20040712: NOAA Assessment of Hurricane Isabel Response

>From:  "Brian Hughes" <address@hidden>
>Organization:  NOAA/NESDIS/OSDPD Satellite Services Division
>Keywords:  200407121726.i6CHQIaW024226 NOAA assessment

Hi Brian,

Sorry I couldn't get to this before now, but I am involved in
the CALMet workshop that is taking place at UCAR/COMET this week.

>I am involved in an effort to support a team assembled to develop a
>NOAA-wide Assessment of the Hurricane Isabel Response. The assessment
>team currently consists of representatives from NWS, NOS, NMFS, OAR, and
>NMAO (all NOAA organizations). Each representative is initially
>responsible for pulling together their line office's information and
>creating four things:
>
>1. what we (NOAA) could do in the future to better our response
>
>2. A two page fact sheet on the line office perspective on what they
>feel went well (Good), what they feel were the LO lessons learned (Bad),
>what were the LO best practices (future things to repeat), and NOAA
>lessons (integrated thoughts on how NOAA could improve it's response).
>
>3. A list of the relevant stake holders to consider interviewing to
>assess NOAA's response.
>
>4. A copy of all pertinent assessments of individual, program, office,
>or external responses to Isabel.
>
>Because of your extensive use of NESDIS satellite data, I was wondering
>whether you would be able to provide some brief information on items #1
>and 3 in particular, from either your own perspective as a user of NOAA
>satellite data or by relaying any recommendations/desires that you may
>have heard from other non-NOAA stake holders for this event. Such
>information will appear in a final assessment report detailing NOAA's
>performance during Isabel and outlining ways to enhance our services
>during future events.
>
>If possible, i'd like to obtain such information by this Thursday July
>15 in order to have sufficient time to assemble a consolidated package
>by the following day, when the initial input is due to the team
>co-chairs. If you have no such input to offer, then I would appreciate
>hearing that also.

Given your deadline and my not having much time right now, the best I
can offer is a couple of quick comments that I think represent
our and possibly the university community's view of NOAA data services:

1) We believe that the move to providing remote access to data is
   very important and should be continued.  We are hoping that we
   will be able to continue to work with NOAA representatives on
   adopting standards for the representation of metadata and remote
   access methodologies to the huge data stores that NOAA maintains.

2) We have been very appreciative of the collaborative effort that
   has been made by all of the stakeholders in the new NEXRAD Level
   II data relay using the Unidata LDM.  We would hope that NOAA
   personnel will continue to work with us on efforts like this
   and explore the possibilities of greater real time data movement
   on Internet2.

3) We would very much appreciate any efforts made to include all of
   the GTS data received by NOAA in the NOAAPORT broadcast.  Apparently,
   products like satellite derived sounding data are currently only
   available by FTP.  I can envision an effort akin to the ones for
   CRAFT (NEXRAD Level II) and CONDUIT (high resolution model data
   from the NCEP servers) that would allow Unidata access to the GTS
   data not being included in current broadcasts to be relayed by
   our Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system.  I know of several
   sites -- including international partners -- that would very much
   like to see such a service.

I am uncertain as to who to include as relevant stakeholders in
the Unidata community since there are _so_ many!

>Thanks very much for your assistance in this matter. Please feel free to
>call me if you have questions of require further clarification.

Sorry I wasn't of more help...

>-Brian
>--
>Brian K. Hughes
>Staff Meteorologist and Operations Coordinator
>Satellite Analysis Branch
>NOAA/NESDIS/OSDPD Satellite Services Division
>E/SP23, WWB Rm. 607
>Camp Springs, Maryland 20746
>(301) 763-8051 x106
>(202) 409-8629
>
>address@hidden
>http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/

Cheers,

Tom
--
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
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