMET support for TFS almost continuously
• Huge increase in briefings/interpretive support
  for all types of events
• 50 of SR WFOs said personal service was the
  most important product/service they provide

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The Evolving NWS
Bottom line Technological rate of change is
accelerating Weather information and data are
becoming a commodity Demand for your services
is in its infancy!
Its exciting
not threatening!
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The Evolving NWS Are you saying we stop
providing what we currently do????
Nonot saying we should give up providing day to
day forecasts or other services we currently
provide! ButAs New and higher resolution
Hydrologic (Soil Moisture Data) and Hydraulic
Models are rolled, computing speed decreases and
better calibration schemes are identifiedhow do
we incorporate this information into our suite of
products and services???
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The Evolving NWS OK So how do we move forward????

• Possible Ideas to Consider
• Models such as the Distributed Model provide
  Hourly time series. How do we incorporate that
  into our current 6 hour forecast structure?
• What about Ensemble Forecasts?
• How do we better use advances in FFMP/EMPE and
  GFFG in our Flash Flood Warning Program?

Your value will shift more and more to making
sense (interpreting) of the vast complex of
hydrologic information and its impacts and and
communicating the proper message to decision
makers.
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RFC Goals for ImprovementWhat is their piece in
this puzzle

• Summer of 2006, the RFCs met identify how to
  better use region-wide hydrologic resources to
  provide highly effective services during high
  impact events.

Established a Vision of Effective and Efficient
Hydrologic Service Delivery during high-impact
events
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RFC Service Enhancement and Support Categories
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RFC of the Future (3-5 year time frame)

• Flood Inundation mapping
• More information/more frequently
• Water quality
• Water resource information (grids)
• Modeling/science plan and strategy
• More consistent service delivery from WFO/RFCs
  (gridded information)

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RFC of the Future

• They Identified Short-Term Service Enhancement
  Deliverableseach RFC took the lead on some
  initiatives
• ABRFC
• Implement new flash flood guidance procedure at
  SR RFCs
• LMRFC
• Collaborate with other SR RFCs and HSB to develop
  region-wide hydrologic training plan for RFC/WFO
  personnel
• SERFC
• Develop/enhance RFC briefing for
  internal/external customers using advanced
  communications technologies
• WGRFC
• Enhanced Web/Video Training

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RFC of the Future Support for WFOs

• Ideas included
• More contingency forecasts
• Short-term probabilistic hydrologic forecasts
• Hydrologic Training (HPMs and meteorological
  forecasters)
• Use of GFE to collaborate on QPF
• Hydrologic briefings
• Specialized training (hazardous spills, water
  quality)
• Real-time assistance in use of WFO hydrologic
  applications (MPE, Site-Specific Hydrologic
  Model)
• Real-time Monitoring (Gridded FFG, FFG alert
  message)
• Routine 6-hour river forecast issuances
• Enhanced hydrometeorological watch
• More consistent RFC web pages
• QPF verification studies
• Enhanced data QC information sharing
• Move to shorter hydrologic model time steps for
  fast responding rivers, as appropriate

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WFO Role of The FutureWhat can you do???

• First and foremostContinue the tradition of
  excellent service and trust.
• Identify the great ideas that are already being
  doneMidland Low Flow Initiative and FloodReady
  are just 2 examples.
• Help lead customers (and NWS) in the right
  direction (i.e., be active in solutions)
• Continually work to understand the environment
  under which your customers live and how they use
  our data.
• Be open to new ways of doing business
• Find ways to keep up with the technological
  onslaught the results can be remarkable and
  very satisfying

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• Even from your levelYou can influential in
  shaping the NWS of the future.

RFC
You will steer the ship!