The following entry highlights initial impressions and perspectives from the forecasters/scientists after day 1.

*workload management

– segment operations by type of threat (allows view of specific products)

– sector by storm; in current system, loss of svr thunder warning during tornado warning.

– users would find separate wind/hail products useful; overlap of products and additional information.

– increases need for interoffice collaboration if different people are issuing separate warning types.

– County Warning Areas (CWA), warnings moving into new CWA-ownership? Discontinuous probabilities at CWA borders.

*Is issuing probabilities for warnings the right direction for NWS?

– 30 min vs 3 days. (tornado vs hurricane). Possible loss of response from public with 30 min/30% tornado warning?

– user cost/loss ratio using warn-on-forecast (NWP) guidance.

– binary threshold, doesn’t always allow for conveyance of information.

– significant wx advisory/warning decision products as pre-warning updates. Same as low probability warning forecast w/long lead-time (1hr+).

– For pubic communication issue low, mod, high probability instead of specific % #’s.

– WAS*IS direction for year 2 of project, working with external groups and how the data may be used.

*First forecast today, uncertainty of development and decay of storms and not communicated well with forecast. Duration of warning lasted much longer than storm threat. Was the warning decision “good?” Are our probabilities for t=end going to be too high? Is the shape of the warning grid an accurate representation of the threat?

*More time spent on software and drawing polygons then analysis of storm and storm environment. Again, automation of initial threat area would be useful in year 2, e.g., hail=mesh & tornado=meso. Movement away from WDSSII so forecaster don’t spend as much time learning the software.

Kristin Kuhlman (Gridded Warning Cognizant Scientist)