Advancing Warnings: Threats-in-Motion and its (Potential) Path Toward NWS Operations

The NWS' promising new suite of convective warning products is inching closer to becoming a reality! With support from the new NWS strategic plan (a.k.a. "Ken's 10"), a pair of products, collectively known as Threats-in-Motion (TIM), would allow severe convective warnings to more-continuously update. The aim of these frequently-updating warnings is to enhance forecasters' ability to provide impact-based decision support services (IDSS) and to provide end users more equitable lead times and clearer messaging. The proposed first iteration of TIM, affectionately known as "Tiny TIM", extends capabilities within the NWS' current convective warning framework by allowing warnings to be extended in time and area. The other, "Taller TIM", is a full-scale implementation of continuously-updating warnings that move with a storm.

Anticipating the need for training on these new TIM concepts, and throughout the TIM research and development process, a forecaster training representative has played a key role on the interdisciplinary TIM development team. This person works to discern forecasters' thoughts on workload, workflow, best practices, and potential concepts of operation. Relevant findings from recent Tiny and Taller TIM experiments will be presented, as well as TIM's proposed research-to-operations path (including challenges to overcome) and preliminary forecaster training needs. Although TIM is closer to its operational transition, feedback from forecasters and end users is still being collected and, to that end, this presentation will be interactive.