Working Together To Save Lives:
Collaborative Efforts Yielding Consistent, Current Forecasts

By Lynn Maximuk, WFO Pleasant Hill, MO
with contributions from Dave Caldwell, National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and Alan Rezek, WFO Charleston, WV

The NWS is working toward its vision of producing a meteorologically consistent, always current, National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). The NDFD will provide the building blocks of information for the NWS and external customers to prepare weather forecast products consistently across several different media. The first step in implementing this change from typing worded products was to establish three NDFD demonstration areas. These 17 offices have been using the Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) and preparing grids for the NDFD since January 2002. The forecasters in these offices have uncovered many challenges and developed proposed solutions as the NWS works toward preparing a collaborated, consistent forecast database.

The next steps as we move toward a full NDFD will be to complete a national Operational Readiness Demonstration (ORD) of IFPS this summer, and to meet an Initial Operating Capability (IOC) this fall. During the initial stages of implementation of the IFPS, forecasters have been faced with the challenges of learning to use new software tools, incorporating collaboration into their forecast process, and creating a meteorologically consistent forecast database across different areas and times of responsibility. Grappling with the process changes has taken time, but significant progress has been made.

All continental United States offices have begun to use IFPS to prepare forecast grids and format traditional products, and the initial set of NDFD grids are being collected. As offices have moved down this path, the necessity of meteorological consistency across forecast areas has become obvious, and Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) have begun to work on ways to develop collaborative forecasts across time and space.

Collaboration Grows

In the early stages of the IFPS collaborative forecast process, NCEP's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) and the WFOs began holding chat sessions to share and discuss information, and the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) recently joined the process. In addition, WFOs share Inter-site Coordination Grids so that they may more easily view and work out differences across WFO boundaries. The collaboration with NCEP centers combines the local knowledge of the WFOs with the big-picture expertise of the HPC and SPC forecasters. In addition, HPC has been working with the WFOs to eliminate discontinuities along boundaries between adjacent WFOs. As a result of the collaboration, HPC forecasters make adjustments to their forecasts, and the WFOs, in turn, use HPC's expertise to make modifications to their forecasts. By combining HPC knowledge of the large scale and the WFOs' local expertise, the resultant synergy is yielding better and more consistent NWS forecasts, and moving the NWS closer to its strategic goal of a "seamless" digital forecast. Early results of the collaboration process in the NDFD demonstration areas have been excellent.

As we move toward implementation of the NDFD, other National Centers will join in the collaborative forecast process, the SPC will collaborate on severe local storms, the Tropical Prediction Center on tropical storms, and the Ocean Prediction Center on marine weather. The Climate Prediction Center will also collaborate with WFOs on the Hazards Assessment, which goes out to 14 days, and on longer-range climate products out to one year.

The Devil is in the Details

When the "big picture" people facilitate a change in any organization, it's working out and through the details that causes the most anxiety and frustration for those going through the change. The transition to IFPS and NDFD is no exception.

When first faced with the challenges of working together early in the forecast process to form a consensus solution, forecasters were sometimes overwhelmed. Historically, forecast offices have coordinated their text products late in the forecast process in an attempt to provide consistent forecasts across adjoining areas. With brief text messages as the primary forecast product, forecast differences or inconsistencies were difficult to discern, and could be masked in generalized wording. When our offices are producing gridded information in high temporal and spacial resolution, the differences are apparent. Meeting the vision of a meteorologically consistent forecast database requires a new level of collaboration and coordination earlier in the forecast process, and across multiple levels of the NWS. The transition to using IFPS to produce an NDFD is one of the largest changes that has ever taken place in the way forecasters work.

NWS forecasters are coming to grips with the vision for a national digital forecast database. However, there are still philosophical and technical issues which are contributing to some anxieties and frustrations. Prior to developing detailed gridded forecasts, offices acted with a great deal of autonomy. Forecasters attempted to work out forecast details, but if a fully collaborative solution was not gained, "broad brushed" text products were issued and worded in a way that attempted to minimize the differences. In some cases this even evolved into a friendly competition between offices and forecasters. Collaboration has begun to create more of a sense of an "NWS Forecast" rather than "my" forecast. But, the transition is not complete. While we are working toward collaborating all forecasts, it is not unusual to see differences in the forecast grids that push the limits.

Another technical issue deals with the shear number of grids offices have to produce. Offices are still learning how to best manage their work to keep the NDFD current for our "pull" customers who have requirements to access the latest forecast information available to meet their schedules, and make it consistent across forecast areas and through time. Some offices have adjusted work shifts to focus around the greatest influx of new information into the WFO or to address peak work load in providing information to partners and customers. Offices are beginning to increase contributions to the forecast process from the Hydrometeorological Technicians (HMTs) by having them help with adaptive forecasting and updating the short term forecast grids. Offices are sharing production of forecast grids among multiple forecasters by breaking the grid production process across time scales, or synoptic and mesoscale domains. Many offices have broken the paradigm of starting with a clean slate every time results from a model run or a national guidance product are issued. Instead, they operate from the perspective that the current forecast database is correct until there is sufficient information available to initiate modifications to the grids that are in question. NWS staff are using many different tactics to meet the strategic goal of a high-resolution, up-to-date forecast database.

Forecasters are debating the level of detail required in the gridded forecasts: How much resolution, especially in the mid- and long-range forecast, is scientifically warranted? How much effort should be placed on keeping short-term grids up to date during rapidly changing weather conditions? How do we most effectively use WFO staffing to meet these challenges? Forecasters are starting meet these challenges head on, and feedback from customers, after they have access to the forecast grids, will ultimately answer many of these questions.

The Vision is Becoming a Reality

Forecasters are beginning to better visualize how the data in the forecast grids will be used to provide more useful information to our partners and customers. This information will provide service far superior to the traditional text and limited graphical product suite. IFPS and NDFD give forecasters the opportunity to share more meteorological information with partners and customers, and the opportunity to better support the evolving information extraction, formatting, and decision support tools in the information technology world. As experience in using IFPS to prepare forecasts increases, provincialism and inter-office competition are declining, and forecasters are taking a new sense of pride in working together to develop one NWS consistent product suite.