4.4 The National Weather Service Satellite User Readiness Mission Realized Through the Total Operational Weather Readiness – Satellites (TOWR-S) Project

Monday, 23 January 2017: 4:45 PM
620 (Washington State Convention Center )
Eric M. Guillot, Integrity Applications Inc for the National Weather Service Office of Observations, Silver Spring, MD; and M. W. Johnson, J. K. Zajic, L. A. Byerle, M. Comerford, and B. Rapp

The amount of satellite data and products being introduced into National Weather Service (NWS) operations beginning in 2017 is unprecedented.  This fact presents both an opportunity to improve national forecast and warning capabilities, but also a challenge in aligning end-to-end product production, dissemination, and display capabilities.  That is, this new data must complement and integrate with current and evolving weather mission capabilities.  In order to characterize and mitigate these challenges, NWS and NESDIS initiated the Total Operational Weather Readiness – Satellites (TOWR-S) project in early 2014.  The TOWR-S project has focused on end-to-end NWS use-case validation of GOES-R data, culminating in a validation exercise completed in August 2016.  This activity used model simulated imagery and derived products to exercise the entire GOES-R value chain with over fifteen members of the NWS operations community, including Weather Forecast Offices, River Forecast Centers, National Centers, data providers and dissemination stakeholders.  In addition to GOES-R, TOWR-S is leveraging similar methodology to integrate additional products from JPSS and other satellites into NWS operations.  

This presentation outlines the TOWR-S results to date and describes plans for 2017 product deployments.  It will also address the continued evolution of capabilities after these satellites are deployed and data made available to NWS operations.

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