The 8th Symposium on Education

P1.15
DOWNLOADING LESSONS FROM NWSTC- A LOOK INTO THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

James Kaplafka, NOAA/NWS, Kansas City, MO

The National Weather Service Training Center in Kansas City offers resident courses and remote training primarily intended for National Weather Service personnel. Some of the remote training developed by the Center serves as introduction to Weather Service systems, and some provides training in various fundamentals. Currently, lessons in the form of computer based instruction (CBI) are freely available for downloading off the Internet by accessing the Center's Web Home Page. Examples of system discussions delivered via CBI include lessons on the weather sensing instrument groups that reside at airports all over the country (ASOS groups), and an introduction to the newly deployed Console Replacement System, CRS, used by operators of NOAA Weather Radio. CRS generates automated weather reports delivered in synthesized voice. A CBI lesson demonstrates the coding of meteorological data into a standard format used for communicating data both to the national center that generates weather model products and into area communication networks. Indeed working with weather data and products is increasingly a matter of utilizing rapid data communication networks and techniques. The Center offers a series of CBI modules providing background knowledge of modern data communications that cover various aspects ranging from fundamentals of digital transmission to discussions of networking protocols, most drawing on examples of the use of communications by the National Weather Service. There are CBI lessons on the design and theory of operation of the time-honored F420 wind speed and direction systems currently in use in the Alaskan and Pacific regions of the National Weather Service and at a number of FAA sites. The presentation discusses and demonstrates lessons.

The 8th Symposium on Education