A Review of the Warning Decision Training Division's Outreach Events

Each year the Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD) of the National Weather Service (NWS) conducts a variety of outreach events for graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 students using two different approaches. The first method is to host a warning simulation for students in-house at WDTD’s training lab. This experience allows students to issue severe thunderstorm, tornado, and flash flood warnings in real-time using an archived case in an AWIPS simulation, much like the Radar & Applications Course workshop taken by newly hired NWS forecasters. This gives students a glimpse into the job duties of warning forecasters in the NWS. Students in the University of Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Weather Lab, the National Weather Center’s Research Experience for Undergraduates students, and Hollings Scholars have all participated in the lab warning simulation. At the conclusion of the lab simulations, WDTD instructors host a Q&A session discussing graduate school, NWS jobs, and other meteorology career paths. The second outreach method uses WDTD laptops and monitors instead of networked desktops, which allows flexibility for WDTD instructors to run their outreach activities from anywhere. External groups issue their own warnings on archived dual-pol radar data in AWIPS without the stress of working in real-time. During these sessions WDTD instructors are available to assist with the workflow of issuing a warning as this is the first warning experience for most members of the public. WDTD has used this method during the last night of a “first of its kind” five-night STEM enrichment camp for middle school students at the Boys and Girls Club of Norman in collaboration with the Cooperative Institute for Severe & High-Impact Weather Research and Operations. This method is also used with middle school students in the Oklahoma Mesonet Camp and attendees of the annual National Weather Festival that is open to the public and hosted by the National Weather Center.