5.2 NOAA's National Weather Service climate services activities

Wednesday, 22 June 2005: 8:15 AM
North & Center Ballroom (Hilton DeSoto)
Barbara E. Mayes, NOAA/NWS, Silver Spring, MD; and R. E. Livezey

NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) has increased its profile in climate services in the last year as it has expanded its regional and local climate services. National outreach activities include organizing, facilitating, and attending climate-related workshops and meetings, as well as developing outreach materials including brochures and websites.

In 2004-05, NWS Climate Services led several climate outreach projects. With partners both in NOAA and outside of the government sector, NWS sponsored several workshops, including the NOAA Snowfall Network Observations Workshop (SNOW), NOAA Data Users' Forum, Climate Prediction Applications Science (CPAS) Workshop, and NCEP Climate Guidance Products Users' Workshop. We will discuss outcomes from those workshops, including highlights and resulting action. In addition, NWS produced materials for outreach on climate, including a web-based outreach toolkit, as well as training for its field employees on outreach and customer service in climate services. NWS is also developing brochures in electronic and printed formats on basic climate information, NWS climate prediction products, access to climate data, and drought. These materials will be presented and, where applicable, demonstrated.

NWS Climate Services will present its outreach plans for the rest of 2005 and beyond. With the development of local climate outlooks, NWS will emphasize customer and partner reviews of products as well as customer outreach on the new products. Customer outreach will still be conducted on existing products and services, including drought-related services and probabilistic forecasts. Also, the cadre of local climate focal points within NWS allows for new opportunities in local-level climate outreach.

During this presentation, the author will solicit feedback from attendees regarding NWS climate products and services, as well as the effectiveness of ongoing outreach activities, via open discussion.

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