WFO Indianapolis GFE Best Practices

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WFO Indianapolis GFE Best Practices

• Jason Puma

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GFE Best Practices - Organization

• Still in Public/Aviation mode for most forecast
  work
• Occasionally will split GFE duties dependant on
  situation
• Short Term/Long Term concept will look better to
  staff if when there will be a TAF formatter for
  GFE
• No Fire Weather Program at IND

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GFE Best Practices Smarttools

• Use of SmartTool whenever possible
• More Specific in first 24 hours, Less specific in
  latter periods. Shown as smaller grids and more
  edits early, larger grids and fewer edits during
  latter periods.

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Most Common SmartTools

• RH_Tool
• Windchill_tool, HeatIndex_Tool,
• MaxT and MinT SmartTools
• T_fromMax/MinT
• Back/Veer
• SnowAmt_fromQPF

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Wx / Pop problems

• For best results in IGR, have suggested always
  using 7AM and 7PM as stop/start times for wx
• PoP still kept as a 12 hr grid
• Try and have forecasters match up wx and Pop
  grids for best results
• Have not switched to floating PoP but will try
  soon.
• Possible switch to GFE formatters when/if
  software is baseline and training and
  documentation in place

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Suggested Grids
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Other Projects

• Reported snow grids to provide a map of
  reported snow amounts on the web after a snow
  event.
• http//www.crh.noaa.gov/ind/ifps/ReportedSnow/