Community-style discussion of Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) topics such as: Success stories in community resilience, effective communication, and enterprise collaborationsHazards that have seen an increase in fatalities and how the Weather Enterprise can work together to reduce loss of life (e.g., rip currents, hot vehicles, cold water)Science, technology, and communication advances that if applied more broadly could help build a WRN.Everyone attending the AMS Annual Conference is invited to join WRN Ambassadors, NWS partners, and NWS leadership to discuss how collectively we all can help build communities that are ready, responsive, and resilient to weather, water, and climate events.

The NASA Earth science flight program is a dynamic undertaking consisting of a large fleet of operating satellites, an array of satellite and instrument projects, a robust airborne science program which advances the use of satellite data, and a massive data archiving and distribution system. NASA’s fleet of 22 operating missions provides a wide range of scientific measurements obtained from dedicated Earth science satellites and the ISS. Projects in development are include both directed missions and competitively selected Principal Investigator-led missions. The Earth science flight program benefits from investments by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) to develop and demonstrate cutting-edge technologies that can be applied to future NASA Earth science measurements/missions. In addition, the NASA Earth science future portfolio will be evolving in response to the 2017 National Academies of Science Earth Science Decadal Survey. Support for this Town Hall is provided by Northrop Grumman.

Acting NOAA Administrator RDML Tim Gallaudet will provide an update on NOAA's top two priorities; Promoting the Blue Economy by increasing the sustainable economic contributions of our fisheries and ocean resources, and reducing the impacts of extreme weather through implementation of the Weather Research and Forecasting Act (2017).

DOE’s E3SM is a new high-resolution coupled Earth system model, designed to address energy-related science challenges and to effectively use DOE high performance computers. E3SM has released version 1 (model, data and analysis tools) and opened its github code repository. At this Town Hall we will share model results and computational performance from a range of atmospheric model configurations and resolutions. Science and development plans for the project, with focus on the atmosphere will also be presented. Several new atmospheric physics directions are under consideration by the project, as well as a longer term effort to run at cloud-resolving scales and use DOE exascale computers. Opportunities to engage with the E3SM project will be presented.  DOE sponsors and project leaders will address questions and invite feedback from the audience.  (See also: https:://E3SM.org)

In Spring 2019, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will host a Data User’s Workshop to examine the value and benefits of environmental data to discuss uses, applications, and requirements in an effort to garner feedback, best practices and identify opportunities for product innovation for NCEI products. During this Town Hall, NCEI will highlight relevant agriculture climate and weather data, products, and services that serve the sector, dialogue with stakeholders on uses and applications of NCEI data, and invite private and public industry representatives to contribute to the discussion as an example of the themes that will be discussed at the 2019 Data Users Conference.  The Town Hall will also provide a glimpse to potential participants of the layout and utility of a session to foster interest, as well refine the workshop model through audience insights and interaction.

Research and Development (R&D) at NOAA is an investment in the scientific knowledge and technology that will allow the United States to protect lives and property, sustain a strong economy, and adequately manage natural resources. Effective planning for the future of NOAA’s scientific enterprise is essential to the fulfillment of NOAA’s mission and mandates. To this end, NOAA is developing an R&D strategic plan that will outline and guide NOAA’s R&D priorities for the next five years. This includes, but is not limited to, providing guidance to the Line Office Annual Operating Plans, Line Office strategic plans, and budget planning. Additionally, the plan will provide a common understanding among NOAA’s leadership, its workforce, its partners, constituents, and the U.S. Congress on the value and direction of NOAA’s R&D activities. In conducting this Town Hall meeting, NOAA seeks to listen to external input on the priorities outlined in the R&D Plan.

The NASA Multi-angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) is a satellite instrument currently in development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The MAIA investigation seeks to understand how different types of particulate matter (PM) affect human health, including acute and chronic conditions and birth outcomes. The MAIA satellite instrument will collect data that will be combined with surface monitors and chemical transport modeling to produce daily-averaged concentrations of speciated PM over a set of globally distributed target areas. These data products will be used by epidemiologists on the MAIA Science Team to conduct health studies, but the PM data will also be publicly available. This town hall will provide an opportunity for epidemiologists, air quality managers, and other interested people to hear from members of the MAIA Science Team, the NASA Applied Science Program, and the Atmospheric Science Data Center about the investigation and opportunities to capitalize on the MAIA investigation.

