Building a Weather-Ready Nation
Christopher Strager
National Weather Service
Director, Office of Climate, Water and Weather Services
Carnegie Mellon University
December 9, 2013
Case for Change
“Average” Year and Trends in the U.S.
650 Deaths
$15B in Losses
26,000 Severe
Thunderstorms
6 Atlantic Basin
Hurricanes
1,300 Tornadoes
5,000 Floods
Regardless of the cause, the
trend shows an increasing
number of extreme weather
events at increasing cost to
the nation.
(Image source: 2011 Half-Year Natural
Catastrophes Review USA by Munich Re August
25, 2011)
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Case for Change
Extreme events well forecast…but
Flood Outlook months
in advance of historical
2011 flooding
Sandy’s “Left Turn” Forecast Path
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May 2013 Moore, OK
Tornado ~16 minutes
before formation
(36 min. before arriving
in Moore)
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Case for Change
Southeast Tornado Outbreak
April 27-28, 2011
96% of tornadoes located
within SPC Watch
Ave. Warning Lead Time =
24 minutes
Coordination calls with
emergency managers
beginning on day 3
Deadliest outbreak
since 1932
~190 tornadoes
~311 fatalities
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NWS Strategic Outcome:
Weather Ready Nation
Norman, OK (Dec., 2011)
Birmingham, AL (April, 2012)
• Identify, prioritize, and set in motion
actions to improve the nation's resiliency
against severe weather.
• Brought together physical and social
scientists to develop an interdisciplinary
research plan
• Generated 39 action items and 12
recommended projects
• Focus on “last mile”: delivery of warnings
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NWS Strategic Outcome
Weather-Ready Nation
Becoming a WeatherReady Nation is about
building community
resilience in the face of
increasing vulnerability
to extreme weather.
NOAA is developing new decision support services,
improving technology to track and forecast storms, and
expanding its dissemination efforts to achieve farreaching national preparedness for weather events.
Decreasing Vulnerability by Increasing Resilience
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Weather-Ready Nation
Timeline
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NWS Strategic Outcome:
Strategic Goals
Weather-Ready Nation Strategic Goals
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Improve Weather Decision Services
Improve Water Forecasting Services
Enhance climate services and adapt
to climate-related risks
Improve sector-relevant information
in support of economic productivity
Integrate environmental forecast
services supporting healthy
communities and ecosystems
Sustain a highly skilled, professional
workforce equipped with training,
tools, and infrastructure to meet
mission
IDSS
Outreach to Public
S&T Advances
Information Delivery
Innovative Partnerships
Research to
Ops/Ops to
Research
Points to an Earth-System Science Approach
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Impact-based Decision Support Services
IDSS has four elements:
Better understanding of societal impacts.
Making our information more relevant to
decision makers.
Participating directly in decision making for
those decisions fundamental to the role of
government, especially the protection of life
and property.
Counting on market forces to provide
diverse decision-support services across the
entire economy.
IDSS requires “whole office” culture shift
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Impact-based Decision Support Services
Recent Successes:
Impact-based Warning
Demonstration (2012-current)
Experimental in Central Region
National Scout Jamboree (July 2013)
Pilot Projects (4 WFOs, 2 Ops Centers)
Emergency Response Specialists
Building relationships
Oklahoma tornado events (May 2013)
Webinar and other partner outreach
morning of Moore event
Supporting recovery efforts with
continued severe weather threats
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“The information you and the weather
service provided us ultimately saved
more lives than we could ever count.”
