# Presentation: 718775

## Urban Meteorology Forum

**Urban Meteorology Forum**

**Dr. Jack Hayes**
**Director, NOAA NWS Office of Science & Technology**
**Forum on Challenges in Urban Meteorology/Panel 1: Safety, Health, and Economic Impacts of Weather and Climate in the Urban Environment**
**September 21, 2004**

**Notes:**
Other panel members:

John Dutton (co-moderator)
Ray Ban (co-moderator)
Richard Carbone
Jospehine Malilay (CDC)
Sharon LeDuc

Each gives a 10-min presentation, then 30 minutes for questions.

## Outline

**Outline**

**Weather, Water, and Climate Information Needs**
**Operational Capabilities**
**What Other Information and Capabilities are Needed?**
**S&T Challenges**
**What Should Be Done?**

## Weather, Water, and Climate Needs

**Weather, Water, and Climate Needs**

**Urban decision-makers need quality warnings, forecasts, ****	****and information about:**
***Heat / temperature ***
**to protect at risk people; make utility decisions**
***Drought/water availability***
**to implement conservation measures**
***Winter weather****** ***
**to deploy plows, otherwise minimize                                                 transportation impacts, close schools**
***Flooding***
**to save lives, reroute traffic, protect property **
***Air quality (ozone and particulates)***
**to protect health**
***Dispersion (for Homeland Security)***
-  **to evacuate responsibly**

**Notes:**
Heat/Temperature bullet
-Recall ’95 eastern U.S. heat wave (very high dew points were main culprit) where hundreds of mainly elderly people died in Chicago alone.
-Give utilities better guidance to avoid black outs/brown outs which could make a bad situation worse.

Drought/water availability
-Urban areas heavily tap into water supplies, both in the city and externally.
	LA draws water remotely.
	Even DC/BWI area can use reservoirs from upstate MD during 	droughts.
	Controversy between MD/VA about tapping into Potomac.

Winter weather
-closing schools/businesses.  Preparing plows.

Flooding
Street flooding.  Development in flood plains.

## Operational Capabilities

**Operational Capabilities**

**Observations**** **
***Surface (ASOS, COOP, mesonets)***
***Upper-air (radiosondes, aircraft, profilers)***
**NWP model output**** **
***Hourly and 12 km spatial resolution***
***Air Quality (ozone) model guidance***
**Warnings and forecasts**** **
***Periodic and event-driven                           on county scale***
**Dissemination**
***NOAA Weather Radio, EMWIN, FOS, ...***
***Internet***

**Notes:**
Average resolution of surface observations: 14000 surface obs available today.  ~4000 from AWS Weather Bug in urban areas. ~1000 ASOS nationwide.  Dispersed.  ~250 obs in DC area alone.  

Quality/confidence varies.

## What Other Information is Needed?

**What Other Information is Needed?**

**More specificity**
*** ******Higher spatial & temporal resolution – neighborhood scale***
**Confidence information**
***Probabilistic forecasts***
***Threshold exceedence forecasts***
**Extended range**
***Hurricanes, Winter storms***
***Air quality***
***El Nino, drought, other climate impacts***
**New types of information**
***Particulate forecasts for air quality***
***Water resources***

**Ivan**

## What Other Capabilities are Needed?

**What Other Capabilities are Needed?**

**Improved information access                                          and delivery systems**
***Content, coverage, speed***
**Better formats**
***GIS-based***
**Ability to use weather, water, and climate information to improve decisions**
***How do I use a 75% probability of 6” of snow by 5 a.m. tomorrow to decide whether to close schools tonight?***
***El Nino is expected this winter – what should our city do?***

**Notes:**
Confidence info: 75% chance of >>6 inch snow.  Communities can set own threshold based on forecasts as when to bring in x number of employee to run y number of plows or when to purchase more supplies.

Confidence info can help utilities to produce more/less energy.

El Nino impacts: Relay how presence of El Nino impact urban community to assist seasonal planning (e.g., wetter than average winter could mean more snow—need for more salt/plows).

## S&T Challenges

**Understanding - microscale dynamics and physics**
***Interaction of the atmosphere with complex urban canopies***
**Observations**
***How many observations, measuring what and where?***
**Modeling**
***Data assimilation and modeling on microscale***
***Quantifying uncertainty – ensembles, statistical techniques***
***New products - particulate, water quality, dispersion***
***Verification - mesoscale, microscale***

## S&T Challenges, cont.

**IT**
***Producing urban-scale information will require increased computational and telecommunications capabilities***
**Dissemination - public-private partnerships are critical**
***Better use of existing and staying abreast of new technologies – e.g., PDAs***
**Making use of the information**
***Confidence/probabilistic thresholds for decision-makings***
***Data mining***
***Decision-assistance tools for cause and effect***

## What Should Be Done?

**Educate/train Urban Managers**
***What information is currently available***
***How to use it most effectively***
**Refine what else is needed – requirements **
**Pick low-hanging fruit – quick wins**
**Develop R&D priorities and programs addressing ****	****outstanding needs**
**Form User-Service-Science partnerships to execute**