Building a Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) by Transforming the National Weather Service’s Dissemination Systems

The National Weather Service (NWS) established the Office of Dissemination Portfolio in 2015 as part of a comprehensive NWS headquarters restructuring. This critical NWS office: 1) operates and maintains NWS IT systems, infrastructure, and services throughout the Nation; 2) manages and oversees operations of select dissemination systems; 3) disseminates NWS weather, water, and climate data and information to the public to support sector-relevant economic productivity and to help communities, businesses, and governments understand and adapt to weather- and climate-related risks; and 4) promotes increased accessibility, interoperability, and stewardship of NOAA data and for integration and planning of new dissemination technologies for performance enhancement and cost effectiveness.

Since the 2015, the Office of Dissemination has completed several significant activities to consolidate, streamline, and modernize the previous patchwork of systems and networks by introducing long-term centrally managed and sustainable solutions.

Benefitting from these foundational changes, the Office of Dissemination is turning its focus to provide simplified and coherent approaches to disseminating data and information to the public, communities, and partners. Through an improved understanding of the complex warning communication process and the variety of warning modalities available to users, the NWS will engage in more effective exchanges; and by introducing a more holistic approach to the application of Geospatial Web Services, the weather enterprise will be better able to support the goal of a Weather-Ready Nation. This talk discuss the current state of NWS Dissemination systems and look into the future of Dissemination services.