Session 13B Continuing to Grow the Pathfinder Project: Examples of Expanding Collaboration Across the Road Weather Enterprise to Create a Unified Message I

Thursday, 1 February 2024: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Holiday 6 (Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor)
Host: 12th Symposium on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise
Chair:
Kristian Andrew Mattarochia, NWS, NWS Hanford, Hanford, CA

The Pathfinder project was initiated in 2014 as a pilot project across four western States (California, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming) to document current State DOT interactions and working relationships with the weather enterprise (both NWS and private sector). The focus was on the I-80 corridor which represents a mix of metropolitan, vulnerable populations/underserved communities and serves as a main commercial trucking route. The team documented best practices across the agencies to disseminate consistent messages about the weather and its impact on the roads, and the way in which the messages proactively prepared travelers to change departure times, cancel trips, choose alternate routes, or select different modes of transportation in response to adverse weather conditions.

Although unintentionally, the initial focus of the Pathfinder Project was on Winter Weather, but the Project also includes mitigating hazardous traveler due to fog, smoke, wildfires, blowing dust, heavy precipitation and strong winds.

There are many examples across the country of highly beneficial partnerships spawned by the Pathfinder Project. Visibility of these efforts will inspire and lead others within the weather enterprise to spread the Pathfinder Project nationwide. Not only new and unparalleled changes have arisen because of climate change, but also new and unparalleled probabilistic messaging has evolved which can better communicate risk to the public and cost/loss modeling to the weather enterprise in the uncertain climate that lies ahead.

Papers:
8:30 AM
13B.1
A Five Year Retrospective of Pennsylvania’s Pathfinder Program Success
John R. Banghoff, MS, Penn State University; BS, The Ohio State University, NWS, State College, PA; and M. L. Jurewicz Sr., J. Guseman, M. R. Colbert, J. Jumper, M. Steinbugl, and G. A. DeVoir

Handout (12.4 MB)

8:45 AM
13B.2
Using the Prototype NWS Hourly Winter Storm Severity Index (WSSI) to Complement Pathfinder
Dana Tobin, CU/CIRES and NOAA/NWS/WPC, College Park, MD; and J. Kastman and J. A. Nelson Jr.

9:00 AM
13B.3
Comparing Road and Bridge Surface Temperatures During the Winter Season in Ohio
Seth Michael Guidry, National Weather Center REU Program, Norman, OK; and D. D. Tripp, M. E. Baldwin, and A. A. Rosenow

9:15 AM
13B.4
9:30 AM
13B.5
Expansion of the Nebraska Winter Severity Index
Thomas Sander Kauzlarich, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE; University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE; and M. Anderson, C. L. Walker, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, and L. Chen

9:45 AM
13B.6
Pathfinder for Solar Eclipses
C. David Johnson, Department of Transportation, Washington, DC; and J. McGuffey, R. Murphy, and B. C. Boyce

- Indicates paper has been withdrawn from meeting
- Indicates an Award Winner