# Presentation: 168190

## Information BriefingNational Weather ServiceServices EvolutionEvolving Our Concept of OperationsOctober 24, 2006Ben WeigerChief, Hydrologic Services Branch

**Notes:**
In the past, the National Weather Service successfully designed, planned, and with our colleagues throughout NOAA, we implemented a major plan for change—the modernization and restructuring of the National Weather Service.  We changed the way we did business and took advantage of science and technology to better support America.  For the last 6 years we’ve been living off the fruits of those efforts.  The National Weather Service is one of the Nation’s most important and trusted federal agencies, touching the lives of every American and every American business every day.  

## Overview	

**CONOPS: Why are we doing this?**
**NOAA Vision & Mission Goals**
**NWS Services Evolution**
**The Way Forward—A “Phase of Discovery”**
**Closing Thoughts**

**Notes:**
We are striving to maintain that status by exploring and defining how the NWS operations should evolve by 2015.  It’s a National Weather Service that moves from detection-based operations in which we observe a severe weather event and provide public warnings, to one in which we forecast hours in advance when a severe thunderstorm might occur or a tornado/other high impact weather event could form.  Improvements like these require substantial investment of forecasters’ time, new technology, and new science.   None of these improvements come cheap or easy, but the benefits for our Nation far outweigh any of the costs associated with evolving our services into the future National Weather Service.

The NWS is undertaking these initiatives now to ensure we stay ahead of evolving needs.  The NWS is managing this change initiative in a transparent way with the workforce and constituents.  While this creates some challenges in that people want to have answers before the questions have even been fully formed, we believe being open means exposing ideas for dialogue before they have been demonstrated or tested.  We also believe transparency and involving our users and employees in the process is the best way to move forward. 

The Services Evolution initiatives the NWS is undertaking include Aviation service improvement, IT consolidation, and the Concept of Operations (CONOPS).  This presentation discusses the CONOPS because it is an important foundation from which to begin our conversation.

Change is part of our world—and that’s especially so for a science-based service organization like the National Weather Service.  These changes mean new tasks, new missions, new tools, and new science are always with us.  

The first answer to the question “Why change your CONOPS?” is--“As a science-based organization, how could we not change our CONOPS?”  The question is really whether we’ll lead changes or watch them lead us.

From the NWS perspective, we must be positioned to sustain the NWS’s mission to protect lives and property through infusing new science and technology.  Meanwhile there is the need and an opportunity to evolve to meet the broader NOAA concept of operations vision to become an Integrated Environmental Information Service Provider.

This briefing will outline our efforts to position the agency for continued success in that framework. 

## CONOPS: Why are we doing this?

*So we can do more***...**
** ****Within the NWS**
** ****With other parts of NOAA**
** ****With other agencies**
**Through more effective use of existing resources**
*and better***....**
**Better performance during **_**high impact events**_
**Through, better research, better outreach, better training, better knowledge of impacts**

**Notes:**
We have a real opportunity to evolve our services to meet society’s evolving weather, water, and climate needs and become a NOAA integrated environmental information service provider.  We also believe our future relevance requires us to act now.  The Nation needs new services that we should provide.  We need to catch up with and apply new technology that is changing the way our critical customers in public safety and our stakeholders in the Weather Enterprise do business.  We are operating with increasingly dated technology in an outmoded concept of operations, designed more than 20 years ago, before the Internet, GIS, high speed communications, and other technological advances.  We must evolve into an even more effective operation to meet customer demands for new and improved services, and address homeland security needs.  We are adapting now to meet future integrated environmental information service needs.

