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Meeting
June 12-14, 2007
| Attendance: |
Email address |
Agency/Member status |
| Pete Lahm |
plahm fs.fed.us |
FS/FAICG acting chair |
| Robert Ziel |
zielrmichigan.gov |
MI DNR/FBC co-chair |
| Tom Wordell |
twordellfs.fed.us |
FS/NPSG chair |
| Paul Schlobohm |
Paul_schlobohmblm.gov |
BLM/FENWT Chair |
| Ray Dampier |
Ray.Dampierfire.ca.gov |
CDF/NASF West |
| Eli Jacks |
Elliott.jacksnoaa.gov |
NOAA/NWS |
| Robyn Heffernan |
Robyn_heffernanblm.gov |
BLM/FWC Chair |
| Joe Kennedy |
Kennedynorthnet.org |
NYS/NASF East |
| Larry Bradshaw |
lbradshawfs.fed.us |
FS/FDC Chair |
| Neal Hitchcock (by phone) |
|
FS/NWCG liaison |
| Guests: |
|
|
| Dr. Phillip Bothwell |
Phillip.bothwellnoaa.gov |
SPC |
| Dr. Joe Schaefer |
Joseph.schaefernoaa.gov |
SPC |
| Dr. Russell Schneider |
Russell.Schneidernoaa.gov |
SPC |
| Dr. David Bright |
David.Brightnoaa.gov |
SPC |
| Dr. J.D. Carlson |
jdcokstate.edu |
OSU/OK Fire |
| Dr. Renee McPherson |
reneeou.edu |
OU/OK Mesonet |
| Dr. Tim Brown |
tbrowndri.edu |
CEFA |
| Ed Delgado |
Edward_delgadoblm.gov |
BLM |
| David Andrus (by phone) |
David.andrusnoaa.gov |
OFCM |
Tuesday June 12
- Dr. David Bright presented
work the Storm Prediction Center is doing with ensemble
forecasting and fire weather forecasting.
- Joint Probabilities from Short Range Forecasts:
2 days, 45 km
Postage Stamp display of Medium Range Forecasts: 3-8
days
- Modeled means outperform climatology.
- Extreme events may occur on smaller scales than
that of the ensemble, and thus won’t be in the
forecast.
- Currently computing Fosberg Fire Weather Index.
Ensembles will soon be used for NFDRS outputs.
- Website: www.spc.noaa.gov
- Dr. Phillip Bothwell
presented work SPC is doing with lightning and dry thunderstorm
forecasts.
- NWS definition of dry thunderstorm: less than or
equal to .10 inch precipitation
- Predictive Services is using these forecasts and
they work well.
- Dr. Renee McPherson
presented the technical features of the Oklahoma Mesonet.
- Dr. JD Carlson presented
the fire applications of the Mesonet: OK Fire
- OK Fire is a JFSP funded program, Ouachita NF is
the local federal agency partner.
- Fire Weather
Maps of customized products, using plug-ins
- Fire Danger
Uses NDVI for live fuel moisture
- Smoke Dispersion
Plume dispersion model
- Website: okfire.mesonet.org
Animated loops at time steps of spatial change in
fire danger indexes
- Website is a good example of providing display
of data for many different applications in one place.
- Renee is the contact to discuss opportunities to
use their mapping process.
Wednesday June 13
- Ed Delgado presented
about ROMAN
- Real-time Observation, Monitoring and Analysis
Network (ROMAN). This effort was started 5 years ago.
One of the core goals was to take advantage of other
networks. It has become the ‘face’ of
the RAWS network. It is on a BLM contract and is “interagency
owned.”
- Ed showed an interface with MADIS (Meteorological
Assimilation Data Ingest System) on a slide but it
was unclear exactly how ROMAN/Mesowest interface with
MADIS.
- Fifty percent of the RAWS observations are available
in 5 minute after the observation, 80% are within
7 minutes. In 2001, the system had 8 million hits.
In 2006, there were 125 million hits.
- It is an interagency system, initially funded by
the BLM, more recently, FY07 by the Forest Service
(~$60K – 2/3 programmer, 1/3 overhead). The
total cost of development and support has been about
~$600K. Current year funding is $60K going to the
University of Utah, Mesonet program. The ‘system’
resides at the NWS Western Region Headquarters in
SLC. The NWS contribution is IT support (server housing,
communications). Back up databases reside in several
places.
- What the $$ is buying:
- Continuous coordination with NIFC Remote Sensing
Support Unit (metadata issues, mainly with FIRE
RAWS names and locations)
- Monitoring of data flow
- Bug fixes to core software
- Email support
- 2/3 UU programmer time
- Cost sharing with NWS
- Shifting costs for user support for the Remote
Sensing Support Unit by being the ‘face’
of RAWS.
- What the lack of funding is costing:
- No program functional enhancements (stuff on
Mesowest cannot be ported to ROMAN).
