The Importance of Collaboration with the Current California Drought Chris Stachelski National Weather Service Las Vegas, NV NOAA California Drought Service Assessment Team Member

Why Is Collaboration Important? Most service assessments have recurring themes, including this one, with issues stemming from:  Products and services did not meet the needs of users.  Lack of internal NOAA line office communication and/or coordination.  Communication with external users lacked.  Infrastructural and technological issues hampered the ability for the mission to be done effectively. May 2015 NOAA’s California Drought Service Assessment Released: 72 Pages Long 72 Pages Long Findings and recommendations found needs in key areas. Findings and recommendations found needs in key areas.

It Starts With How Drought Develops Doesn’t show up on a operational computer model or radar like most big ticket weather events do before they hit. Discovered in hindsight after drought has started and data is analyzed. It’s political. Drought in some states, including California, must be declared by the governor. This makes the word somewhat ‘taboo’ in use before drought is official. All of this creates a communications challenge from the very beginning!

And It Snowballs From There… Need to coordinate with other agencies and decision makers on impacts and what will happen even early on but what happens when drought is unofficial? Seeing green and water around makes it tough to sell a drought to the public. Irrigation dominates in populated areas and reservoirs are far way. Climate – natural dry season or onset of drought in winter when plants are dormant – can create challenges in seeing drought develop or making the case for it. Wow Factor! Meteorologists don’t get as excited about drought. Not as much fun as a hurricane, snowstorm, flood or tornado to watch.

Drought Touches Everyone Agriculture Environment Water Resources Economics Need to think multi-disciplinary to achieve effective messaging! Users want to know how it will impact their ‘world’!

Users Take On The Traditional Service Assessment Finding: Many users did not rely on some NOAA products such as outlooks because they did not understand them. We need to ask ourselves who understands a product, not just issue it and hope they do! Many felt their was a ‘mystique’ to some products, mainly long range forecasts. How was what was being displayed decided? There was no clear way to know this and this makes it hard to sell to users!

Misunderstandings Hinder Service Assessment Findings: High degree of misinformation exists regarding El Niño and what it could mean to California in terms of winter precipitation and temperatures. Agricultural users are not clear about how the USDM is produced, what the process is for reporting impacts, or how impacts reported inform the USDM process. WFOs have to educate users on myths with product messaging to clear up confusion. But how does info this get back to national centers to improve overall messaging?

Users Will Shop Around For Info High-Level Service Assessment Finding: Default national-level products lacked the level of detail and clarity users wanted. Users felt WFOs have better local expertise. Users will come directly to WFOs for info even if you are not an ‘expert’ on these product’s content. But WFOs rarely had direct contact with CPC early on. Outlooks from CPC “sometimes just put a big blob over California”. – CA DWR employee, August 2014 Some products look the same in 2015 as they did in 1995 in the DIFAX era. Today’s users want more details on maps and in products and will seek this out somehow.

Need For The “Big Picture” Water resources – increasingly important area for NWS especially with National Water Center. Service Assessment High Level Finding: Many water users need the “whole” view of water – not just flooding info but low water flows. Current river focus in NWS mainly on flooding. Need to develop full natural flows. Need to expand NOAA partnerships with other agencies. This would also benefit agencies beyond those with hydro interests such as environmental and ecology sectors.

Collaboration Challenges Some office locations away from populated centers and key partners Staffing structure and office operations still designed for needs of the Modernization era (20 years old) Developing user friendly products and services with skill set of staff

Successes In Collaboration Media messaging was effective. Some utilities did not have to advertise to promote saving water because the media did such a good job covering it as news. Media messaging was effective. Some utilities did not have to advertise to promote saving water because the media did such a good job covering it as news. WFOs worked to establish s to partners to push out information. WFOs worked to establish s to partners to push out information. Social media. Social media. Coordination calls led by WFO Sacramento for USDM input. Coordination calls led by WFO Sacramento for USDM input. Collocated RFC with California Department of Water Resources in same building fosters more effectively collaborating to produce river condition forecasts and create customizable water supply briefings that play a significant role in decision support in managing state water. Collocated RFC with California Department of Water Resources in same building fosters more effectively collaborating to produce river condition forecasts and create customizable water supply briefings that play a significant role in decision support in managing state water.

Future Collaboration Use WFOs to push out national products locally but provide national resources to WFOs for clarification needs. Use WFOs to push out national products locally but provide national resources to WFOs for clarification needs. Utilize Regional Operations Centers to coordinate between WFO and National Centers. Utilize Regional Operations Centers to coordinate between WFO and National Centers. Hold drought exercises with partners. Hold drought exercises with partners. Promote more cross-office research projects such as those in the Russian River Basin (Habitat Blueprint). Promote more cross-office research projects such as those in the Russian River Basin (Habitat Blueprint).

In Summary: Why Collaborate? Help WFOs to evolve into outlets for services throughout NOAA. Help WFOs to evolve into outlets for services throughout NOAA. Foster ability to tap into the full suite of environmental intelligence NOAA can offer. Foster ability to tap into the full suite of environmental intelligence NOAA can offer. Current approach very piecemeal in distributing information, research and product development. Better collaboration would foster more partnerships and a better exchange of information and resources. Current approach very piecemeal in distributing information, research and product development. Better collaboration would foster more partnerships and a better exchange of information and resources. Messaging would be more consistent. Users should not get different info from different parts of NOAA. Messaging would be more consistent. Users should not get different info from different parts of NOAA.

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