## NOAA Vision & Mission Goals

**Vision:**
*An informed society that uses a comprehensive understanding of the role of the oceans, coasts, and atmosphere in the global ecosystem to make the best social and economic decisions.*
**Mission Goals:**
- Protect, Restore, and Manage the Use of Coastal and Ocean Resources Through an Ecosystem Approach to Management
- Understand Climate Variability and Change to Enhance Society’s Ability to Plan and Respond
- Serve Society’s Needs for Weather and Water Information
**To Protect Life and Property, and provide support to the Security of our Homeland**
- Support the Nation’s Commerce with Information for Safe, Efficient, and Environmentally Sound Transportation
- Provide Critical Support for NOAA’s Mission

**Notes:**
It’s important that we look at the future National Weather Service in the context of our parent agency’s operations model.  NOAA’s vision is to evolve into an Integrated Environmental Information Service Provider that creates a collaborative forecast and service relationship between the various arms of NOAA.

Much like the NOAA research and operations elements including the NWS, OAR, NESDIS, NOS, and NMFS, the NOAA Strategic Plan’s four Mission Goals are interrelated.  The NOAA of the future will share common science and technology capabilities and meet many stakeholders’ needs in an integrated way.  Our weather, water, and climate information is an integral part of NOAA’s environmental mission and should be incorporated into the operational practices throughout NOAA programs.  For example, our water runoff forecasts are critical to oyster bed harvests or potential beach closures/harmful algal blooms.  In this way, societal needs are evolving toward environmental prediction, or an “ecosystem-based” prediction capability.  For example, an ecosystems approach to management requires information on weather, water, and climate and must take a holistic approach that considers homeland security interests, commerce and transportation interests, fisheries interests, coastal zone management, etc.  

## NWS Services EvolutionNWS of the Future

**NWS 2015 Vision for Services Evolution**
**Provide superior, focused response for high-impact events while maintaining excellence in other important services**
**Strengthen partnerships with all sectors**
**Create capacity (more time) to support high-impact events and integrate NOAA environmental information services (e.g., water quality forecasting)**
**Accelerate science & technology infusion**
**Enhance employee work life**

**Notes:**
 As NWS services evolve, our mission to issue forecasts and warnings to protect lives and livelihoods remain paramount in our thinking and planning.   We are not going to compromise our continued commitment to excellence in all of the services we provide, but we are going to create capacity (more time) through improved management of our existing staff resources to support the broader NOAA mission.
     What kind of “National Weather Service” will the U.S. have in ten or twenty years?  Will it be just weather?  Or will it evolve toward a broader range of environmental information services?  Even today, NWS is moving toward a wider range of environmental information services with air quality and UV forecasts and some NWS offices working with NOS and NMFS on harmful algal blooms. 

     We need to start now to create a future when we provide a broad set of NOAA environmental information services that are as highly valued and well known as our Hurricane warnings are today.  A time:
when we are able to adopt new science and technology into a more agile infrastructure
and to build a more effective organization to take full advantage of these improvements
and to focus our efforts on delivering superior services during the high-impact events that matter the most to our customers.

     It is not enough to just have a vision for the future.  We have to plan for it.  We have to recognize the strengths we have and the opportunities that a changing world affords us.  And we also have to be frank about our weaknesses and the barriers to achieving this goal.  We are exploring how we can create the capacity to take on new and evolving roles within our existing infrastructure.  So we are still in the relatively early stages of this exploration process, but we have a clear vision. 

## NWS Services EvolutionCase for Change

**Goal:  Maintain and improve our status as *****the***** standard for the weather enterprise by remaining relevant in a rapidly evolving digital age.**
**Meeting the increasing demands for services in the digital age and beyond**
**Applying evolving science and technology **
**Working even more effectively**

