GOES-R Training Plan for NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Forecasters

The GOES-R satellite is scheduled for launch in March 2016. New instruments on GOES-R will provide a great leap forward in environmental observing capabilities. The enhanced GOES-R satellite will offer a significant challenge to ensure that the users are ready to exploit the new observations and translate these advances into improved forecast and warning services. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) will provide 5 times faster scanning, a fourfold improvement in spatial resolution, and 11 additional spectral channels over the current GOES Imager. GOES-R will also host a totally new instrument, the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) plus advanced Space Weather Instruments. To ensure users are ready, the NWS and their partners in NESDIS and NOAA's cooperative institutes have developed a comprehensive training plan for operational forecasters.

The NWS Operational Advisory Team (NOAT) selected a team of Science and Operations Officers (SOOs) plus one DOH to form the Satellite User Readiness Training (SURT) Team. The SURT team developed a comprehensive multi-pronged training approach to ensure that forecasters will be ready for GOES-R observations. The implementation of the plan is underway and will continue through launch of GOES-R in March 2016, GOES-S and JPSS in 2017 and continuing into 2018 and beyond.

The goal of the training plan is to ensure that forecasters are ready to integrate GOES-R data and products into forecast and warning operations from the beginning of GOES-R operations. Foundational training will be available just after launch utilizing examples from the Japanese Himawari satellite. Additional training will be prepared while GOES-R is still in post-launch testing during 2016. After forecasters complete the training modules they should be able to: 1) understand the differences between legacy GOES and GOES-R observations; 2) interpret and utilize GOES-R ABI imagery and derived products in the preparation of NWS forecasts and warnings; 3) utilize the GLM in forecast and warning operations; and 4) understand the fundamentals of Red-Green-Blue (RGB) satellite product techniques and apply these to the identification of meteorological phenomena.

The three major components of the course include 1) Foundational training; 2) Applications training; 3) Office facilitator training. There are several groups responsible for developing, delivering and updating the training, including the NWS Office of the Chief Learning Officer (mainly the Warning Decision Training Division and the Forecast Decision Training Division), the Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT), the satellite liaisons at NOAA's cooperative institutes (CIRA, CIMSS, CIMMS, CICS), NASA SPoRT and UCAR's Cooperative Program for Meteorology Education and Training (COMET).