It is well known that weather affects almost all events and operations. Also well known is that adverse weather events (tornadoes, floods, etc.) cause millions and millions of dollars of damage annually in the United States. The NWS Modernization represents a $4.5 billion investment in modernizing the Nation's capability to observe and forecast the weather. Before making this investment, NOAA commissioned a study with the NIST (now National Bureau of Standards) to determine the losses that could be prevented if more accurate observations and forecasts were available. The study, recently revalidated, showed over $14 Billion in losses were preventable each year across eight market sectors (e.g., transportation, utilities). The goal of the GIS/Weather Decision support system (DSS) is to enable operators within these market sectors to apply weather information to mitigate losses to their mission critical assets.
The GIS/Weather DSS fuses GIS and weather technologies. The NWS Modernization and related activities have advanced weather technologies. During the timeframe of the NWS Modernization, GIS annual revenues have grown from a $150 million to over $5 billion, with more and more businesses and government agencies using GIS to track their mission critical assets. The GIS and weather technologies have been fused into a DSS that will allow non-meteorologists to consider weather effects and impact in daily operations. The DSS allows an operator to define a weather event and threshold of importance and an action to recommend in response to the weather event. For example, the operator may define a weather event and threshold of lightning within 1 mile of any mission critical asset, and also define a corresponding action or set of actions to take when the weather event and threshold occur. When the GIS/Weather DSS determines the weather event and threshold have occurred, the GIS/Weather DSS initiates the actions specified by the operator. Thus, the DSS assists the operator in making timely and accurate decisions on mitigating the effects of the weather event.
A prototype GIS/Weather DSS is being developed and fielded at several
beta sites. The experience from these beta sites will be used to refine
the GIS/Weather DSS for more extensive use by companies and Federal
agencies. The purposes of this paper are to describe the GIS/Weather
DSS and its concept of operations, to present the results from the prototype
DSS, and the follow-up on developments with the GIS/Weather DSS