Accurate weather forecasts do not always result in a good outcome. The National Weather Service (NWS) learned this difficult lesson in late April, 2011, when a tornado outbreak over two days in Mississippi, Alabama, and neighboring states resulted in over 300 lives lost. The average tornado lead time, the amount of time between an NWS warning and the arrival of a tornado in a given location, was over 20 minutes - well over the national average. Yet, property damage was measured in the billions of dollars, and what could not be measured was the heartache of loved ones lost and lives changed forever. Traditionally, forecast accuracy is the measure of success for the NWS, but April 2011 was a game changer for the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Success cannot just be measured by the accuracy of forecasts, but by the societal response to those forecasts and ultimately, the societal outcome. Though this was not necessarily a new way of thinking, the April 28, 2011 storm drove it home for us all that more had to be done.
Source: Associated Press
Figure 1: The aftermath of the April 28, 2011, tornado outbreak in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Over 300 lives were lost across the Southeast U.S.
The Rise of Weather-Ready Nation
Back in April, 2011, the ink was barely dry on a new NWS Strategic Plan titled “Building a Weather-Ready Nation.” What the nation needed was just that -- a weather-ready nation where communities across the country were ready, responsive, and resilient to weather, water, and climate threats. Though the strategic vision was already in place in late April, the Southeast tornado outbreak created an urgency -- a “national imperative” that transcended a strategic planning document. “Weather-Ready Nation” became that national imperative whose importance continues today. Over the past six years since those monster tornadoes ripped through the Southeast, other notable extreme events like the Joplin, MO, tornado a month later, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and snowstorms, flooding, wildfires, drought, and more tornadoes underscored that importance of preparedness, scientific advancement, and working together to prompt societal change. Some profound improvements have been made since 2011 [Science & Technology link], not only in the accuracy of NWS forecasts but how those forecasts have improved decision making by emergency managers, other government officials, businesses, and individuals.
What is a Weather-Ready Nation?
Let’s step back a bit and focus on a fundamental question. What exactly does “Weather-Ready Nation” mean? For the Nation, it means communities across the country are ready, responsive and resilient to weather, water and climate threats. Community decision makers have access to information that is understandable and prepares them to take action to safeguard lives and livelihoods ahead of the onset of dangerous conditions. For NWS, a Weather-Ready Nation is described as a “strategic outcome” that requires two equally important efforts to successfully take place. First, internally within the organization, the NWS must evolve to be well-positioned to provide a higher level of forecast advice, or what the NWS calls “Impact-based Decision Support Services”, to the communities we live in across the United States, and to our close partners in the emergency management (EM) community.
This can be achieved using the latest advances in science & technology, modeling, social science, and information delivery systems. Emergency managers make really big decisions, both in terms of saving lives and mobilizing resources. They require a trusting, “hand-in-glove” relationship with their local Weather Forecast Office. Meeting this public safety mission means the NWS must work side by side with EM officials, keeping them informed of the latest developments, and communicating detailed information beyond just the most likely scenario. This includes expressing forecast confidence, probabilities of different scenarios occurring, and distinguishing more commonplace weather events from the truly historical. Knowing more about the complex factors that go into decision making, NWS forecasters can deliver the right information at the right time that will result in a societal response that is equal to the risk the community is facing. What is the result of this highly localized, increased level of partnership with emergency management? The best decisions being made to help protect you, your family, and your community.
Figure 2: NWS forecasters provide decision support to emergency management personnel at the event (left), at the command center (middle), and remotely (right).
The second critical component of Weather-Ready Nation is the value of partnerships and collaboration between NOAA/NWS and external organizations of all kinds in innovative and more meaningful ways. Only through working collectively with organizations that make up communities can NWS forecasts and warnings result in positive societal outcomes.
Government cannot achieve a Weather-Ready Nation alone. It requires working together with America’s Weather Industry, the emergency management community, and media partners. It also requires embracing the collective contributions from diverse types of organizations that have committed to working with NOAA and NWS as Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors. Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors act as force multipliers, engaging their own employees, stakeholders and clients to raise the level of preparedness. Fundamentally, the ambassador initiative is a commitment by NWS to collaborate with others and have a presence in every county.
Evolve NWS: Building the Case for Change
2017 is a special moment in time for the 147-year history of the National Weather Service. Societal needs for weather, water, and climate information are only increasing. Communities’ vulnerabilities to extreme events are increasing as well. Population growth and shifting demographics toward coastal and wildland areas only further increase these vulnerabilities. Challenges exist with keeping up with today’s technological advances and the pace of social change. Food prices, airline travel, power disruptions, supply chains, consumer spending are all influenced by the weather and extreme events. Businesses can thrive by taking advantage of consumer needs influenced by seasonal temperature predictions, for example, but can also be vulnerable to job losses and supply chain disruptions from extreme events. Food security, water availability, and ecosystem health show how linked our American way of life is tied to weather, water, and climate predictions.
