Courses

Distance Learning Operations Course

• The WSR-88D Distance Learning Operations Course (DLOC) covers radar theory, operations of the radar, and the integration of current meteorological techniques with Doppler radar capabilities. This course is taught via a combination of teletraining, CD-ROM, web-based instruction, and on-station training. All students will also attend a 3 and 1/2 day DLOC Workshop. This workshop will be offered three times at the COMET Classroom in Boulder, Colorado. We estimate this course will take about 114 hours to complete (86 hours on-station, 28 workshop hours).

• AWOC will provide Warning Decision Making (WDM) principles to all NWS forecasters. AWOC will initially consist of a core track and a severe weather track. Topics for the core track include Situation Awareness, Decision Making, Office Strategies, Communication, Collaboration, Post-Event Assessment, Data Quality, Societal Impacts, and Public Perception. Topics to be covered in the severe track include Severe Hazards Threat Assessment, Interrogation Procedures, and at least two Severe Weather Simulations (fulfills a requirement in NWS Instruction 20-201).

  The core track and severe track will each consist of approximately 14 hours of material. A majority of the material will be delivered asynchronously (without direct contact to an instructor), such as web-based modules or recorded teletraining sessions. Some of the material will be delivered synchronously via teletraining, and offered a sufficient number of times (more than 50) to accommodate completion (of the core and severe weather tracks) by all students between October 2004 and September 2005.

  A key component for the success of AWOC is on-site facilitation. Accordingly, this course requires a 3-day AWOC Facilitator Workshop for SOOs (or a designated on-site AWOC facilitator) in Norman, OK in August and September 2004. This workshop will feature presentations by both instructors and subject matter experts on course purpose, content, and administration. The SOOs will be trained on ways to effectively deliver and evaluate simulations, and gain hands-on experience with the simulations.

EF-Scale Training

• The NWS will be implementing the EF-Scale February 1, 2007 for rating tornado strength. WDTB has developed training on the details of the EF-Scale and how to use the new scale during damage surveys. There is also information on two tools that are available to better implement the EF-Scale in your office. The first is a PC-based application, EFkit, that provides damage survey participants a visualization tool to better implement the EF-Scale. The second is information on the WCM Bulletin Board RSS feed.

The Nation's Weather Enterprise: Public-Private Sector Partnership

• The recent NOAA-NCIM jointly sponsored Public-Private Partnership Workshop held on June 1, 2006, at Howard University was a beginning step in a larger effort to initiate true dialogue and collaboration between two of the three main sectors of the weather and climate enterprise. Because a one-day workshop reaches only a limited number of people, we developed this distance education module to help all public and private sector professionals better understand and appreciate how each sector contributes to U.S.’s highly-competitive weather enterprise. An anticipated and desired outcome is for meteorologists to forge collaborations that result in development of a collective vision to grow the enterprise.