Leveraging Advanced Early Warning Technologies and Effective Public/Private Sector Partnerships for Building a Weather Ready Nation

To effectively establish a Weather Ready Nation, the weather enterprise must work closely and collaboratively to develop and maintain the infrastructure required to properly observe, forecast and warn both the general public as well as weather sensitive commercial and industrial sectors. Given the many aspects of this endeavor, accomplishing it expeditiously and cost-effectively will require changes in traditional mindsets and methodologies. Specifically, expansion of the observing assets required to improve forecasts must fully embrace the network-of-networks concept; research to operations processes must be broadened and streamlined to ensure consideration of all available and emerging technologies as well as their potential for adoption and implementation in a timely manner; both traditional and new communications dissemination pathways must be fully exploited to expand reach; and investments must be made to more thoroughly understand the social sciences aspect of weather notifications and interpretation such that forecasts result in appropriate actions at critical times.

Weather has a significant impact on the safety and economic well-being of our nation, thus it is imperative that a strong public private partnership exists to meet this challenge. This presentation will explore new and emerging observation and forecasting technologies that possess great potential to significantly enhance warning lead times.