| NOAA's NWS Focus |
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| April 28, 2003 |
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Ashby Hawse (left) and Richard Norton test the new
Radiosonde Replacement System, launching old and new
radiosondes in tandem. Caribou provides a more challenging
environment to test the GPS performance of the sonde
because it has wind conditions not readily available
at the Sterling, VA, test site. Hawse is an engineer
with the NWS Test and Evaluation office, Sterling VA,
and Norton is a hydrometeorlogical technician at WFO
Caribou.
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NOAA Weather TV?
NWS Evaluates Sets with All-Hazards Feature
Next month, NWS employees
at WFOs across the country will evaluate Thomson/RCA Alert Guard
- a technology that will bring the NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) transmission
into the homes of consumers via television. Under the terms of a
reimbursable special studies agreement, RCA will send 22 evaluation
television sets to participating
WFOs.
Through the agreement, employees will evaluate
the televisions' capability to receive NOAA Specific
Area Message Encoding (SAME) transmissions, according
to Stan Johnson, NWR Program Manager. "The SAME technology,
allows consumers to program their NWR receivers for
specific geographic areas, such as their county.
This minimizes annoying false-alarms," Johnson said.
A
January 8, 2003, Thomson/RCA press release said
that the Alert Guard TVs enable consumers for the
first time to monitor emergencies even when the
television is tuned to a cable channel, playing
a VHS tape or DVD, viewing a satellite channel,
or playing a video game.
In the same press release, Michael D. O'Hara, Executive
Vice President of Thomson/RCA's Worldwide Consumer
Products Marketing and Sales said, "With RCA Alert
Guard, television viewers can expect their family
television to keep a constant vigil on ever-changing
conditions through the extensive digital broadcasts
of the NOAA Weather Radio network."
"The ability of NWR to effectively reach a
larger audience will be significantly enhanced by
Thomson's [RCA's] introduction of Alert Guard television
sets," said Ken Putkovich, Chief of NWS Dissemination
Systems. "Thomson's integration of what appears
to be a very high quality NWR receiver into a TV
set, using a 'smart' interface that makes programming
extremely simple, is an excellent example of what
public/private partnerships developed over the past
ten years by the NWR Program Office have achieved."
"Our goal is for all persons at risk to get timely
weather and hazard information" said Herb White,
NWS Dissemination Services Manager. "No matter what
receiver is used, we hope everyone makes the NOAA
all hazards system part of their family preparedness
plan."
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Savings on Travel
to Reward Travelers with Cash
Employees who save
the NWS money while on official travel can now get rewarded for
their efforts.
The Gainsharing Travel Savings Program will award employees 50
percent of the savings, usually the result of using less expensive
lodging and/or from use of frequent flyer benefits for the purchase
of airline tickets or lodging.
In most cases, the cumulative savings to the agency must be at
least $200 before the employee is eligible to receive an award.
Taxes will be withheld (federal, state, local, FICA) on the award
amount.
More information and instructions are available at either the NWS
best practices web site or the NOAA
travel web site.
Employees should not incur additional expenses in transportation
or other miscellaneous costs in an effort to reduce lodging expenses.
Employees who incur additional transportation expenses must have
those expenses deducted from their lodging savings.
Employee participation in this program is optional. All employees
and managers can participate with the exception of Senior Executive
Service members.
This program was initially suggested by the National Weather
Service Employees Organization and is being implemented with its
full cooperation.
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NOAA Web Page
Gets Redesign
NOAA recently launched
a new look for its popular home page. The new design still maintains
the information and links that surfers have come to expect. The improvements
include a front-page link to the latest weather conditions across
the United States from NOAA's National Weather Service. You can also
find beach temperatures, navigation charts, drought and fire weather
information, and the latest satellite images of world events. Read
the full
news story here.
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Storm, Flash Flood
Training Modules Now Web-Based
Spring is the time of
year when many forecasters' thoughts turn to.convective weather and
flood forecasting. To help forecasters to sharpen their skills for
these events, the Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology,
Education and Training (COMET) has just released web versions of
two of its most popular CD modules:
Convective storms remain among the most difficult to
forecast accurately. Mesoscale convective systems (MCSs)
are particularly challenging because they include all
of the severe weather types associated with individual
cells but can also include longer-lived and more widespread
events, such as large areas of heavy rain and large
swaths of damaging winds. The ability to anticipate
possible system structures, motions, and lifetimes
has important implications for forecasting convective
events.
Dave Sharp, Science and Operations Officer in the
Melbourne WFO, says that the CD versions of these
modules played an important role "in raising the
level of competency and understanding...here at NWS
Melbourne in the area of severe local storms." Regarding
the new web versions, he commented "Having these
available on the web for quick operational reference
will make it that much easier for forecasters throughout
the country to deal with convection and the severe
weather it brings."
In addition to these modules, check out the COMET
Program's other modules listed under the "Convective
Weather" and "Hydrology/Flooding" topics in the main
menu of the MetEd web site (http://www.meted.ucar.edu).
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Late-Blooming
Forecaster Profiled by Newspaper
Ellie Kelch of the Albany,
NY, Weather Forecast Office was the subject of a recent article in
the Albany Times Union. The article focused on Kelch's mid-life
career transformation which took her from a job at K-Mart to a position
as an NWS meteorologist. Read the story by
clicking here.
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NWS Office Director
Wins Leadership Award
NWS Chief Information
Officer (CIO) Barry West earned a Pioneer
Award from the Secure E-Business Executive Summit for 2003. The
Secure E-Business Executive Committee honored several government
programs and individuals with its 2003 SecurE-Biz awards at a recent
ceremony in Arlington, VA.
The SecureE-Biz leadership awards "recognize
programs that have helped further e-business transformation." West's
award was for his contributions to the Federation
of Government Information Processing Councils (FGIPC)
and work as NWS CIO. West was honored for "taking
the arrows to usher in change to further implement
the President's agenda."
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Pay Increase Update
According to the National
Finance Center, a retroactive one percent pay increase effective
January 12, 2003, will be processed in pay period 10 (official pay
date June 12, 2003), based on the Executive Order signed by President
Bush on March 21, 2003.
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NWS Performance
Measures Updated
The 2003 NWS National
Performance Measures graphics are now available for download.
As part of the Government Performance and Results Act, each year
government agencies update their performance measures and significant
service milestones. The NWS graphics for 2003 now include actual
performance figures for 2002, as well as performance measure goals
through 2008.
This year, NWS includes an additional performance goal and chart.
Previously, a combined marine wind speed wave height accuracy score
was being tracked, but now there are separate goals for both wind
speed and wave height accuracy.
A one-page summary chart of performance goals is available by clicking
here. A full package, including the summary chart and graphs
of each of the performance measures is available by clicking
here.
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Take
a look at other NWS news, as submitted for the NOAA
Weekly Report
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Click
here to take a look at NOAA-wide employee news, as posted
in the latest issue of AccessNOAA
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Send
questions and comments to NWS.Communications.Office@noaa.gov or
mail to:
National Weather
Service
Communications Office
ATTN: W/COM
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3283
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