**Notes:**
I.  Meeting the increasing demands for services in the digital age and beyond:  NWS forecasters today provide a broad range of services beyond the forecasts and warnings, which we call decision support assistance for high-impact events.
The current concept of operations evolved before the Internet and other communications technologies, which revolutionized the expectations of our customers.  Many communications innovations have changed the way we coordinate with our users including local TV meteorologists and emergency managers.  The capability to use Instant Messaging with on-air meteorologists, or others to instantly communicate the evolving conditions of a particular high-impact event shows much promise. Today, many of our offices are looking at ways to integrate these kinds of techniques within their decision support services toolkit.  
Many of our public safety customers are now expecting GIS graphical forecasts and warnings through mobile technology--their Blackberry, cell phones, etc.  The National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD) grids are obviously a major step forward in being able to provide this kind of service.  We've improved our abilities at the WFO level to generate NDFD grids but we need to continue to find ways to improve our service delivery in all of our offices so we can create additional time required to manage high-impact event decision support services.  
Homeland Security threats, including demands at the state and local level, require increased NWS service support.  Homeland Security support isn't just a Federal government issue.  Many local and state government agencies are keenly interested in having forecasters at their Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) for drills and emergencies.  We are being asked to provide observation and forecast information remotely and on-site to emergency responders.  In addition to our fire weather and HAZMAT responsibilities, the NWS Incident Meteorologist (IMET) program supports first responders following terrorist attacks.  This IMET concept has great operational value for NOAA’s environmental services and, if used effectively in a new CONOPS, may provide great additional value to customers for many high-impact events. 
We are also increasingly called upon to provide services to broader NOAA-centric events, such as the massive algal bloom in 2005 that devastated the shellfish industry and affected tourism in the New England area.  
These are great opportunities to evolve our mission beyond what it is today to meet the changing needs of society.  NOAA’s ability to integrate vast amounts of data for the protection of lives and livelihoods is a tremendous asset for the Nation.  Extending that capability by providing NOAA public health services integrated with weather, water, and climate expertise is not only an opportunity but an obligation. 

II.  Applying evolving science and technology: 
New Science and Technology Infusion Needed
NEXRAD 20 year old technology  
AWIPS aging
Because of rising fixed costs and the reduced budgets in FY 05 and FY 06, the NWS has had to defer program maintenance and technology upgrades, including important system upgrades to Advanced Weather Information Processing System, Automated Surface Observing System, NEXRAD radar, the Upper Air program, and Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service, all of which are vital to the services of the National Weather Service. 
We aren’t investing enough in the future to maintain, or evolve, our services to meet new needs.  The NWS’s performance targets were originally designed assuming healthy infrastructure, adequate training, and adequate funding for technology upgrades and maintenance.  

III.  Working even more effectively:
NWS Operating Model designed 20 years ago before technology revolution (we provide great services, but it won’t always be that way if we don’t evolve to meet changing needs)
Create new capacity through new concept of operation that increases effectiveness of existing staff resources.  This will create unused time that can be dedicated to improved high-impact event (weather, water, climate, homeland security, etc.) and new NOAA Integrated Environmental Information Services.
Meet Customers’ needs more effectively for high-impact events by providing additional public safety decision support services.
An even more effective NWS producing increasingly valuable services for our customers under a new CONOPS will help us demonstrate our continued relevance to America, making it more likely we’ll continue to gain the resources we need to save lives and property and enhance the economy. 

## NWS Services EvolutionGuiding Principles for Change

**Maintain 122 Weather Forecast Offices. ***( No change in field office structure.)  *
**There will be no degradation of service. **
**We will provide equitable services across the Nation. **
**We will continue to be transparent in our planning. **
**We will demonstrate operability, performance, effectiveness, and efficiency before committing to changes. **

## NWS Services Evolution Key Operational Shifts

**Producers of Our Forecasts**
**Static Resource Allocation**
**Phenomenon-Based Forecasts**
**Product-Based Services**
**Coordination**
**Weather-Centric**
**Deterministic**
**(best forecast)**

**Customers of Our Expertise**
**Dynamic Resource Allocation**
**Impact-Based Forecasts**
**Decision Support Services**
**Collaboration**
**Earth System Science-Based**
**Probabilistic**
**(uncertainty range)**

- _Current Operations_

- _Future Operations_

- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.

