34Education Data Fusion Techniques Applied to Training on NWS Operational Short-fuse Warnings

The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) and the NOAA/NWS Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD) have collaborated on the development of training aimed at NWS operational forecasters on the topic of short-fuse warnings. Data fusion techniques are applied to a variety of operational short-fuse warning situations, including severe thunderstorms, flash flooding, and blowing dust. Data fusion in this context refers to using multiple types of weather information, for example, satellite, radar, lightning, environmental data, videos, pictures etc. Data fusion training addresses the challenge of learning how to combine multiple sources when making warning decisions. This includes challenges such as variable priorities in data types during an event due to data type limitations or even missing a particular data type. Training content is made available on the NOAA Commerce Learning Center (CLC) and Virtual Institute for Satellite Training Integration (VISIT) web-pages. This presentation will discuss available training with an emphasis on the most recently developed interactive training exercise on dust storm warnings.