AWOC Instructional Component

IC Winter 3:   User Needs to Mitigate Societal Impacts

 

General Information

Estimated IC Completion Time
90 min
Description

The AWOC Winter Weather Track teaches many concepts to help the NWS staff produce better forecasts. This Instructional Component, narrated by Andy Wood (WDTB), will focus on taking those forecasts, products, and services that need to be disseminated to the public and how we could do a better job meeting our users' needs with that information. Many concepts taught in this IC will focus on how forecasters can work to clarify the information we provide to our customers so that they, in turn, can better utilize that information that we provide to mitigate the most significant impacts of an impending winter weather event.

Testing Procedures
Testing for Instructional Components (IC) lessons is provided to the student using the NWS Learning Management System (LMS). If testing is required, the test must be successfully completed in order to complete the lessons. A score of at least 70% on the exam is required to successfully complete each lesson.

Lessons

Lesson 1:

Significant Impacts to Users

Description
This lesson focuses on how users are impacted by different winter events. The main goals for this lesson are to reinforce the different forecast parameters that are important to most users, how variations in those paramenters can affect the impacts on users, and highlight that events that may appear "light" to many people can still have significant impacts on the general public if they are not aware of the potential for brief periods, or even localized cases, of adverse conditions.
Estimated Lesson Completion Time
30 min. Module Type
Articulate Presenter
Resources
Exercises
None.
Review Sheets & Hand Outs
IC 3.1 student handout (80 MB PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat).
Lesson Links
NOAA employees should access this module via the NOAA E-Learning LMS as they will need to complete the exam and survey in the LMS to receive credit for completion. All others wishing to take this lesson should use the follow link(s):

IC 3.1: Significant Impacts to Users

Lesson 2:

User Issues, Constraints, and Responses

Description
This lesson is similar to Lesson 1, but the discussion focuses more on the users than the environmental parameters. Some results from the various NWS User Surveys are presented and ways to address the wants and needs of the general public, as well as specific sectors of the user community, are discussed. The last section of this lesson presents information on utlization and what, if anything, can we do to make our products more useable to the general public as a whole in the days and hours leading up to an impending winter weather event.
Estimated Lesson Completion Time
30 min. Module Type
Articulate Presenter
Resources
Exercises
None.
Review Sheets & Hand Outs
IC 3.2 student handout (80 MB PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat).
Lesson Links
NOAA employees should access this module via the NOAA E-Learning LMS as they will need to complete the exam and survey in the LMS to receive credit for completion. All others wishing to take this lesson should use the follow link(s):

IC3.2: User Issues, Constraints, and Responses

Lesson 3:

Conveying Forecast Confidence

Description
This lesson highlights the importance of conveying forecast certainty issues to our users, especially the media. While other ICs and lessons will discuss methods for assessing forecast uncertainty, this IC focuses solely on communicating it. Text (i.e., AFDs) and graphical products that can be used to discuss uncertainty issues are discussed with examples provided.
Estimated Lesson Completion Time
30 min. Module Type
Articulate Presenter
Resources
Exercises
None.
Review Sheets & Hand Outs
IC 3.3 student handout (80 MB PDF file requires Adobe Acrobat).
Lesson Links
NOAA employees should access this module via the NOAA E-Learning LMS as they will need to complete the exam and survey in the LMS to receive credit for completion. All others wishing to take this lesson should use the follow link(s):

IC 3.3: Conveying Forecast Confidence

Contact

Email
The Winter AWOC IC 3 Development Team
Telephone
(405) 573-3350