# Presentation: 060039

## Why Should We Change AndRFC Goals for Improvements

**Diane Cooper**
***Hydrologic Services Program Manager***
***NWS - Southern Region Headquarters***
***2007 Hydrologic Service Program Manager Conference ***
***Southern Region Breakout***
***July 13, 2007***

- Acknowledgement  To Rusty Billingsley for  providing many of the slides.

## Why We Should ChangeStatus Quo is Increasingly Dangerous

**Why?**
**Technological rate of change is **_**accelerating**_
**Weather data and information are becoming a commodity**
**Government is inherently bureaucratic...i.e., private industry will react faster to change than we will**
**We are increasingly a smaller piece of the weather enterprise**

## Reflection On Our Changing World

**Suppose its 1995 and you are predicting 2005:**
** ****Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 1.0 introduced**
** ****Netscape, Ebay, and Amazon.com come to life**
** ****eCERN holds a two-day **_[seminar](http://www.cern.ch/CERN/WorldWideWeb/mediaday/)_** for the European Media (press, radio, TV), attended by 250 reporters, to show ****WWW.**** It is ****demonstrated on 60 machines, with 30 pupils from the local International High School helping the reporters "surf the Web"**** **
** ****Traditional online dial-up systems (Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide Internet access**
** ****6.5 Million Hosts, ****100,000 WWW Sites on internet**
** ****MP3 format comes of age**
** ****USB standard released**
** ****Red Hat Linux formed (actually 94)**
** ****Compaq Computer reaches number one world market share**
** ****OS2 Warp ships, PC DOS 7 ships**
** ****Intel introduces ****120 MHz Pentium**** processor**
** ****IBM unveils its new IBM ****PC 300 desktop systems, with 75-MHz and 90-MHz Pentium CPUs. Complete systems start at US$2000. **
** ****IBM buys Lotus**
** ****IBM releases the ThinkPad 760CD (120 MHz), with the industry's first 12.1-inch thin-film transistor display **
** ****Sun Microsystems introduces new Ultra 1 and Ultra 2 workstations**** **
** ****Sony Electronics introduces the 32-bit game system, PlayStation **
-  **Cell phone subscribers reach 34 million**
** ****Bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in OKC**
** ****NASDAQ closes above 1000 for first time**
** ****Iraq disarmament crisis**

##  Reflection On Our Changing World

**For 2005, would you have predicted:**
** ****Homeland Security would be a big deal**
** ****You could put your entire song collection on a device as big as your thumb**
** ****A desktop could be had for a few hundred bucks**
** ****Microsoft and Dell would be the big players**
** ****Stock market crash after incredible bubble**
** ****Thumb drives**
** ****Satellite radio**
** ****Wireless everywhere**
** ****70+ emails a day**
** ****Reality TV would be a hit**
** ****Half a terabyte disk drives for 300 bucks (500 gig)**
** ****Laser printers for under a 100 bucks**
** ****DVDs, cell phones, digital cameras everywhere**
** ****The enormity of the Internet**
** ****GIS**
** ****Gridded forecasting (GFE)**
** ****E-commerce**

## Our Changing World

**The NWS in 1995**

**AFOS continues as operational system**
**AWIPS in trouble – 400M spent already**
**PCGRIDDs in use**
**Some offices get UNIX workstations (SOO Sacs)**
**SWIS/MicroSwis**
**A few offices experimenting with web sites, web is just a curiosity to most**
**ASOS commissioning continues**

**This is just one decade ago!**

## Why We Need to ChangeTechnological Rate of Change is Accelerating!

**Premise**** – change is occurring exponentially – but you expect it to be linear based on the “current” rate of change!**
**“...****because we're doubling the rate of progress every decade, we'll see a century of progress--*****at today's rate*****--in only 25 calendar years.”  ****Ray Kurzweil *****Law of Accelerating Returns***

**Accelerating Change**** – this isn’t your father’s rate of change!**

## Why We Need to Change

**What is Accelerating Rate of Change ???? **

## Why We Need To Change

**Other Component....Weather information as a commodity...many people are providing it, so what is our nich?**

## Why We Need to Change

**Reality 1: ****Technological rate of change is accelerating...we underestimate it significantly...making any 2015 prediction suspect.**
**What we are likely to think will happen in 2015 should occur technologically by 2008**