The UN International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) will mobilize the global scientific community to encourage partnerships for joint research and technological innovation. This Decade consolidates UN efforts to boost international cooperation in marine science, providing more timely and reliable environmental predictions and information, days to months in advance. This Town Hall will address critical opportunities for joint World Meteorological Organization’s and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s decadal planning of ocean science, observations including Ocean Obs 19, and services for sustainable development. The program will address an integrated approach to earth system science (ocean/atmospheric) and observations to advance multi hazard early warning systems, improve early warning of ENSO impacts, support a continuous research-to-operations-to services value chain for earth system forecasting, and encourage data management and accessibility in order to help achieve the ocean decade and sustainable development goals including Sustainable Development Goal 14 on Oceans.

The National Weather Service (NWS) is undertaking a new initiative to help improve US weather forecasting. This new process under the recently revised NWS Governance provides guidance to collecting the forecasting needs from the field of operational forecasters, developing requirements from the needs, and then delivering those requirements to developers who create solutions to meet those needs.  For 0-18 hour forecasting, however, this process has not yet been fully executed due to lack of awareness and understanding difficulty in imposing it, and obstacles to change the traditional way of developing solutions first. Challenges arise in consolidating the forecasting needs into requirements and then passing those requirements to developers while ensuring this new process does not delay development schedules. The Analysis and Nowcast Branch of the Analyze, Forecast and Support Office is organizing a Town Hall Meeting to discuss ways to alleviate these issues and improve the NWS' 0-18 hour forecasting.

The National Science Foundation’s EarthCube program is a community-driven activity aimed at transforming the conduct of geosciences research and education by creating a well-connected cyberinfrastructure for sharing and integrating data and knowledge across all geoscience disciplines in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner and to accelerate our ability to understand and predict the Earth system.  In this Town Hall meeting we will present the progress of EarthCube on a number of fronts and engage the AMS community in the future steps toward the development of EarthCube. The meeting will provide an opportunity for the atmospheric science community to provide input and feedback on the EarthCube project.

It is important that members of the university and broader atmospheric science community, and program officers of the NSF and other federal agencies, contribute to the development of the NCAR and UCAR strategic plans. Wide involvement in NCAR and UCAR planning is essential because of the collaborative nature of our work and because NCAR/UCAR can only be fully successful through a close and ongoing engagement with a wide variety of partners. New NCAR and UCAR strategic plans will be drafted by the end of calendar 2018, so a Town Hall presentation of these plans at AMS 2019 will be important.

NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) leadership team will present an update of status and plans, with significant time for discussion with the audience, which is expected to comprise current and potential investigators in ESD’s programs and/or those of its partner agencies, as well as current and potential users of its products. Highlighted items include status of operating and future satellite missions; implementation of Venture Class activities; evolution of and plans for the research, applied sciences, and technology elements; contribution to interagency and international Earth observation and global change programs, and response to and preparation for community-based guiding documents. A particular focus of this year’s Town Hall will be on ESD actions, plans, and mechanisms for community interaction in response to the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Decadal Survey, Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space, that was released during the past year.

Extreme events cause disproportionate damage compared to regular events, as can be seen following the hurricanes and wildfires that affected the US in recent years. The ability of Earth System models to capture the general characteristics, variability, and changes of these events requires more research. Earth system models strive to represent the two-way interactions between large-scale variability and small-scale weather, allowing regional extremes to be modeled on multiple time scales. Extreme weather events carry a host of environmental impacts that have implications for multiple sectors such as energy, and water. The Model-Analysis component of the Earth and Environmental Systems Division at DOE uses a multipronged approach in understanding the underlying physical processes of extreme events, characterizing, and developing metrics and analysis tools to evaluate them. At this town hall we will highlight examples of current research, and seek input from the community with respect to collaborations and future research.

