{"id":366,"date":"2019-08-09T11:27:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-09T16:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/?p=366"},"modified":"2020-04-30T20:20:16","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T01:20:16","slug":"the-2019-emergency-manager-experiment-unwrapped-insight-into-this-years-experiment-and-product-innovations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/2019\/08\/the-2019-emergency-manager-experiment-unwrapped-insight-into-this-years-experiment-and-product-innovations\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2019 Emergency Manager Experiment Unwrapped! Insight Into This Year\u2019s Experiment and Product Innovations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spring 2019 Emergency Manager (EM) Experiment hosted eight EMs across two weeks in May.\u00a0 The EMs hailed from a variety of jurisdictions and services–city, county, and state governments, as well as utilities and hospital networks–and represented several different states, including New York, Colorado, Kentucky, Florida, Oklahoma, and Ohio.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the experiment, EMs worked archived cases with the help of\u00a0 experimental forecast products under development at NSSL, CIMMS, and SPC.\u00a0 The products have been generated as part of the Forecasting a Continuum of Environmental Threats (FACETs) program, which seeks to improve the communication of Probabilistic Hazard Information (PHI).\u00a0 The new products all represented forecast uncertainty in different ways, offering deeper insight into forecaster thinking about storm likelihood, timing, and location.\u00a0 EMs first received longer-range forecasting products that were issued days before the event, and worked their way to products issued at the warning time scale, covering a fuller \u201ccontinuum\u201d of forecast information.\u00a0 The archived cases encompassed a variety of severe weather threats, e.g., severe thunderstorms, QLCS storms, and supercell tornadoes that occurred across the continental US.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Each day, the participants began with long range SPC Convective Outlooks–Day 4, Day 3 and Day 2.\u00a0 Then, depending on the issue time of each product, participants saw Day 1 outlooks, Mesoscale Convective Discussions, and Watches.\u00a0 Interspersed with these products, participants received an experimental Potential for Severe Timing (PST) product, experimental Warn-on-Forecast (WoF) output, and\/or experimental hazard timing graphs from SPC.\u00a0 Periodically throughout the case, participants completed micro-surveys asking about trends they were noticing, details they were keying in on, and decisions\/actions they were taking based on the information received.\u00a0 There were also mini focus groups at each time step to discuss the same topics in more detail.\u00a0 As the week progressed, participants received more of the experimental products.\u00a0 On Tuesday, only the PST was given; on Wednesday, participants saw the PST and WoF; and, on Thursday, participants saw the SPC timing products and WoF.\u00a0 At the end of each case, at the warning timescale, participants received warning-scale PHI.\u00a0 Then at the end of the day, a wrap-up survey and focus group evaluated how participants viewed the information and forecast evolution in light of what occurred.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are these experimental products I just mentioned?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sample Potential for Severe Timing (PST) Product<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The <\/span>PST<\/b> is a product that specifies the 4-hour window(s) for the areas where severe weather is most likely to occur (see graphic to the left).\u00a0 Ideally, the PST would be issued with the 11:30 Day 1 Outlook and would be valid until the end of the convective day.\u00a0 This tool is meant to help provide early and specific timing information to users to help facilitate their planning during severe weather days (e.g., should schools be closed, extra staffing brought in, shift scheduled temporarily modified).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sample Warn-on-Forecast (WoF) Product<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The <\/span>WoF<\/b> output provided to EMs is a timing product that identifies areas where convection is most likely to develop over the next few hours, and the associated probabilities that it will (see graphic to the left).\u00a0 Further, the output updates every hour.\u00a0 The <\/span>SPC<\/b> Hazard Timing Graph takes the Day 1 Outlook and breaks it into four-hour windows of time, allowing participants to see when hazards are most likely to occur in their area within a 24-hour period.\u00a0 Ideally, this graphic would automatically update with updates in forecast guidance. This tool would help users know, for example, when a storm is expected to reach the \u201cmoderate risk\u201d threshold and for how long.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last day of the experiment consisted of extensive debriefing and reflecting.\u00a0 EMs completed post-week surveys and a focus group interview which asked for their deep evaluations of the tools and products they used.\u00a0 We wanted to know what they liked\/did not like, what worked, what was impossible to figure out or use, and their views on how PHI could be implemented in operations.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, so what\u2019s next?<\/b><\/p>\n

Right now we are in the preliminary stages of analyses.\u00a0 As a research team, we have met to discuss how to best utilize the wealth of information we gained from the new methodology used this year and rich feedback we received.\u00a0 Analysis plans have been formed and are underway.\u00a0 Product development is being informed by observations and early observable trends to continue moving toward operational status.\u00a0 We are also planning the Fall 2019 Hazard Services PHI experiment for an integrated warning team–forecasters, broadcast meteorologists, and emergency managers working together.\u00a0 The emergency managers\u2019 portion of the Fall experiment will again feature many of these products, but within a new platform: Hazard Services.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spring 2019 Emergency Manager (EM) Experiment hosted eight EMs across two weeks in May.\u00a0 The EMs hailed from a variety of jurisdictions and services–city, county, and state governments, as… <\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":384,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/phi-em\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}