**Notes:**
In response to the Corporate Board Charter, the CONOPS Tiger Team developed a series of Key Operational Shifts that they believed are necessary for the future.   The Corporate Board agreed with them.  These are important in order to understand the depth of what we are trying to address in the Services Evolution planning efforts.  
1. Producers of our forecasts to customers of our own expertise
     Customers of our own expertise:  How we use our information is becoming more dynamic with resource allocation requirements.  We ask our customers to make decisions based on our forecasts every day, and many of our Nation’s emergency managers already use our forecasts, on scales from days to months, to help them make resource decisions and to preposition assets to optimize their ability to respond.  We can apply the same strategy and extend what many of our staff are already doing within the office to assign resources and prepare for severe weather events to the entire cluster.  Use this knowledge for shift planning and other similar resource decisions. 
2.  Static Resource Allocation to Dynamic Resource Allocation
     This key operation shift moves NWS operations from static resource allocation to dynamic resource allocation.  It gains efficiencies by utilizing staff time across organizational boundaries and improves services by allowing forecasters to concentrate on high-impact events while sustaining accuracy and consistency of the basic forecast suite.  For example, when dozens of supercell thunderstorms are in a WFO’s County Warning Area, the affected office might transfer responsibilities for producing the basic forecast suite to a peer office in the cluster that isn’t in the line of fire.
     Many of our WFOs already operate this way within their offices on every shift – we think expanding this concept to encompass multiple offices in a cluster, with the entirety of the cluster’s resources organized to meet the most important needs of our customers, is an important feature of the future NWS.  
3.  Phenomenon Based Forecasts (forecasting the snow)  to Impact Based Forecasts
     Impact Based Forecasts:  We should not get hung up on the definition of an event, but increase our focus on the impact of the event on the society around us and communicate information to customers that will help them evaluate the impacts.  Use additional time to gain understanding of external impacts of cluster-peer customers (e.g., thresholds for customers like snow closures, or the River Authority that makes decisions on water releases based on rain amounts).  We also need to adjust our verification scheme to take into account how we’re meeting customer’s impact based needs.  There are many examples of this principle, e.g. Aviation forecasts (where a small wind shift can sometimes have a big impact) or snow forecasts (where an event that is commonplace and low impact in one place has a huge impact if it happens somewhere else). 
4.  Product-Based Services (from intermittent delivery of forecasts—rainfall), to Decision-Support Services (continuous release of weather based advice—debris flow decision-support advice)
     Decision-Support Services:  Information based services for public safety.  Our real product in the digital age is information.  Partner with decision-makers to provide impact-based services that support their ability to make decisions.  IMET concept extended beyond fire weather support into other public safety decision support.  We deliver the decision support for customers based on local needs.  More emphasis on decision support, especially to public safety officials.  This is the delivery of the new impact-based forecasts.
5.  Coordination (we tell the nearby office what we’re going to do) to Collaboration (we develop what we are going to do collaboratively)
     Collaboration:  we manage the forecast process within the cluster.  We jointly reach a decision to be more consistent – e.g., rain in the upper portion of the cluster.  The idea is to extend the teamwork that already exists in our offices to a broader network that includes the cluster and centers.  WFO solicits input from other WFOs, RFCs, etc within the cluster.  Co-ownership of the forecasts and verification requirements.  Collaboration on re-allocation of resources within the cluster.  We cannot answer the question “how” yet.  The prototype will figure that out.  Focuses resources on high-impact events.  Ensures consistency across domains as product is produced collaboratively.  
6.  Weather-centric to earth system science-based
     Earth System Science-Based:  While we maintain our focus on high-impact event services (weather, water, climate, homeland security, etc.), we will transform NWS into an integrated environmental information service provider consistent with the vision and goals of NOAA.
7.  Deterministic (producers of our own expertise: ”Best” forecast) to Probabilistic (CUSTOMERS of our own expertise: Convey uncertainty in our forecasts)
     Probabilistic (uncertainty):  Convey our level of confidence in forecasts so users can make more informed decisions.  This will be very challenging.  The NRC study published in 2006 is the beginning.  The future requires improved ensemble modeling and continued efforts by the National Centers in collaboration with the WFOs and RFCs. 
To varying degrees, all 7 of these key operational shifts are already present in today’s NWS.  So the CONOPS team is not trying to say any of them are entirely new to us.  Rather, the overall point is that the NWS of the future will see continued movement in these directions, and the NWS CONOPS should evolve in ways that more fully support them.

