1) Development of a second generation Ensemble Situational Awareness Table. The Situational Awareness table compares the 42-member North American Ensemble Forecast System (NAEFS) mean with the running 3-week mean and standard deviation derived from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis and the GEFS Reforecast climatology to quantify the significance events (standardize anomaly). The table (http://ssd.wrh.noaa.gov/satable/)has become a very popular tool in WR that helps forecasters identify how significant a storm is and what feature of the storm is most significant (e.g., wind versus precipitation), which benefits DSS messaging.
2) Development of Forecast Confidence Tool Kit: This was a 2-year project working with the WR SOOs to identify, assess, provide recommendations, and training about the emerging analytical model tools that the forecaster could use to assess model skill. STID developed a Google-based web page with training/documentation that highlights the recommended analytical tools and enables the forecasters to more easily find and use them. The tools range from assessing short term convective scales to long term synoptic regime changes: https://sites.google.com/a/noaa.gov/nws-wr-stid/projects/forecast-confidence.
3) Development of a prototype Heat Service product to explore similar relationships. STID has developed a prototype Heat Index Level (HIL) that compares the current gridded forecast to climatological temperatures to identify heat events that are both climatologically significant and persistent. This approach is used to highlight events that unusual based on more than just maximum temperatures (e.g., overnight lows, time of year, duration of heat, etc.).
4) Applying “Just in Time” training to help promote how to use new tools in operations: Forecasters learn best when applying new tools and science to the current situation. Toward this goal, STID organized a series of GOTO conference calls where the scientist who developed the analytical tool could explain its application. To highlight how to use these analytical tools for real time situations, STID has been generating “just in time” emails prior to an event that illustrates how to use and interpret the tools. These emails employ graphic snap shots in a short, easy to read format that is distributed to all of the WR offices. After the event, STID has been generating post-mortem emails about how the analytical tools performed. Over the last few years, over 50 of these “just in time” emails have been generated.
Collectively, these four efforts have improved the use of model uncertainty and confidence information to improve forecast event lead time and DSS messaging, where the Forecast Office messages better focus on the expected significant impacts of the upcoming event.
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