National Weather Service Support for a Remote State Emergency Operations Center

Four National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) with responsibilities in the state of Oklahoma supported an alternate site state Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during the 2023 Oklahoma Emergency Management Association conference. Ad hoc EOC operations have previously been conducted during the annual conference, most notably in 2022 due to severe and fire weather impacts in the state; however, 2023 marked the first year with a proactively planned EOC at the conference venue. The NWS developed a weather support plan for the multi-day event following weeks of engagement with emergency management (EM) partners. The four WFOs collaboratively created and delivered a daily briefing package to EOC organizers each morning of the four days prior to the conference. Deployment-Ready meteorologists also staffed the EOC, providing scheduled and on-demand briefings for conference participants.

The alternate state EOC proved beneficial to both NWS warning and EM response operations, as significant severe weather and critical fire weather conditions impacted the state during the conference. Tailored information provided by the NWS allowed EMs to decide whether to temporarily travel from the venue to their home jurisdictions prior to potential severe weather and also to respond more quickly to impacts. In one example, the City of Norman EM credited the personalized interactions with providing extra lead time prior to an EF2 tornado impacting the city. As a result of the one-on-one discussions, EMs relayed critical storm reports to the on-site meteorologists which were subsequently passed to the WFO with less delay than would typically occur.

This presentation will detail both the external partner and internal WFO collaboration processes, post-event feedback, lessons learned and best practices. A focus on EOC operations during the 26 February 2023 high-impact severe weather event will be included.