## CONOPS Team Report
Develop and prototype Clustered-Peer CONOPS 
Clustered-Peer CONOPS
Provide a platform for key operational shifts 
Field offices operate as equals within a cluster
Cluster delivers environmental information and decision support services focused on high-impact events
Basic forecast suite is provided without interruption within the cluster and centers
Cluster Management Team (WFOs, RFCs, National Centers) allocate their resources via their weather expertise and numerical guidance
WFOs have evolved to the current state where they work as a team to dynamically shift workload to get the job done—Clusters are capable of doing the same thing across County Warning Area boundaries

Corporate Board agreed to pursue recommendations

**Develop and prototype Clustered-Peer CONOPS **
**Clustered-Peer CONOPS**
**Provide a platform for key operational shifts **
**Field offices operate as equals within a cluster**
**Cluster delivers environmental information and decision support services focused on high-impact events**
**Basic forecast suite is provided without interruption within the cluster and centers**
**Cluster Management Team (WFOs, RFCs, National Centers) allocate their resources via their weather expertise and numerical guidance**
**WFOs have evolved to the current state where they work as a team to dynamically shift workload to get the job done—Clusters are capable of doing the same thing across County Warning Area boundaries**
**Corporate Board agreed to pursue recommendations**

**The Way Forward*****A “Phase of Discovery”***

**Notes:**
A “Phase of Discovery”
     The CONOPS Tiger Team we commissioned took a hard look at what we can do, what we want to do, and what we don’t want to do.

CONOPS Team Report
     CONOPS Team Report recommended NWS develop and prototype a clustered-peer concept for field office concept of operations.
     The NWS Corporate Board approved the CONOPS Team recommendations to conduct labs and field prototypes and chartered a new team to develop the initial prototype plan.
    The Clustered-Peer CONOPS offers an initial platform from which we can attain the 7 key operational shifts identified in the previous slide.  The platform would create a flexible organization that could achieve additional changes in a scalable way.
     The CONOPS Team reported that a clustered-peer approach would strengthen our ability to manage new and evolving tasks by more effectively using all of our WFO resources.  We are in a phase of discovery right now as we explore the best options, conduct labs, and then prototype.  For starters, the NWS must be able to use existing resources even more effectively during future high-impact events in order to provide better services that are relevant to our customers.   This means finding new ways to refine our exemplary operations so we can create improvements in our forecasts and warnings while increasing available time to adjust our role to meet society’s evolving needs for environmental information.
     We need to build an even more effective service organization that focuses on high impact events, collaborates with other NOAA components and external partners, and maximizes use of new science and technology.  From a service standpoint, this means: (1) delivering weather, water, and climate forecasts, warnings, and environmental information through a collaborative process involving multiple field offices like Weather Forecast Offices (WFO), River Forecast Centers (RFC), National Centers, and other NWS components; (2) providing environmental predictions in probabilistic terms (ways to convey uncertainty); producing warnings based on short-term forecasts (nowcasting), not just observations; (3) extending predictions to other environmental parameters such as water quality; (4) and providing customers environmental information in the formats they want, such as GIS, and when they want it.  

Clustered Peer Concept
     The “clustered peer” concept under review is a geographical cluster of field offices that have similar climatology and operate as equals.  The clustered peer concept could deliver environmental information and decision-support services focused on high-impact events using a collaborative process with multiple weather forecast offices, River Forecast Centers, National Centers, and other NOAA components.  
     WFOs, RFCs have evolved to the current state where they work as a team to dynamically shift workload to get the job done.  Clusters of WFOs (with RFCs for hydro events) are capable of doing the same thing across CWA boundaries.  As is the case today, National Centers help the offices prepare for events and provide direct services through model guidance, watches, and other national services.  The CONOPS initiative will give us a clearer picture of how we can best organize our work, staffing, and services at all levels of the organization to provide improved high-impact services.  It will answer questions about how to create new capacity within the existing workforce while improving services and what a NOAA Integrated Environmental Information agency might look like.
     The exact structure and how a cluster would operate is one of the fundamental questions the CONOPS Team (field staff) and Corporate Board are trying to answer.  We’ll look at how a final decision is made, who will be in charge of the cluster, etc.  But these details are yet to be explored.  It is very important that we provide our teams the space, time, and opportunity to discover the answers to these questions without preconceived notions of what all the answers are or even that we know all the right questions today.

