National Weather Service Overview and Role in the IWT

1
National Weather Service Overview and Role in the
IWT

• Andy Bailey
• Warning Coordination Meteorologist
• Pleasant Hill, MO
• andy.bailey_at_noaa.gov

2
Agenda

• NWS Overview
• Our personality
• Our view of our role in the IWT
• Perceived Challenges
• Perceived Constraints
• Perceived Relationship

3
NWS Kansas City/Pleasant Hill
To protect life and property through the issuance
of forecasts and warnings, and to enhance the
national economy.
4
Profile of a Typical NWS Forecaster

• Passionate about weather
• (likely from an early age)
• Very committed to the job and believes in the
  mission
• Proud to work for the NWS

5
Personality of a Typical NWS Forecaster(70
percent are MB - ISTJ)

• Quiet and reserved (introverted)
• Strong internal sense of duty
• Loyal, faithful, dependable
• Tend to believe in laws and traditions
• Excellent ability to take a task, define it,
  organize it, plan it, and implement it through to
  completion

6
My perspective on our Role in the IWT

• We are the technical weather experts
• We lead the IWT with respect to
• Threat analysis, prediction, and warning
• We are the severe weather authority
• There is no group better equipped or trained than
  a NWS WFO for this task
• Through our technical role, we are here to
  support the work of EMs and the Broadcast Media

7
My perspective on our Role in the IWT

• We view emergency managers as partners who make
  the warnings effective at the local level
• We view the media as partners who communicate the
  warning to the masses
• It is in our (NWS) best interest to help our IWT
  partners be as successful as possible. Doing so
  helps us achieve our mission.

8
Perceived Challenges

• Achieving perfect warning statistics and what
  are failure does to our credibility
• Polygon vs Tor track
• Nature of inexact science
• Communication capability
• Personal as well as technological
• Internal struggles
• Accuracy vs. service/interpretation
• Agency cultural inertia
• Defining our IWT role

9
Perceived Constraints

• We cant change policy quickly, or independently
  from other WFOs (also remember our personality)
• Technical limitations (science and tools)
• Our budget has essentially been cut
• Staffing will not increase

10
Relationship Challenges

• It is difficult to build relationships with 44
  county officials, and many, many more city/town
  officials
• We occasionally get sucked into the fray of media
  competition
• I dont feel our relationship with media is good
  - and Im not entirely sure what to do about it

11
What I want out of the Workshop

• More team thinking among all facets of the IWT.
• Strengthened relationships/increase in trust
  among IWT
• Identify ways we can work together to get a
  better response from public to our warnings
• Commitment to build on this workshop

12
Discussion?