Description:

The vision of a Weather-Ready Nation is that society is prepared for and responds to weather, water, and climate-dependent events.  This is a bold and challenging vision not only for the National Weather Service, but the entire Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise. Over decades, the Enterprise has established the structures, organizations, and metrics needed to improve the accuracy and precision of forecasts and warnings.  However, the vision of a Weather-Ready Nation requires the development of completely new structures, organizations, and metrics focused on achieving societal outcomes and societal value. In this session, we will discuss new efforts occurring across the Enterprise to better assess if our nation is becoming more weather ready, and if so, the value that provides to society.  The session includes:

• Efforts by the National Weather Service to measure progress towards the Weather-Ready Nation vision, including recent economic valuation studies of NWS forecasts and decision support services

• Efforts by the AMS Policy Program to better understand the weather, water, and climate value chain and broad societal benefits of weather, water, and climate data and information

• Efforts by the academic community to holistically assess public understanding, preparedness, and response to weather, water, and climate forecasts and warnings across the nation and over time

• Discussions with end users of weather, water, and climate information to provide first-hand perspectives of the Enterprise’s value to their particular sectors