One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation By Eddie Brooks, P.E. Chief, Watershed Management Division Mississippi Valley Division Oct 30-31, 2007 Annual Tri-Agency Water Control Meeting

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation  Objective – Public requires the best possible forecast!  Authority – NWS (NOAA) has legal responsibility for issuing weather and river forecasts to the public; Corps has responsibility for project operations which requires developing a forecast!  Challenge – How to meet objective within authority? Mississippi River Forecasts

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Corps Authority ER Water Control Management Paragraph 6. General Policies. Sub-paragraph H.  “In carrying out water control activities, Corps of Engineers personnel must recognize and observe the legal responsibility of the National Weather Service (NWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for issuing weather forecasts and flood warnings, including river discharges and stages. River forecasts prepared by the Corps of Engineers in the execution of its responsibilities should not be released to the general public, unless the NWS is willing to make the release or agrees to such dissemination. However, release to interested parties of factual information on current storms or river conditions and properly quoted NWS forecasts is permissible. District offices are encourage to provide assistance to communities and individuals regarding the impact of forecasted floods. Typical advice would be to provide approximate water surface elevations at locations upstream and downstream of the NWS forecasting stream gages. Announcement of anticipated changes in reservoir release rates as far in advance as possible to the general public is the responsibility of Corps of Engineers water control managers for projects under their jurisdiction.”

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation NWS Authority 15 USC 313  Duties. The Secretary of Commerce … shall have charge of the forecasting of the weather, the issuance of storm warnings, the display of weather and flood signals for the benefit of agriculture, commerce, and navigation, the gauging and reporting of rivers, the maintenance and operation of sea coast telegraph lines and the collection and transmission of marine intelligence for the benefit of commerce and navigation, the reporting of temperature and rainfall conditions for the cotton interests, the display of frost and cold-wave signals, the distribution of meteorological information in the interests of agriculture and commerce, and the taking of such meteorological observations as may be necessary to establish and record the climatic conditions of the United States, or as are essential for the proper execution of the foregoing duties.

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Challenges  “Suite” of Forecasts – Forecasts for everyone!  Importance of Forecasts to Corps – Need for successful operations of Corps projects!  Forecast Accuracy – How close is close enough?  Forecast Period – How far out, 5 days?  Forecast Trust – How to gain public trust?  Forecast Uncertainty – How to convey the uncertainty to the public?

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Challenges  Forecast Agreement Between Corps & NWS – Operational Forecast vs. Public Forecast?  Daily Time Constraints – When is data required by NWS & Corps?  Data Requirements – With QPF & Without QPF!  L&D gate operations – Timely reporting of changes!  Towing Industry Notification – Reason to notify, When & Who?

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Challenges “We’ve always done it this way!”

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Progress  Regional Inter-Agency River Forecasters Meeting – Initial meeting in July 2007  MVD Operations & Water Control Meeting with River Industry – 10 October 2007  MVD developing process to improve Corps operational forecasts per 10 Oct 07 meeting

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation  Draft forecasting process

August COE Days 1, 3, 5 vs Actual Flow at L&D 22

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation What Can We See?

One Corps Serving the Armed Forces and the Nation Conclusions  There are numerous different river forecasts for the same location  Corps offices don’t agree on forecasts  One forecast with or without QPF is no longer adequate  NWS is THE forecast agency and we MUST support them  Keep plugging