## What do our customers want? 
Deploy Incident Meteorologists
For High-Impact Events

**What do our customers want? **
***Deploy Incident Meteorologists***
***For High-Impact Events***

**The Way Forward*****Meeting Our Customer’s Needs***

**Notes:**
(Slide has a build that shows up under slideshow:  With a keystroke the NOAA IMET van dissolves out and reveals Mobile Emergency Command Center.)

As part of the agency’s service evolution initiatives we are exploring ways to meet our customers needs.  One specific initiative we believe is critical and can be undertaken more quickly then some of the technology-tied initiatives being explored is the need to identify and train additional Incident Meteorologists (IMETS) within the existing workforce and office structure.  The IMETS would have a broader mission than fire weather support and would be deployed to support local, state, and federal emergency response efforts.  We will be working side-by-side with our emergency management officials and other first responders to identify the critical skill sets they need to augment their capabilities.

## The Way ForwardA “Phase of Discovery”

**CONOPS Prototype Team Activities**
**NOAA’s Boulder (ESRL/GSD) & NWS (CRH) Laboratory**
**Testing AWIPS and network performance**
**Expanded domains**
**Enhanced collaboration**
**Resource allocation tools**
**Clustered-peer field prototype plan to be briefed to Corporate Board November**
**Field prototype expected to begin in CY 2007**
**End state determined by:**
**Complexity of plan**
**Collective bargaining agreement requirements**
**Systems capabilities (AWIPS)**

**Notes:**
The Prototype Team is currently conducting a Laboratory that will use Advanced Weather Interactive Processing Systems (AWIPS) at Earth Sciences Research Lab (ESRL)/Global Systems Division (GSD, formerly Forecast Systems Laboratory), and at Central Region Headquarters (CRH).  This is an important but limited test to explore software implications of the expanded domain and requirements for improved collaboration capabilities. NWS Science and Operations Officers (SOO) are participating in the test.  

Using the results from the laboratory test, the CONOPS Prototype Team will deliver their proposed plan to prototype to the Corporate Board in November 2006.  The first phase of the clustered peer CONOPS within the identified prototype clusters is scheduled to begin spring 2007, once collective bargaining agreement requirements are satisfied.  

We want to know if the approach will help make the best use of time and resources when there is benign weather or severe conditions over an office.  As many field staff have suggested, and this is really the reason why field experts are running the Tiger Teams, we might be able to gain our greatest value during periods of time when there are no high-impact events. Critical work can occur during periods of relative calm including training, public preparedness, and education, and emergency management planning activities, etc.  

## The Way ForwardA “Phase of Discovery”

**Issues Being Assessed in Prototype**
**Test Key Operational Shifts**
**Capabilities required (tools and techniques)**
**Communications tools**
**Domain size (current limitation is 120,000 grid points)**
**Governance of cluster**
**Impacts (internal and external)**
**Customer needs met?**
**Effect on staff (quality of work life, ability to perform complex tasks across boundaries)**
**Improved public planning and preparedness?**
**Increased time for training?**

**Notes:**
We think the Prototype Team is asking the right questions like:
  How big should a cluster be and can it morph depending on different conditions?  What would those boundaries be?
  What technology and tools must we have in place for this collaboration idea to work?
  What happens when two WFOs are at odds over forecast elements
  And, How can we best provide 24/7 service? 

Through prototyping we will not only get answers -- but I’m sure we’ll raise new questions that we haven’t thought of yet.  This exploration and discovery process will guide us to the best CONOPS that will allow us to provide the best service.

