Ideas for Short Term Improvements in NWS Watch/Warning/Advisory Bulletins Jonathan Porter Meteorologist/ Programmer AccuWeather, Inc – State College, PA Direct Phone: (814)

The Great News! Implementation of VTEC (Valid Time Event Code) has resulted in quicker, more accurate processing of potentially life saving information Big improvement now that it is here! Overall, few problems with VTEC encodings in operational products. We are awaiting much-needed operational VTEC in Flood Products VTEC needed in Tsunami & Air Quality Products! /O.NEW.KMPX.WI.Y T1400Z T2100Z/

Continuous VTEC Issues Lack of standard national set of templates for RiverPro resulting in each office is creating their own templates. Improvement has been seen in the offices using experimental VTEC. Local & National Partners have different needs. Correct VTEC encoding is extremely critical for the private sector. How can the partners help educate? WFO Backup Procedures WOU/WCN Contradiction Issues (Timing)

Looking Toward the Future NWS seems to be moving toward XML encapsulation of WWA bulletins using the Next Generation Warning Software Now that VTEC has been implemented in most products, we would recommend software be developed for pre-dissemination, post product generation bulletin quality control Lack of basic bulletin QC will limit the effectiveness of any efforts to generate CAP messages from current raw text products.

Operational Challenges Partners decode each bulletin and use several key pieces of information to process and route the bulletin to the correct place(s): WMO Header AWIPS Identifier Mass News Disseminator Universal Geographic Code(s) Product Purge Date/Time Valid Time Event Code Software seems to allow forecasters to edit any part of the final text before it goes out with no quality control. In some cases, the public never gets any of the critical information!

Identification of Operational Issues Based on interaction with forecasters, there seems to be little in place to let a forecaster know about an error that may result in incorrect/incomplete decoding of a product. In some offices, the NWR encoding software seems to be used for this purpose. Other offices don’t know about problems until they hear from a partner. WWA software in order of increasing reliability: RiverPro, WarnGen, GHG (high reliability)

Examples IAC ILC AM CDT TUE APR THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN QUAD CITIES HAS ISSUED A * FLOOD WARNING FOR MISSISSIPPI RIVER AT KEITHSBURG * UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. * NO FLOODING IS OCCURRING AND MINOR FLOODING IS FORECAST. $$

Examples /X.NEW.KALY.FL.W T0014Z T1525Z/ /CTVM3.1.ER T0014Z T0700Z T0925Z. UU/ 317 PM EDT MON APR THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALBANY HAS ISSUED A * FLOOD WARNING FOR THE EAST BRANCH OF THE HOUSATONIC AT COLTSVILLE. * FROM THIS EVENING UNTIL TUESDAY MORNING. * AT 2 PM MONDAY THE STAGE WAS FEET. (…) &&

Examples WWUS84 KMOB RFWMOB SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL 425 PM CDT WED JUL ALZ WASHINGTON-CHOCTAW- 425 PM CDT WED JUL STRONG THUNDERSTORM IS BEING DETECTED OVER SOUTHERN WASHINGTON AND NORTHERN CHOCTAW COUNTIES…

Examples AXPZ20 KNHC TWDEP TROPICAL WEATHER DISCUSSION NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 0405 UTC THUD MAR TROPICAL WEATHER DISCUSSION FOR THE EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN FROM THE EQUATOR TO 32N...EAST OF 140W. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS BASED ON SATELLITE IMAGERY...WEATHER OBSERVATIONS...RADAR...AND METEOROLOGICAL ANALYSIS.

Examples WWUS54 KMOB SVSMOB SEVERE WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MOBILE AL 135 PM CDT SAT APR ALC /O.EXP.KMOB.SV.W T0000Z T1830/ CLARKE AL- 135 PM CDT SAT APR

Examples PAC /X.EXT.KPHI.FL.W T0000Z T1000Z/ /LNGP1.3.ER T1526Z T0545Z T0400Z.NO/ 449 PM EDT MON APR PAC /X.EXT.KPHI.FL.W T0000Z T1000Z/ /LNGP1.3.ER T1526Z T0545Z T0400Z.NO/ 449 PM EDT MON APR FLOOD WARNING EXTENDED UNTIL TUESDAY MORNING FOR THE NESHAMINY CREEK AT LANGHORNE * UNTIL TUESDAY MORNING...OR UNTIL THE WARNING IS CANCELLED. * AT 1:00 PM MONDAY THE STAGE WAS 11.2 FEET (…) $$

Solutions For the foreseeable future, critical WWA messages will still be disseminated in raw text bulletins. In order for VTEC to reach its full potential, critical information used for bulletin routing/processing MUST be correct every time. Each piece of WWA software needs to be modified to prevent forecasters from changing encoded data used for routing/processing. (And/Or) Final Product QC software prevents improperly formatted products from being disseminated over NOAAPORT or WeatherWire until they are corrected.

Solutions Preventing these types of critical issues should be much higher priority than producing CAP formatted bulletins. All users currently use raw text bulletins. For the next few years, any CAP messages will need to be generated from raw text bulletins.

Ideas for Short Term Improvements in NWS Watch/Warning/Advisory Bulletins Jonathan Porter Meteorologist/ Programmer AccuWeather, Inc – State College, PA June 20, 2007