# Presentation: 135711

## Perspectives from WFO AMA

- Matthew R. Kramar
- WFO AMA

## Science Issues

- Time from research to publication to ingest into operations
- Lack of understanding of fundamental processes, particularly for formation of tornadoes:
- When will a rotating storm produce a tornado and when won’t it?
- Cyclic, long-track production versus a lone 30 sec. long process
- Even with current knowledge, disparity of knowledge among forecasters results in poor warning decision practices and performance
- Motivation to improve or revisit warning decision process
- Is the best person for the job always where they need to be?
- WFO/Forecaster involvement/collaboration in field research projects

## Technological Issues

- Radar limitations
- Volume scan takes too long
- How can we effect faster updates with current technology when radar is already pushed to its limits?
- Poor spatial distribution of radars
- Detection of damaging winds
- Difficult in cross-radial motions
- AWIPS limitations
- Slow process for cross-sections
- Prolific data sources, no central dispatch
- SpotterNetwork
- GRLevelX
- Mesonet
- Television data (observations, radar, etc.)
- Web-submitted spotter reports

## Technological Issues

- AWIPS Limitations...*continued*
- Often poor algorithmic performance
- Dual-Pol will help with hail, but when will it be available?
- Sparse surface observing network
- Spotters not uniformly distributed
- ASOS/AWOS not consistently dense network
- Mesonets are good, but such density is needed on a larger scale
- Software/Procedural Bugs
- Software and procedures made field-operational (to abide by strict deadlines) before full testing and conceptual kinks can be worked out

## Service Issues

- Warning construction
- Get away from geographic consideration (storm-based should help this issue)
- Tendency of some forecasters to overwarn on marginal storms, or on every storm that rotates
- WarnGen problems
- Slow process
- Editing the warnings in the Text Editor consistently causes format and spacing issues
- Adjusting the polygon for SVS changes the county descriptor
- Much editing required to templates to make them usable (e.g. dime size hail was still included in the template but penny size hail was not)
- Warning dissemination
- NWR is antiquated and problem-riddled
- Cell phone/GPS dissemination
- Iemchat server is unreliable

- 000
- WUUS54 KXXX 050134
- SVRXXX XXC047-050145-
- /O.NEW.KXXX.SV.W.0295.070705T0133Z-070705T0145Z/
- BULLETIN - IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
- SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
- NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE XXXXXXXXXXX XX
- 833 PM CDT WED JUL 4 2007
- THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN XXXXXXXXX HAS ISSUED A
- * SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR...
-   XXXXXX COUNTY IN NORTHERN XXXXXXXXXX...
- * UNTIL 845 PM CDT
- * AT 833 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
- A   SEVERE THUNDERSTORM 4 MILES WEST OF XXXX...MOVING SOUTHEAST AT
-      MPH. HAIL UP TO THE SIZE OF PENNIES AND WINDS OF 60 MPH ARE
- LIKELY.
- * LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE XXXX.
- TAKE SHELTER FROM THE STORM IN A STURDY BUILDING AND MOVE AWAY FROM WINDOWS.
- LAT...LON 3649 9795 3639 9803 3628 9786 3643 9774
- $$

## Service Issues

- Warning awareness
- Data overload
- Spotter reporting
- Verification efforts

## Recommendations/Solutions

- Science
- Find new ways to motivate forecasters to self-assess and improve
- Sometimes old-school is better (e.g. hand analysis)
- Involve field more in academic research field projects
- Continue research into tornadogenesis
- Find improvements to speed refereed publication process

## Recommendations/Solutions

- Technology
- Phased Array (RHI?) or Dual-Pol
- More radar data available to field offices
- CASA?  DOWs?  Local television?
- Local archiving of data for easier/quicker access for post-event analysis
- Larger-scale mesonets
- Improve spotter network
- Outreach
- SHAVE-type contact
- AWIPS-related technology
- Centralize storm report ingest
- Improve speed of storm interrogation (baseline fsi so that the ease of GRLevelX can be available in AWIPS)
- Improve algorithms, and ensure full testing of software with field input before deployment
- Easier method to maintain spotter guide for use in D2D, AWIPS controlled phone?
- Easier way to revisit events than having to reload it on the WES (ArchiveD2D?)

## Recommendations/Solutions

- Service
- Better warning decisions, rather than reactive knee-jerking
- Storm-based warnings (but make sure all kinks are worked out first)
- Proactive report solicitation
- Fix WarnGen and text editor issues
- Develop new technologies for dissemination of warnings in a rapidly evolving technological environment
- More reliable way to incorporate Instant Messenger chat into warning operations
- Locally-developed software used at WFO AMA to help in warning operations awareness:
- LSRPlot
- ECLAIRS (a WHIRL derivative)