FDTD Satellite Applications Webinars: A Peer-to-Peer Training Mechanism for the National Weather Service

Forecast Decision Training Division (FDTD) sponsors a semi-regular series of GoToMeeting-powered Webinars that are most often led by National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters that describe satellite (mostly GOES-16/-17) applications as used in individual offices. There is a wealth of research that suggests that learning from peers allows for strong training, and these webinars seek to exploit that. This is an outgrowth of Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT) “Satellite Chats” that started in February 2012, monthly chat sessions to discuss recent significant weather events with the objective of demonstrating satellite products that can be applied to operational forecasting. In April 2017 these were renamed to “FDTD GOES-16 Applications Webinar” and later “GOES” replaced “GOES-16” as GOES-17 became available. This presentation will describe the mechanisms for identifying topics, the procedures for developing the webinar presentations, the webinars themselves and the archive of training: All webinars are recorded and made available at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/training/visit/satellite_chat/