NWS communications identifiers, heading for the future!

NWS COMMUNICATIONS IDENTIFIERS, Heading for the Future!

There are more than 105,000 products defined for exchange through various NWS acquisition and dissemination systems. Of these, more than 26,000 are alphanumeric products issued by NWS offices and commonly used throughout the U.S. public and private weather communities. The NWS formulated a national policy defining the communications identifiers for these products. The implementation of this policy, which is ongoing, has involved more than 15,000 changes to these identifiers. This paper will review these changes. It will examine why the changes were needed, what the advantages are and the status of full implementation of the national policy. Lastly, this paper will look at what changes the future will bring.