***How do we appropriately plan for and respond to this???***

**Is this exciting...**

**...****or threatening?**

**Reality 2: ****Weather information and data are becoming a commodity...Others are in this business too!!!**

## Why We Need to Change?

**If everything is going to @#$@:**
**Why am I so busy?  Why does the phone ring off the hook when the weather gets bad?  Why does our offices look like this?**

**Customers/partners have increasingly sophisticated requirements – they are also being inundated by an explosion of information**
_**They want and need you to make sense of it all for them!**_

## Why We need to Change

**They want you to make sense of it all for them!  **
**Unprecedented support in the 2005 hurricane season**
**	****Louisiana EOC**
**	****Texas DEM**
**	****FEMA**
**	****WFO local support**
**Unprecedented support in the 2005/6 fire season**
**	****IMET support for TFS almost continuously**
**Huge increase in briefings/interpretive support for all types of events**
**~50% of SR WFOs said personal service was the most important product/service they provide**

## The Evolving NWS

**Bottom line:  ****Technological rate of change is accelerating...**
**Weather information and data are becoming a commodity**
**Demand for your “services” is in its infancy!**

**It’s exciting...**

**...****not threatening!**

## The Evolving NWS

***Are you saying we stop providing what we currently do????***

**No...****not saying we should give up providing day to day forecasts or other services we currently provide!**
**But...****As New and higher resolution Hydrologic (Soil Moisture Data) and Hydraulic Models are rolled, computing speed decreases and better calibration schemes are identified...how do we incorporate this information into our suite of products and services???**

## The Evolving NWS

**Models such as the Distributed Model  provide Hourly time series.... How do we incorporate that into our current 6 hour forecast structure? **
**What about Ensemble Forecasts?**
**How do we better use advances in FFMP/EMPE and GFFG in our Flash Flood Warning Program?**

**The Evolving NWS**
***OK So how do we move forward????***

**  *****Your value will shift more and more to making sense (interpreting) of the vast complex of hydrologic information and its impacts and  and communicating the proper message to decision makers. ***

## RFC Goals for ImprovementWhat is their piece in this puzzle

**Summer of 2006, the RFC’s met identify how to better use region-wide hydrologic resources to provide highly effective services during high impact events****.**

**Established a Vision of:**
**Effective and Efficient Hydrologic Service Delivery during **
**high-impact events**

## RFC Service Enhancement and Support Categories

## RFC of the Future (3-5 year time frame)

**Flood Inundation mapping**
**More information/more frequently**
**Water quality**
**Water resource information (grids)**
**Modeling/science plan and strategy**
**More consistent service delivery from WFO/RFCs (gridded information)**

## RFC of the Future

**They Identified Short-Term Service Enhancement Deliverables...each RFC took the lead on some initiatives:**
**ABRFC –**
*Implement new flash flood guidance procedure at SR RFCs*
**LMRFC**
*Collaborate with other SR RFCs and HSB to develop region-wide hydrologic training plan for RFC/WFO personnel*
**SERFC**
*Develop/enhance RFC briefing for internal/external customers using advanced communications technologies*
**WGRFC**
*Enhanced Web/Video Training *

## RFC of the Future Support for WFOs

**Ideas included:**
**More contingency forecasts**
**Short-term probabilistic hydrologic forecasts**
**Hydrologic Training (HPMs and meteorological forecasters)**
**Use of GFE to collaborate on QPF**
**Hydrologic briefings**
**Specialized training (hazardous spills, water quality)**
**Real-time assistance in use of WFO hydrologic applications (MPE, Site-Specific Hydrologic Model)**
**Real-time Monitoring (Gridded FFG, FFG alert message)**
**Routine 6-hour river forecast issuances**
**Enhanced hydrometeorological watch**
**More consistent RFC web pages **
**QPF verification studies **
**Enhanced data QC information sharing **
**Move to shorter hydrologic model time steps for fast responding rivers, as appropriate **

## WFO Role of The FutureWhat can you do???

**First and foremost...Continue the tradition of excellent service and trust.**
**Identify the great ideas that are already being done...Midland Low Flow Initiative and FloodReady are just 2 examples.**
**Help lead customers (and NWS) in the right direction (i.e., be active in solutions)**
**Continually work to understand the environment under which your customers live and how they use our data.**
**Be open to new ways of doing business **
**Find ways to keep up with the technological onslaught – the results can be remarkable and very satisfying**

## Even from your level...You can influential in shaping the NWS of the future.

_**You **_**will steer the ship!**

**&RFC**