41EIPT Ensuring Operational Resilience during Critical Weather Days: NWS Strategies to Protect Mission Delivery on the Most Dangerous Days

The National Weather Service (NWS) plays a crucial role in safeguarding lives and property by providing timely and accurate weather and water hazard information. The declaration of Critical Weather Days (CWDs) are designed to highlight periods of heightened meteorological threat, especially those rapidly evolving days when NWS products and services are most vital to support effective and quick life saving actions. The NWS Senior Duty Meteorologist (SDM) operates around the clock to monitor nationwide weather and water hazards, while also managing operational technology issues that could impact mission delivery to protect lives and property. In 2022, we expanded the Critical Weather Day (CWD) framework to incorporate a broader range of hazard types. Initial steps were taken to normalize the threat levels across all-hazards based on potential magnitude of threat to life, using a two-tier system that includes CWD and new Enhanced Caution Days (ECD), which takes a more targeted approach to protect critical operations while keeping most enterprise system and application/service upgrades moving forward. We will examine how these critical weather declarations help optimize NWS operational readiness during high impact events when needed most, and we will explore how we focus personnel and NOAA technology resources toward the coming storm.