Summary of Virtual Partners Meetings on EMWIN and Bullet

Format Products

NWS Partners MeetingJune 22, 2010

Kevin J. Schrab, NWS/OCWWS

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Virtual Partners Meeting on Bullet Formatted WSW/NPW

Experimental Products

• March 11, 2010• Presented by Carl Gorski (NWS Western Region)• 10 Partners attended• Discussion and feedback

– Partners stated they may pull bullets out to “crawl” them– Right now NWS doesn’t require a specific format in the product,

but Partners would like categorical rather than free text format type bullets

– Suggestion that bullets stay under the text message character limit (i.e., SMS limited to 160 characters)

– Positive feedback on the virtual meeting format

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Virtual Partners Meeting on Bullet Formatted WSW/NPW

Experimental Products • Updates

– Continued to get very positive comments over the winter months about the use of bulleted formatted WSWs and NPWs. 

• A number of Emergency Managers in the DC and surrounding counties were very complementary on how much easier it was to use the bulleted products during their historically heavy snow fall events.

– This spring NWS expanded the bulleted experiment to include the Fire Weather Program's Red Flag Warnings. 

• The comment  period is from May 12, 2010  to October 29, 2010.  • The use of the format was limited to those offices already using

bulleted WSWs/NPWs and also whether local and regional fire agencies wanted to switch to the new format this fire season.

– The Marine program is also looking at converting several of their warning products to an experimental bullet format beginning this fall.

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Virtual Partners Meeting on EMWIN Transition

• April 15, 2010• Presented by Santos Rodriquez (NWS

Telecommunications Operations Center)• 47 participants from Emergency Management

and Partners communities• Gave instructions on transition with GOES-East• Discussion and feedback

• Answered a few questions about the position of GOES-East and GOES-West

• Asked if whether regional radar images would be available via EMWIN. Answer was yes and more imagery to come

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Virtual Partners Meeting on EMWIN Transition

• Updates– Transition occurred on April 26, 2010 with no problems.– GOES 12 now positioned at 60 degrees, broadcasting the

legacy EMWIN signal for transition benefit to those who still do not have EMWIN N receivers

– GOES-13 now online broadcasting the 19.2 kbps signal– User reports are all good– Also now have 19.2kbs Byteblaster servers– In process of migrating towards 19.2 KBS for byteblaster servers

to replace slower legacy servers– Cuban Radar composite added with permission from Cuban

government for aid to Haiti and other Caribbean nations within the composite radar range

– FCC is requesting information on impacts of proposed sharing of the 1675-1710 MHz Frequency Band with wireless broadband systems (see handout)

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Future Virtual Partners Meetings

• Will continue with topic-based meetings• Please suggest topics• Would like to discuss the possibility of

adding a virtual component to the Summer Partners meeting (during open discussion section later)