Activities of the National Weather Association's (NWA) Remote Sensing Committee and Potential Synergies with the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography

The National Weather Association (NWA) has been supporting and promoting excellence in operational meteorology since its formation in 1975. With a membership in excess of 3,000 consisting of operational forecasters, TV and radio broadcasters, academia, and other government and private sector meteorologists, the NWA has become a cornerstone to its membership in terms of professional development, education and professional networking. The Remote Sensing Committee (RSC)* strives to enhance NWA members' awareness and use of current and emerging remote sensing information to improve weather, ocean, climate, and other operational environmental analysis and prediction systems and services. The RSC maintains an up-to-date web page (http://www.nwas.org/committees/rs/), develops articles for the monthly NWA Newsletter, promotes an undergraduate scholarship program, organizes training workshops at the NWA Annual Meeting, supports scientific and technical exchanges at conferences and symposia, and develops advocacy letters in support of important remote sensing capabilities. There are obvious synergies between the NWA RSC and the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography in which complementary capabilities and activities can enhance one another. For example, both committees actively promote practical applications of remote sensing to weather forecasting and advocate user community priorities in emerging and future space-based measurements. It is the purpose of this paper to describe in detail the activities of the NWA RSC and describe such opportunities for collaboration.

*R.Ferraro, D. Buechler, S. Bunin , K. Carey, G. Ellrod, J. Gurka, P. Heinselman, T. Lee, W. MacKenzie, J. Martinelli, B. Motta, C. Nelson, P. Santos, M. Stanga, S. Underwood, J. Yoe