With so much at stake, momentum has been building over the past six years on how the NWS can best meet these challenges and opportunities. From strategic planning at NOAA, and “Roadmap” planning at the NWS, to a National Academies of Sciences study, Weather Services for the Nation: Becoming Second to None (2012), there has been internal and external thoughtful, deliberate, innovative thinking on the future course for the NWS. A follow-on study to the Academies report by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), Forecast for the Future: Assuring the Capacity of the National Weather Service (2013)
Figure 3. Six major themes were identified within the NAPA report, Forecast for the Future:
Assuring the Capacity of the National Weather Service (2013).
and an Operations and Workforce Analysis by McKinsey & Co. (2016) help lay out a strategy on priority improvements for the NWS. All of these studies, analyses, and planning efforts have come together in 2017 to form the NWS “Evolve” initiative. NWS Evolve is a big step forward in building a Weather-Ready Nation.
Figure 4: Timeline of notable external (top) and internal NWS (bottom) administrative milestones leading up to the current NWS Evolve initiative. NWS Evolve is the result of a collection of efforts both within and outside of the NWS to realize the initial NOAA and NWS strategic vision from 2010.
Internal and external analyses agreed -- the NWS fulfills a crucial public safety and national security role, but was found to be not optimally organized to be effective in meeting society’s pressing needs. The result? NWS leadership revamped the organization’s budget management structure in 2013 to prioritize investing in technology advancements and supporting our local, “last mile” presence. In 2016, the NWS then used external Operations & Workforce Analysis to task our new Program Management Office [add link when available] to lead field-driven initiatives to improve forecasts and services to our partners. In 2017, NWS began re-negotiating the contract with its employee union to ensure NWS is able to meet the public’s needs in the 21st Century with a modern workforce, not one shaped back in the early 1990s during the last large-scale modernization effort, which the current contract now represents.
What Does a Weather-Ready Nation Look Like?
While there is still a ways to go, there have been success stories over the past six years that highlight the true potential and very real achievements that can be made to minimize loss of life and property. One such story is the Louisiana tornado outbreak in late February, 2017.
Accurate warnings, along with years worth of preparedness, relationship-building, exercises and drills with core partners all came together in an event where EM officials, first responders, and residents took immediate action -- resulting in zero deaths. The real lesson here is that your NWS workforce is empowered to do everything possible, working alongside valued partners, to give every individual a fighting chance to survive nature’s worst.
Figure 5: Home destroyed by the New Orleans East tornado. However, zero deaths were attributed to the Louisiana tornado outbreak on February 27, 2017.
Similar events have played out across the country that highlight building a Weather-Ready Nation is not only possible, but at the nation’s fingertips. Figure 5 below illustrates “pulling it all together”, working from bottom to top like a reverse hourglass. The traditional forecast process from observations up through accurate forecast and warning delivery, but taking it farther -- through the “last mile” by providing impact-based decision support services in addition to product delivery to NWS core partners, working with Weather-Ready Nation ambassadors to meet our mission and ultimately building a Weather-Ready Nation.
Figure 6: The value chain from bottom to top, connecting investments in observation systems, modeling, and a unified dissemination network to impact-based decision support and more effective communications to meet the NWS mission and strategic outcome of a Weather-Ready Nation.
National Weather Service’s Commitment to Building a Weather-Ready Nation
Indeed, accurate forecasts aren’t the only thing needed to minimize impacts from extreme weather events. In scientific terms, we call that “necessary but not sufficient.” What that means is more must be done beyond striving for a more accurate forecast -- decision support, better communication, and improved ways to deliver understandable and actionable information.
The National Weather Service is your first line of defense BEFORE extreme weather strikes -- operating 24x7 alongside emergency management officials in your community, and working in tandem with America’s Weather Industry. The NWS is committed to evolving as an agency to meet our mission at a higher level than ever before in its almost 150 year history, and always striving toward building a Weather-Ready Nation. The employees of the National Weather Service are committed to working with America’s Weather Industry, the emergency management community, other government agencies, media partners, and Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors, to collectively meet the needs of 330 million Americans who rely on all of us to keep them safe.
Since the beginning of the “Weather-Ready Nation” era in 2011, the NWS and its fellow NOAA line offices have fervently worked to improve its products and services to stakeholders and to the public at large. New observation capabilities like dual-polarization radar installed at every NEXRAD site [link to Radar coverage map] across the country improved detection of rain-snow lines and “debris-balls” that confirmed touchdown of tornadoes. Recently in the fall of 2016, GOES-R, the latest generation of weather satellite systems, was launched and put into orbit and is now called GOES-16. Among other advances, GOES-16 significantly enhances real time observation capability with significant improvements to image resolution, frequency (likened to the change from seeing photos to video), and new measurements like the Geostationary Lightning Mapper.
Modeling improvements continue to occur regularly across the portfolio of different model systems delivering higher resolution and more accurate numerical weather prediction guidance to NWS forecasters and our partners. A giant step forward was the implementation of the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model in 2014, which allows forecasters to see hourly high resolution model runs for more accurate severe weather impacts lead time.
