Assessing the impact of collaborative research projects on NWS warning performance

Abstract

Since the inception of the Cooperative Program for Operational Meoteorological Education and Training (COMET) Outreach Program in 1990, over 250 collaborative projects have been funded nationwide, involving approximately 90 National Weather Service (NSW) offices and over 70 different universities. However, until now there have not been any attempts to objectively asses the impact of these collaborative projects on NSW warning performance. A study was conducted to examine the impact s of COMET Cooperative and Partners collaborative research projects on NSW performance metrics for tornado, severe thunderstorm, flash flood, and winter storm warnings. The study evaluated relevant collaborative projects within the Eastern Region of the NSW completed between 1995 and 2001. In addition, the verification trends at the NSW Weather Forecast Office (WFO) in Raleigh, North Carolina, were examined to evaluate the influence of long-term collaborative activities on performance. WFO Raleigh has been continously involved in collaborative projects with North Carolina State University since the 1980s, with the first COMET-funded projects commencing in January 1991. There are many factors that influence warning program verification scores on the long term (e.g., technology infussion, implementation of applied researh results, etc.) and the short term (e.g., weather "regime" impacts on event types and frequencies, office staffing issues and experience levels, etc.). The study was designed to try to isolate, to the extent possible, the impacts of the collaborative projects from these other factors. The res ults indicate that warning program verification scores for offices involved in COMET collaborative research activities appear to improve at a greater rate that the overall performance of all NWS offices within the Eastern Region. The greatest impact was noted for warning lead times. Probabilities of detection (POD) also showed increased rates of improvement. © 2005 American Metereological Society.