A Report on "Building a Weather Ready Nation by Transitioning Academic Research to NOAA Operations" Workshop

In FY2016, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research’s (OAR) appropriation included an increase of $6M in support of a new Joint Technology Transfer Initiative (JTTI), to be carried out in coordination with the National Weather Service (NWS), and in cooperation with the American weather enterprise. Subsequently, 115^th Congress passed H.R.353 – Weather Research and Innovation Act of 2017, and included the following language in Sec.102. (b)(4) “A technology transfer initiative, carried out jointly and in coordination with the Director of the National Weather Service, and in cooperation with the United States weather industry and academic partners, to ensure continuous development and transition of the latest scientific and technological advances into operations of the National Weather Service and to establish a process to sunset outdated and expensive operational methods and tools to enable cost-effective transfer of new methods and tools into operations.”

Pursuant to the aforementioned technology transfer act, in collaboration with University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), NOAA conducted a workshop to engage the American Weather Enterprise in the transition of the latest weather technological advancements into NOAA’s NWS operations. This workshop was designed to inform and strengthen engagement between research and operational communities, as an activity of NOAA’s Weather Ready Nation (WRN). The workshop focused on research to operations (R2O) applicable to forecasting, unified modeling goals, observations, and related operations of the NWS. The specific goals of the workshop are (i) informing attendees about NOAA programs for transition, and the policies governing transition of research to operations; (ii) promoting best practices for transition of research to operations; and (iii) gathering input, suggestions, and identification of constraints or issues from a mixed community of researchers and operational personnel. The workshop was structured to have a plenary session followed by break-out sessions to identify issues and challenges and provide recommendations. This paper presents an overview of the presentations from the plenary session, and outcomes and recommendations from the break-out sessions.