National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Services Division (CSD) provides oversight for NWS climate-related policy and planning. CSD ensures that policy provides NWS field offices with the guidance needed to conduct NOAA-level climate services. This requires both routine monitoring of policies for relevance and provision of appropriate changes. To ensure relevance of NWS climate product and services, CSD supports efforts to identify the level of NWS climate user requirements and satisfaction. These efforts include (1) periodical surveys conducted by Claes Fornell International (CFI) Group, (2) NWS supported Climate Prediction Application Science (CPAS) annual workshops, (3) user engagement activities with NWS field offices and (4) incorporation of Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) and US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) research findings.

The CFI Group conducted NWS Climate Product and Services surveys in 2004 and 2008. One of the CFI 2004 survey findings was a need for more clarity in NWS climate outlook products. At the same time, CPAS workshops demonstrated user needs for local climate products. RISA research indicated “barriers” on climate forecast applications (Hartmann, 2002). All of these contributed to the development of NWS policy for new Local 3 Month Temperature Outlook (L3MTO). L3MTO became operational in 2007. In addition to L3MTO, CSD developed a policy on NWS Drought Monitoring and Outlook products as well as NOAA Online Weather Data (NOW Data) products. These new products are being evaluated by the CFI 2008 survey.

The CFI 2008 survey also addresses specific topics such as NWS forecast product category names, probabilistic nature of climate products, communicating issues, etc. The survey results provide user requirements for improving existing NWS climate services and introducing new ones. CSD has merged these recommendations with NWS available scientific methodologies and operational capabilities to develop policies for improved climate product and services.