--Shane Cohea, Moore Medical Center
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Pilot Projects: Emergency Response Specialists
Properly-trained ERS able to provide
higher-level decision support
Numerous successful deployments over
past 2 years
Very positive qualitative feedback
Hard to quantify how effective – so
decision support metrics are being
developed
Pilot projects efforts contributing to
national ERS training plan
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Pilot Projects: Building Relationships
Many agencies are not aware of the
information and services NWS provides
All agencies have severe weather
operations plans and must protect
employees and facilities
Participation in meetings, interagency
exercises, and drills is critical…can’t just
sweep in during an event
Goal is to make NWS interaction part of
the standard operating procedures of
core partner agencies
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Outreach to Public
Action-oriented
Consistent messaging
Vulnerable populations
Recent successes:
Weather-Ready Nation webpage
Greater exposure of campaigns
“Turn Around…Don’t Drown”
“When Thunder Roars…Go Indoors”
“Be a Force of Nature”
National Severe Weather Preparedness Week
Brickyard 400 Public Service Announcement
National Preparedness Month/”Prepareathon”
Young Meteorologist Program/Owlie
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Science and Technology Advances
Model Upgrades
Tsunami Detection
State-of-the-Art Radar
Next-Generation
Satellites
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Weather-Ready Nation
Sandy Supplemental: Model Improvements
Increasing NCEP Global Model Horizontal Resolution
Improves Hurricane Sandy Track Guidance
7-Day Sea level Pressure (mb) Forecast
Operational (~ 27km)
Experiment (~ 13km)
Note: Last 24h of the
high resolution
experiment track based
on 6h model output
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Weather-Ready Nation
Sandy Supplemental Planned Upgrades
Run NWS Global Forecast Systems at higher
resolution (13km) out to 10 days
High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR)
3 km resolution
Run every hour
Ensembles: Higher Resolutions
Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) (going
from 55km to 35km)
Short Range Ensemble Forecast (SREF) (going from
16km to 12km)
Hurricane Models (3km)
Accelerate Storm Surge Modeling for NY, NJ, and
New England
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Weather-Ready Nation
Sandy Supplemental Augmentation
1900
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Weather-Ready Nation
Sandy Supplemental
Congress funding $97M to improve NWS Forecast Services
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Computer
Upgrades
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Physical Science
Research
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Observations
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Social Science Research
Models
Improved Surge Forecast
Designed to Improve:
Preparedness
Response/Recovery
Resilience
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
S&T Advances…Social Science
Changing NOAA/NWS
Fundamental Warning Paradigm
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Information Delivery
Deliver through multiple sources…
Social Media
Wireless Emergency Alerts
interactiveNWS (iNWS)
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Recent Case Study
Midwest Tornado Outbreak
November 17, 2013
4th Largest November Tornado Outbreak:
~50 tornadoes, 6 fatalities
Coordination calls with FEMA and state
emergency managers 3 days in advance
4 Days
36 Hours
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12 Hours
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Taking NWS to the Next Level
Weather Forecast Office of Future
Establishing better consistency
Grids out to 10 days
Model blender project for consistent
products
Institutionalizing IDSS
Focusing on impacts
Aligning output directly toward partner
requirements, including various formats
WCMs and SCHs play a key role in building a
Weather-Ready Nation
June 2014 WCM/SCH Conference: Focus on
strengthening partnerships with participation from key
stakeholders, including emergency managers and social
scientists
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Strengthening Partnerships
We need partners’ help in transforming
society to become ready, responsive and
resilient to increasing extreme weather
threats.
Building a Weather-Ready Nation requires
the entire Weather Enterprise to work
together to deliver information for better
community, business, and personal
decision making.
▪ SOCIETAL RESPONSE EQUAL TO RISK ▪
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Strengthening Partnerships
WRN Ambassadors
Resilience as high priority
Preparedness
Responsiveness
Mitigation
Innovative partnerships
Reinvigorate existing relationships
Create new relationships
Consistent messaging
More effective communication with public
Rising above the “noise” of daily life
PEOPLE • PARTNERSHIPS • DIALOGUE
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We Are In This Together
Government
Emergency
Management
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Academia
Private Sector
Broadcast
Media
Social
Science
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Questions?
christopher.strager@noaa.gov
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= Nov 24-26, 1950 (27.4 in)
= Dec 16-18, 1890 (25.9 in)
= Mar 12-14, 1993 (25.3 in)
= Feb 5-6, 2010 (21.9 in)
= Jan 8-9, 1886 (18.5 in)
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