Government Weather Programs

During the 1980s and 1990s, the National Weather Service (NWS) undertook a major program called the Modernization and Associated Restructuring (MAR). The MAR was officially completed in 2000. No comprehensive assessment of the execution of the MAR plan, or comparison of the promised benefits of the MAR to its actual impact, had ever been conducted. Therefore, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an end-to-end assessment. That report, The National Weather Service Modernization and Associated Restructuring: A Retrospective Assessment, concluded that the MAR was a success. Now, twelve years after the official completion of the MAR, the challenges faced by the NWS are no less important than those of the pre-MAR era. The three key challenges are: 1) Keeping Pace with accelerating scientific and technological advancement, 2) Meeting Expanding and Evolving User Needs in an increasingly information centric society, and 3) Partnering with an Increasingly Capable Enterprise that has grown considerably since the time of the MAR. Weather Services for the Nation presents three main recommendations for responding to these challenges. These recommendations will help the NWS address these challenges, making it more agile and effective. This will put it on a path to becoming second to none at integrating advances in science and technology into its operations and at meeting user needs, leading in some areas and keeping pace in others. It will have the highest quality core capabilities among national weather services. It will have a more agile organizational structure and workforce that allow it to directly or indirectly reach more end-users, save more lives, and help more businesses. And it will have leveraged these capabilities through the broader enterprise. This approach will make possible societal benefits beyond what the NWS budget alone allows.

This workshop report examines the capability of the forecast system to efficiently transfer weather and climate research findings into improved operational forecast capabilities. It looks in particular at the Environmental Modeling Center of the National Weather Service and environmental observational satellite programs. Using these examples, the report identifies several shortcomings in the capability to transition from research to operations. Successful transitions from R&D to operational implementation requires (1) understanding of the importance (and risks) of the transition, (2) development and maintenance of appropriate transition plans, (3) adequate resource provision, and (4) continuous feedback (in both directions) between the R&D and operational activities.

In this study, the committee explores ways the National Weather Service (NWS) can take advantage of continuing advances in science and technology to meet the challenges of the future. The predictions are focused on the target year 2025. Because specific predictions about the state of science and technology or the NWS more than 25 years in the future will not be entirely accurate, the goal of this report is to identify and highlight trends that are most likely to influence change. The Panel on the Road Map for the Future National Weather Service developed an optimistic vision for 2025 based on advances in science and technology.