The weather enterprise continues to rally around the need for increased community engagement between public and private sectors based on our collective effort to restore and maintain U.S. leadership in weather prediction and forecasting according to the Weather Act of 2017. NOAA will host a town hall meeting between the research and operational communities as a follow on to the Building a Weather Ready Nation by Transitioning Academic Research to NOAA Operations Workshop back in November 2017. In order to achieve our goal of U.S. leadership in earth system modeling, NOAA must continuously engage the community by providing updates on the current status and future needs for improving the research to operation (R2O) process while underpinning this process with proven social science. It’s important that the weather enterprise continues to evolve and that together we find methods and practices that increasingly support improvements in U.S. weather modeling through community efforts.

NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) continues to evolve to a more mission-effective, integrated, adaptable, and affordable portfolio of satellite observations. NESDIS products and services are responding to changing technology, emerging partnerships and evolving observation requirements. A significant part of this evolution is enhanced engagement with the commercial sector. This engagement spans the breadth of NESDIS work: infusion of new technology, future program acquisition, additional sources of data, data processing, and data exploitation. In this Town Hall, Dr. Steve Volz, NESDIS Assistant Administrator, will give an overview of opportunities for the commercial sector to work more closely with NESDIS now and in the coming years.

Every stakeholder in the atmospheric science community has a user-focused communication role built into our careers, be it to add value to theoretical or applied science, to provide data and forecasts to the public or possibly to share developments within our field. Even though science communication is a prerequisite for the field, many of us face challenges in adequately translating our work such that our users benefit optimally from our work. In this town hall we will openly discuss the successes, challenges and lessons learned with an esteemed panel of atmospheric scientists, policy experts, social scientists and communicators. We will encourage questions from the audience to spark discussion and thought with the panel.

Numerical models in the NCEP Production Suite (NPS) form the foundation of all forecasting for the National Weather Service (NWS).  NWS needs to remain at the cutting-edge and continuously transition science from the research community to operations.  A key element in modernizing the NPS is external review by the UCAR Community Advisory Committee for NCEP (UCACN) Model Advisory Committee (UMAC) and the NOAA Unified Modeling Task Force / Committee.  Key recommendations were simplification and better governance of NPS, and a closer working relationship between NWS and the research community. A second key element is the Next Generation Global Prediction System project, where NWS has adopted a more project-oriented approach to improving NPS.  This project is now addressing regional mesoscale modeling in the NPS.  This town hall is designed to communicate progress on model development and the response to UMAC recommendations, and to provide a forum for feedback from our customers.

NOAA's Big Data Project (BDP) is in its fourth year, come hear how the Project has engaged with the user community and CRADA partners to develop new pathways and applications to serve up NOAA's observations and model outputs through public cloud services.  In this town hall, presenters will provide an update on the progress of the NOAA BDP efforts, including impact on research and applications, lessons learned, and plans for the future."

With the rapid growth of Machine Learning (ML) and its recent prominence in Environmental Sciences,  this town hall aims to better understand how such methods can work in concert with or complement more traditional statistical methods.  This town hall aims to better define the challenges of ML methods in environmental science applications, discuss how to determine which problems are better suited to particular methods, explore how statistical method and ML can work together and focus on how we can increase interpretability of ML algorithms.

The AMS Committee on Hydrology is charged with promoting events and activities that support the integration of expertise in the hydrological and meteorological sciences. The upcoming 100th AMS Annual Meeting (in 2020) provides a unique opportunity for reflection and charting the future direction of the Committee and hydrologic science and practice within the AMS. This town hall aims to provide to hydrologically inclined AMS members a better perspective on the role of the Committee within the AMS, encourage broader participation with and inform the future directions of the Committee over the next 10 years. The town hall will consist of current and past committee members addressing the following topics: Planning the 100th AMS Annual Meeting, Community involvement in meeting planning, Maintaining balance in the committee membership across work sectors, students, genders, minorities and other under-represented groups, Selection of the awards, Student involvement, and Defining priority science/research themes for the conference

The USAF Weather Systems Program Office (Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Weather Systems Branch) will present a systems roadmap for USAF weather capabilities and programs to interested industry, academia, and government research organizations, as part of general market research and awareness outreach.  Addressed will be likely research and procurement opportunities of weather systems with meteorological in-situ and remote sensing, modeling and high-performance computing, large-scale processing and dissemination, and forecaster applications.A limited number of boxed lunches will be provided by Northrop Grumman.