Issues to be Assessed in Prototype 
  Test Key Operational Shifts
  Capabilities required (tools and techniques)
  Communications tools
  Impacts (internal and external)
  Customer needs met?
  Effect on staff (quality of work life, ability to perform complex tasks across boundaries)
  Improved public planning and preparedness?
  Increased time for training?

## The Way ForwardA “Phase of Discovery”

**Notes:**
Current Scope of our Field Prototype Plan—It’s important to note that this is evolving and we’ll review the full plan in November.  These are prototype clusters at the conceptual level.  We still need to better understand how far we can go with today’s tools.
Four clusters
All 4 CONUS regions to be involved
Designed within consistent climatological ecosystems (Common and Diverse Forecast Challenges & Physiographic boundaries)
CONOPS Team determined the makeup of the prototype clustered peers based on input of WFOs and RFCs
Current System Architecture Restriction
Roughly 120,000 grid points (With today’s technology this is the largest we can go.)
Pacific Northwest cluster includes: 
• Seattle, WA
• Portland, OR
• Spokane, WA
• Pendleton, OR
Central Plains cluster includes:
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Tulsa, OK
• Lubbock, TX
• Amarillo, TX
• Wichita, KS
• Dodge City, KS
Great Lakes cluster includes:
• Detroit, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Chicago, IL
• Milwaukee, WI
• Green Bay, WI
• Gaylord, MI
• Cleveland, OH
• Northern Indiana, IN
Southeast U.S. cluster includes:
• Charleston, SC
• Wilmington, NC
• Jacksonville, FL
• Tallahassee, FL
• Atlanta, GA
• Greenville-Spartanburg, SC
• Columbia, SC
These locations are clearly not the only possible clusters—but the ones chosen should provide useful information to help discover opportunities for future development.  The CONOPS Team determined that these four clusters would address high-impact forecast challenges, involve all CONUS regions, accommodate opportunities for NOAA partnerships, engage a broad spectrum of field offices in refining the clustered-peer approach.  These clusters also maximize the potential to test the involvement of NCEP to provide services associated with collaboration and guidance.
One of the criteria to determine a clustered peer is that the offices in a cluster have similar forecast challenges, thereby ensuring, to the greatest extent possible, forecasters would already be familiar with the local terrain and climatology of all of the County Warning Areas (CWAs) they are supporting. For this concept to be effective, WFO forecasters will need to start thinking about “their” forecast area as being the entire cluster rather than just their local CWA. The Clustered Peer concept builds on existing service backup experiences. With knowledge gained in the Prototype Laboratory, training centers, regional Scientific Services Divisions and SOOs in prototype offices will be involved in developing training plans. Training plans should be complete in early 2007 and will be living documents revised based on assessment information gained during the prototype process.

## Closing Thoughts

**National Weather Service 2015**
**NWS Services Evolution**
**Key Operational Shifts**
**New Clustered-Peer CONOPS**
**The Way Forward “A Phase of Discovery”**
**Laboratory & Prototyping**
**Milestones & Metrics (measure success and failure)**
***Study, Plan, Implement, Evolve***

**Notes:**
Closing thoughts ...
Our initiatives represent only the beginning of an important planning process that will guide us as we evolve our services to meet society’s changing environmental needs.  A NWS in which forecasters can focus on service delivery with particular emphasis on high-impact events.  Services that oftentimes mean the difference between life and death for our customers.  

We need to allow enough time to study, plan, and implement appropriate changes.  This requires an open process, a plan with milestones and metrics.  The Prototype Team is developing baselines through customer service surveys, etc.  We are discovering what we can do, what want to do, and importantly what we don’t want to do.  

SUMMARY:
The CONOPS team has proposed a new operational model they believe can maximize all of our assets across organizational boundaries so we can improve decision-support assistance for high-impact events.  The proposed Concept of Operations uses a "clustered-peer concept" that should strengthen our ability to manage new and evolving tasks by more effectively using all of our resources.  We are in a phase of discovery right now as we explore the best options, conduct labs, and then prototype to determine what we will and will not do. 

We are going to increase capacity and effectiveness in order to meet growing demands for new products and services through a new CONOPS.