DSS Full Throttle: NOLA Navy Week

New Orleans (NOLA) Navy Week returned to the banks of Mississippi River April 23-29, 2015. Over 25,000 people visited ships docked along the Mississippi River from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, the British Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy as well as outdoor venues and exhibits. In addition to the public tours of the ships, military personnel leveraged the event to host public service related activities throughout New Orleans including band concerts and rugby, soccer and softball games with community teams. Understanding the risks of hazardous weather to visitors and their military personnel, the U.S. Navy requested on-site weather support from the National Weather Service's New Orleans-Baton Rouge Weather Forecast Office (WFO). To answer this request, the WFO deployed two meteorologists to the U.S. Navy's Command Center for NOLA Navy Week.

An active weather pattern characterized NOLA Navy Week. There was a risk of severe weather five of the seven days. The most active weather day was April 27. In the early morning, the NWS Storm Prediction Center issued an outlook for a “slight risk” of severe weather for the WFO New Orleans-Baton Rouge County Warning Area (CWA) with an “enhanced risk” for the southern half of the CWA including the city of New Orleans. At daybreak, a squall line was moving into the WFO's CWA tracking toward the outdoor venues and ships of NOLA Navy Week. To highlight the value of enhanced decision support services in protecting lives and property, two perspectives will be presented. The first will be from the perspective of an onsite meteorologist providing information to decision makers and the second will be from a meteorologist at the WFO to fulfill the NWS' mission. The meteorologists deployed to the U.S. Navy's Command Center will discuss the informational needs and the most effective means of delivering WFO information to military leadership and city emergency management officials. The second perspective will be provided from WFO meteorologists. This discussion will highlight best practices and lessons learned to effectively communicate to partners and customers as well as providing quick-fire information to the on-site meteorologists in hazardous weather situations.