In general, the short-term forecaster was responsible for current weather, warnings, and forecasts out to 12 hours. The long-term forecaster was responsible for forecasts beyond 12 hours. With this arrangement of responsibilities, both forecasters were responsible for parts of nearly all forecast products. Forecast and warning products were not actually transmitted to the public but were printed and saved for review. Exercise Synoptic weather patterns become more of a factor during October and November, with early snows occurring during these months.
Weather patterns are typically less diurnally driven and occur over multi-day time scales.
At the time this report was written, final preparations were under way for this portion of the exercise. Forecasting will begin on October 12 and continue for a period of 5 and one-half weeks, ending November 18. Nearly continuous operations enable forecasters using AFPS to initialize from previously prepared forecast grids. Further, this will allow testing of the broad range of WFO operational responsibilities. Forecasters from each NWS region and Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau have been invited to participate and give their feedback on the various components of the WFO-Advanced.