## 3 Outcomes
### [PERSON], Chief Learning Officer for NOAA's US National Weather Service, summarizes the importance of this training for preparing the operational meteorological workforce in the US and internationally:  
\"The UCAR/COMET Program has been critically important in helping weather forecasters throughout North and South America and the Atlantic/Pacific Island nations in preparing for utilizing the vast datastreams from GOES 16/17 and NOAA-20. COMET initially educated professionals about the instruments and capabilities of these new satellites far in advance of their launch. COMET was instrumental in developing foundational courses for both the GOES and POES instruments which provided background information on the many new channels, sensors and products, so forecasters were ready to use the new satellite data from day 1. COMET has been diligent in updating their training modules once the actual satellite data was flowing so new forecasters have up-to-date training modules. COMET led many User Readiness workshops for years at professional conferences, workshops and World Meteorological Organization events. The National Weather Service forecasters are now fully making use of this new satellite data to improve weather watches, warnings and forecasts, and informing critical local decision makers all thanks to the outstanding education and training from COMET.\" [13]  
From the launch of NOAA's first operational microwave remote sensing instrument in the late 1990s, to the advanced microwave instruments on the current JPSS and Metop polar orbiters, COMET has produced lessons introducing forecasters to foundational science topics and applications, with the goal of enhancing usage of this unique observational capability. Figure 13 shows usage activity for the three most used foundational microwave remote sensing lessons since their initial release between 2005  
Figure 12: User session counts (through February 2019) for the eight SatFC-G lessons developed by COMET and published in 2016 prior to the GOES-R satellite launch. These lessons have received considerable use by meteorological services throughout the Americas, but particularly by NOAA’s US NWS.  
and 2008. Two of these lessons are now in their second edition, highlighting the ongoing importance and relevance of this training.  
Figure 14 highlights three MetEd satellite lessons with consistently frequent use since their publication. The level of difficulty of these lessons ranges across educational levels, from high school, to undergraduate, to more advanced, requiring some prior knowledge of the topic.  
COMET regularly reviews usage statistics like these to gauge the popularity, effectiveness, and reach of our training deliveries, which can help inform priorities for lesson updates.  
Figure 14: The bar chart shows total user session counts for three frequently used satellite meteorology lessons on MetEd. The metrics are from publication date (shown following the title below each bar) through March 2019.  
Figure 13: The bar chart shows total user session counts for select microwave remote sensing lessons from 2007 to the present (April 2019). A session is defined as a learner accessing more than one page in the lesson, for at least one minute. Two of these lessons are now available as updated second editions.