NOAA Observational Requirement Development for Winter and Severe Weather

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Weather-Ready Nation Long-term Goal identifies eleven Mission Service Areas (MSAs) that provide information to prepare for and respond to environmental events to protect human health and safety, the environment, economy, and homeland security. This poster will focus on the system-agnostic observation user requirement update process for two MSAs: Winter and Severe Weather. NOAA observational requirements serve as a critical tool for decision making and highlight the current focuses and needs of each program office. Winter and Severe Weather observational requirements are presently undergoing an update to support the development of operational requirements for Radar Next. Thirteen years after the last requirement refresh, developments in science and changes in mission priorities have necessitated an updated set of observational requirements. The Requirements, Strategy, and Policy branch of the NWS Office of Observations facilitates this process by briefing NWS and NOAA leadership on the proposed requirements. The goal is approval of the requirements by NOAA’s Observing System Council (NOSC), which serves as the principal advisory body to the Administrator and focal point for the agency's observing system activities and interests. The requirement refresh process is extensible, so individual requirements or requirement categories can be updated as needed. For the first time, the Winter and Severe Weather program offices were specifically consulted in the requirement refresh process, resulting in widespread changes. In 2024, the total number of Winter Weather requirements increased from 28 to 55. Thirty-four new requirements were added to the highest priority level, Priority 1, designating that the requirements are mission critical. Severe Weather added 56 new Priority 1 requirements and increased its total from 16 to 81. Once the requirements are finalized, the Radar Next program will use them to shape the system requirements for the next generation of radar. These significant changes to observational requirements will ensure that NOAA takes into account the most up-to-date information when scoping and planning next generation observing systems.