# Presentation: 028026

## Ultraviolet (UV) Program Status

***Jim Lee***
***Fire & Public Weather Services Branch***
- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services
***June 24, 2004***

## Outline

**UV Program History**
**Product Examples**
**‘****UV Advisory System’ **
***Challenges***
***Next steps***

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

## UV Program History

**April 1994 – NWS starts forecasting UV Index (UVI) for 58 U.S. cities**
**Summer 1999 – EPA, CDC, American Academy of Dermatologists, American Cancer Society & members of Congress ask NWS to expand UVI forecast to 160 cities.**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
Current UV observation network includes the following number of systems NOAA – 6; USDA – approx 30; and EPA – approx 24.  CPC indicates funding support for the USDA systems is most solvent.  EPA is planning on cutting back to about 12 systems.  NOTE: System hardware problems can result in incorrect UV readings.
Originally NCEP planned to issue UV forecasts for the entire Selected Cities list (~160), but reduced to current 58 cities after private sector expressed concerns. 

## UV Program History (cont.)

***In 1999, the EPA, private sector & medical community the NWS decided to:***
**Continue to produce UVI for the original 58 cities**
**Deliver over the Internet in gridded format the data necessary for the private sector to create UVI over the entire U.S.**
**Not produce a contoured map graphic of UV on NWS Web pages**
**Last month, U.S. adopted “Global UV Index”**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
The UV focal point at CPC indicates the decision to stick with 58 cities was made by NOAA and was made at a “time when Congress was threatening to privatize the weather service”.  
UV data currently at approx 80-km resolution; CPC working on increasing resolution to about 55 km (around spring 2005).  Data is in GRIB format and transmitted to NWSTG and posted on the NCEP FTP site.  55-km resolution data would be added to the product suite...wouldn’t replace the 80-km data.   CPC plans to ask for Louis Uccellini’s go ahead around September 2004, if internal testing on 55-km data looks good. 

## UVI Produced for the following Cities 

- Albuquerque              Detroit                   Norfolk
- Anchorage                Dover                     Oklahoma City
- Atlantic City            Hartford                  Omaha
- Atlanta                  Honolulu                  Philadelphia
- Baltimore                Houston                   Phoenix
- Billings                 Indianapolis              Pittsburgh
- Bismarck                 Jackson MS                Portland ME
- Boise                    Jacksonville              Portland OR
- Boston                   Las Vegas                 Providence
- Buffalo                  Little Rock               Raleigh
- Burlington VT            Los Angeles               Salt Lake City
- Charleston WV            Louisville                San Francisco
- Charleston SC            Memphis                   San Juan
- Cheyenne                 Miami                     Seattle
- Chicago                  Milwaukee                 Sioux Falls
- Cleveland                Minneapolis               St. Louis
- Concord                  Mobile                    Tampa
- Dallas                   New Orleans               Washington DC
- Denver                   New York                  Wichita
- Des Moines

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
Here are the 58 cities UV Indices are produced once/day...

## UV Product Examples

**NOAA/EPA ULTRAVIOLET INDEX /UVI/ FORECAST**
**NWS CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD**
**200 PM EDT WED JUN 23 2004 **
**VALID JUN 24 2004 AT SOLAR NOON /APPROXIMATELY NOON**
**LOCAL STANDARD TIME OR 100 PM LOCAL DAYLIGHT TIME/**
**THE UV INDEX IS CATEGORIZED BY THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION**
**AS FOLLOWS: **
**           ****UVI              EXPOSURE LEVEL **
**           ****0 1 2                LOW**
**           ****3 4 5                MODERATE**
**           ****6 7                  HIGH**
**           ****8 9 10               VERY HIGH**
**          ****11 AND GREATER        EXTREME **
**FOR HEALTH RELATED ISSUES...CONTACT EPA AT 1-800-296-1996 **
**FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE UV INDEX.... **
**GO TO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE UV INDEX WEB PAGE:**
**WWW.CPC.NCEP.NOAA.GOV/PRODUCTS/STRATOSPHERE/UV_INDEX **
**CITY          STATE    UVI            CITY         STATE     UVI**
**ALBUQUERQUE   NM        10            LITTLE ROCK  AR          7**
**ANCHORAGE     AK         4            LOS ANGELES  CA          9 **
**ATLANTIC CITY NJ         7            LOUISVILLE   KY          8**
**ATLANTA       GA         6            MEMPHIS      TN          7**
**Etc...**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
Here’s a portion of the current operational text UV index product.

## UV Product Examples (cont.)

***	******	***

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
Graphical UV product produced by CPC...posted to their web site

## ‘UV Advisory System’

**2003 – EPA asked the NWS to work with them in developing a UV Advisory system for alerting Americans about unusually high or anomalous UVI**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
Greg Mandt responded for Jack Kelly agreeing to explore feasibility
EPA briefed concept at the Annual AMS Meeting in Seattle, WA (January 2004)
NWS/EPA staffers fleshed out numerous outstanding issues for both organizations (April 2004) 	

## ‘UV Advisory System’ Challenges

**Public/Private Partnership Roles (see 2003 NRC Fair Weather Report)?**
**What would this product be (advisory, alert, etc.)?**
**What format (gridded, text)?**
**Who will issue (EPA, CPC or WFO)?**
**How will this be disseminated (web, NWR, etc.)?**
**Training/Education/Outreach?**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
These are many issues which NWS and EPA need to work together.  Three major issues we need help from the EPA with:
 Develop criteria and public health rationale for advisories
 Work with other governmental agencies, e.g. EPA, private researchers and medical community to develop health messages for use UV advisories
 Promote advisory thru information products and campaigns. 

## ‘UV Advisory System’ Next Steps

**Late Summer 2004 – Initiate requirements development**
**January 2005 – Update at next Partner’s Workshop**

- Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

- June 24, 2004

**Notes:**
We need EPA to play a very active role.  Assuming all necessary joint EPA/NWS actions occur, we’re tentatively shooting for a pilot project (“proof of concept”) for a  city/cities in the summer of 2005