National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program (CO-OP) Annual Report

MODERNIZATION OF NWS SURFACE OBSERVATIONS

Robert E. Livezey, Andrew H. Horvitz, and Robert J. Leffler, NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services, Silver Spring, Maryland; David Mannarano, NWS Office of Operational Systems, Silver Spring, Maryland

The National Weather Service is seeking to modernize surface observations (from Cooperative Observer Program, COOP, and Automated Surface Observing System, ASOS, sites) with state-of-the-art measurement, monitoring, and communication equipment and data universally available in near real time (i.e., on the hour) via the Internet.

This initiative is driven by an exploding demand for higher density, real-time surface data by weather-sensitive industries and private and public weather services far in excess of current capabilities. The NWS also requires accurate, non-airport, real-time data to improve its local warnings and forecasts and verification programs. At non-airport locations, the COOP data are the cornerstone for monitoring, documentation and analysis of regional weather and climate variability, and as such play critical roles in the development and verification of both weather and climate prediction models and techniques.

Current COOP instrumentation and data processing are antiquated and will begin to fail by FY2002. Attention is directed immediately (FY2000-2002) to launch a COOP "rescue" effort to prevent catastrophic failures of critical observing equipment at existing COOP sites and avoid compromising the nation's longest surface weather records. This "rescue" effort is critical to maintaining NOAA's ability to analyze and monitor climate and weather variability as well as to develop, calibrate, and verify climate prediction models.

The modernization will be guided by network studies to identify the weather and climate requirements of NOAA, its federal partners, especially United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and its constituents. All interested parties will be closely consulted in the planning and design of the network. Consequently, the studies will need to simultaneously address the number and distribution of sites for different types of observations (including soil moisture and pan evaporation), requirements for accuracy, reliability, and reporting frequency of the observations, and priorities for modernization sequence of all selected sites. A substantial portion of the current 11,600 COOP sites are expected to be fully-modernized. This real-time access to both ASOS and COOP network data will allow substantially more accurate real-time corrections to biases in the weather radar precipitation estimates. Modernization and real-time access will also allow more efficient network maintenance, management, and quality control.

Real-time surface observations will open up broad new opportunities for private sector decision-makers to mitigate adverse impacts and realize economic advantages in developing weather and climate scenarios. The latter will be particularly true for rapidly-expanding applications in the insurance, reinsurance, and weather risk management industries.