Implementation Plans for New Tropical Cyclone Products by the National Weather Service

NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) will start a comprehensive transformation of the tropical cyclone watch/warning program by the 2015 hurricane season. It will begin with a new Storm Surge Watch and Storm Surge Warning product disseminated through a TCV-like product from NHC with a local version also coming from the impacted WFOs. The new WFO TCV will be largely automated and include all local watches and warnings and meteorological information in a one zone-one segment basis from WFO gridded databases using an industry-standard format suitable for portable devices and software applications (web based and otherwise) enabling faster dissemination of tropical hazard information to the public. It will replace the HLS as the WFO tropical cyclone watch/warning product. Combined, the new NHC and WFO TCV-like products will open the door for a collaborative watch/warning process that will be more responsive to user needs.

The new HLS product will convey a succinct message on local impacts, tailored by forecaster input and reformatted based on social science research. The new HLS will complement the tropical cyclone impact graphics issued by coastal offices highlighting the WFO paradigm shift from mostly text products to more multimedia graphics. The new products will meet NOAA's Weather-Ready goal to build community resilience in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather and water events. This presentation will describe the implementation plans for the new tropical cyclone watch/warning program over the next several years.