1 Wireless Weather Services NWS and Weather Enterprise Roles Edward Johnson Director, NWS Strategic...
Transcript of 1 Wireless Weather Services NWS and Weather Enterprise Roles Edward Johnson Director, NWS Strategic...
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Wireless Weather ServicesNWS and Weather Enterprise Roles
Edward JohnsonDirector, NWS Strategic Planning and Policy Office
Forum on Wireless Weather ServicesJune 28, 2011
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Agenda
• AM – Presentations• PM – Discussion• Summary and wrap-up
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Goal
• Engage weather enterprise (government, private sector, academia) and core partners (e.g., emergency managers) in discussions on how best to provide wireless services.
• Solicit feedback on most appropriate role for NWS in providing wireless weather services.
• This is not a “decision-meeting”
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Drivers
• Ownership of wireless devices - 89% US population (June 2009, 276.6M subscribers)
• Mobile devices will be world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020
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Target Audience for Wireless Weather Information
• NWS Core Partners – for protection of life/property– Emergency managers (and their “agents”)– Agencies with missions closely allied to NWS (e.g.
FAA, water managers)– Electronic media (may not be key for wireless)
• General public – Protect life/property– General needs (Will it rain during my BBQ?)– Sustain national economy
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Needs - Core Partners
• Require timely, text and graphical information wherever they are, through multiple channels of dissemination
• NWS needs to know they are looking at same data/products forecasters are looking at
• Require tools to facilitate two-way information sharing and decision support with NWS
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Needs - General Public
• Wants instant, reliable information on-the-go• Need information presented in clear, non-
technical language• Seek corroborating information from many
sources before acting• Threats need to be better personalized to
ensure responsive action is taken• Concerns about limitations of wireless
dissemination systems (e.g., cell network failure/congestion)
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Current Mobile Alert Services
• Mobile Decision Support Service/ interactive NWS Alert System – Target Audience: NWS core partners (EMs, Gov’t decision leaders, media)– Alert Types: Sub-catastrophic, “usual” watch/warning/advisory for moderate to
high impact weather important to EMs
• GovDelivery (email alerts for general public)
• FEMA IPAWS/CMAS (Commercial Mobile Alert System)– Target audience: General Public– Alert types : Cell broadcast of imminent/catastrophic threats (e.g., tornado
warning)– In development and scheduled for 2012; all major wireless carriers participating;
requires cell tower/phone upgrades
• Private Sector fee services– Target audience: businesses; public subscribers– Alert types: Value-added and custom alerts
• Private Sector, academia free services– Target audience: General Public– Alert types: General weather info, all alerts
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MOBILE ALERTSSector Relationships
Ale
rt T
ypes
Target Audience
Community Leaders
and Decis
ion Make
rs
(eg, E
Ms)
Subscrib
ing Public
,
Business
es
General P
ublic
Advisories: Anticipate, Respond
and Recover
Watches: Prepare for Action
Warnings: Urgent, Immediate
Action Required
KEYiNWS
Private Sector
IPAWS/CMAS
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Other Related Government Efforts
• FAA – Weather Technology in the Cockpit Program
• DOT/FHA – Intelligent Transportation Systems – “connected vehicles” may receive critical weather information (research)
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NWS Guiding Principles
• Ensure NWS core partners have assured access to unaltered NWS products to facilitate communication with NWS forecasters – critical for decision support services
• Increase efforts to provide NWS information in standard formats/protocols to facilitate commercial provision of wireless services for general public
• Foster wide availability of NWS weather warnings and environmental information by diverse means
• Trademarks/copyrights– NWS data/products are not copyrighted and can be used freely – NWS encourages use of trademarked name/logo to identify unaltered
NWS products– Cannot assert your own copyright for NWS products– Use of NWS trademarks does not imply affiliation/endorsement
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Constraints on NWS for Providing Mobile Services
Resource challenges• Cost to provide a national guaranteed level of
wireless service delivery to the general public
• Cost for ongoing development and support of device-specific “Apps” to deliver NWS information
• Cost for maintaining/supporting direct email services to general public
Policy/Legal• NWS will only consider approaches that do not in
effect give anyone exclusive rights to NWS products.
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Draft NWS Position
NWS focus on core partners;
limited direct mobile
service for public
NWS supports commercial mobile development and national warning system through
information centric services
Balanced Way Forward
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Draft NWS Position
• NWS focus on core partners– Continue direct service to core partners – iNWS
• Limited direct support for general public– NWS web standards sensitive to access by mobile
devices (vs. “apps” designed for specific devices)– Build into weather.gov redesign / replace failed
mobile.weather.gov site
• Support commercial/academic sector development of services– information centric approach– Information more accessible; lower cost of entry– Promote visibility for available services
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Draft NWS Position
• Data Standards (current)– Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) - Emergency/alert information– Really Simple Syndication (RSS)/Atom feeds - Allow subscribers to
receive timely updates and aggregate feeds from many sites into one place
– Keyhole Markup Language (KML/KMZ) - Expresses geographic annotation and visualization on 2D and 3D maps
• Make information more accessible and lower cost of entry– Developers’ site/Wiki for better documentation of info feeds and
direct feedback to NWS– Application Programming Interface (API) for NWS data access– Developers’ conference
• Greater visibility for commercial/academic providers– Prominent public listing of mobile services (e.g., apps) that use
official NWS feeds (unaltered products, clearly labeled NWS content)– Provide information on services in NWS outreach booths
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Questions to Keep in Mind
• How can the weather enterprise (government, private sector, academia) best serve the needs of NWS core partners?
• How can the weather enterprise best serve the needs of general public/national economy?
• What do service providers need from NWS to support development of comprehensive wireless weather services?