- No software documentation
- More reliance on Mesowest
- Poor QA/QC
- Mesowest is the Development System (contact John
Hurrel). Functionality that is on Mesowest but not
operational in ROMAN include:
- Creating and saving profiles for start up preferences.
- GEOMAC layer overlays
- NESDIS
- The ROMAN program is requesting funding (total)
of $150K/year.
- Tom Wordell noted that NPSG has worked to include
ROMAN on the Forest Service FAM Information Technology
Portfolio and has a 300 “Lite” documentation
and even though FY07 funding has been approved it
has not been officially received.
- Dr. Tim Brown, Desert
Research Institute presented on weather station
density issues. A lot was based on results from their
Great Basin Study. He presented some points/consideration
on International Network Standards:
- Effect of station change
- Station history
- Processing algorithms
- Observations with long uninterrupted periods
of record
- Calibration history
- Backups
- Long-term monitoring
- Data management
- Data-poor and sensitive-to-change areas should
be given highest priority
- Appropriate Spacing: Maximum separation of stations
(50 miles/84 km).
- Dr. Brown showed some results of
working with North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR)
datasets, a 32-km gridded three dimensional dataset
that covers all of North America, which they have been
using to provide data quality checks and enhancements
to various climatological datasets in WIMS and at WRCC.
They are getting correlations of 0.95 for temperature
fields, 0.90 for relative humidity and solar radiation.
Correlations of about 0.5 to 0.6 are being obtained
for wind speed and precipitation due to their non-uniform
nature.
- Concept of a reference network within
a network (i.e. Global Climate, NFDRS within RAWS).
Consider sharing costs of stations with resource programs
that all use the data.
- Potential CEFA Projects:
- Compare RAWS to other networks
- Grid sensitivity analysis
- Regional RAWS comparisons
- Tom Wordell: We really need to define
the need. Fire business needs to be comprehensive –
smoke, prescribed fire, fire behavior, fire danger.
Design national network based on local/regional business
needs.
- Tim showed a picture of the US covered
in station locations from many existing networks. The
RAWS network overlaps in some places, but it also revealed
its strength by filling in non-urban gaps not occupied
by any of the other networks.
- Questions about the purpose of the
RAWS network; studies to access other networks for fire
business.
- How much density to inform
grid products?
- What is the purpose of the
network?
- Fire vs. resources
- Analysis vs. forecasting
- Climatology vs. weather
- Danger vs. behavior
- All fire needs vs. specific
fire needs
back to the top
- Ed Delgado presented
via conference call with the Interagency Fuels Group the
progress on standing up a National Live Fuel Moisture
Database, which can be seen at: http://smoke-fire.us/lfm/NFMD/index.php
- There was discussion both from the Fuels Group
and FENWT about the value of the data since this is
a voluntary project with no data standards. Paul questioned
the status of this in the IT sequence; it could quickly
become another ROMAN, a project without sponsorship
and support, but one the field likes. For the short
term, this project is under the umbrella of the WFAS
project which does have continuing support in the
Forest Service IT investment portfolio.
- FS has the ITRB through Missoula.
- Ed and Tom asked NIFCG to distribute information
about the network in order to get feedback and
recognition.
- NIFCG asked Tom and Ed to provide further information
about their objectives for the database.
back to the top
Thursday June 14, 2007
RAWS/ROMAN assignment cont. – Continued
work to assess information and discuss what we have heard
from stakeholders and options to consider. Worked in context
of report straw-man developed by Paul.
- Ideas discussed preliminarily, but
not adopted as conclusions:
- Recommend conducting research/study to determine
which other networks can meet our needs. Hold RAWS
numbers static until we have this information.
- Develop criteria for the expansion of the observation
network (i.e. in order to be approved to buy additional
stations, the need meets this criteria)
- The number of stations existing is likely enough.
They might need to be moved around to reduce or
increase density. The network is over-populated
for fire danger; there will never be enough for
fire behavior. The solution for event specific
applications is gridded data at appropriate resolution.
This is were the world is going.
- Recommendations for strategy of analysis of the
existing network
- Needs to correlate with fire business (through
FPA)
- Include nearby alternatives of other observation
networks
- Need to investigate the standards of other
possible networks to be included
- This is a more plausible alternative now
than when the RAWS network was originally
established because of the increasing number
of networks over the years and better communication
systems. Communications technology now makes
data sharing much easier than before. The
need for our own network, because others do
not exist is not so true.
- A question we must try to address is “whether
or not we still want to be in the business of data
collection and dissemination 10 years from now.”
This is key in determining the direction of the recommendations
to FENWT.
- New Paradigm: “Who else can help us?”
Embrace use of multiple networks rather than carry
forward the “We’ll do it all ourselves”
philosophy.
- We also need to address climatology impacts of
removing or moving stations in our recommendations
to NWCG as this will likely come up as a potential
road block.
- Technology as it stands today has provided
us with tools to address this issue (i.e. using
NARR and new NDFD observational grids to create
or alter climatology for stations)
- Create one display system that provides user access
to data and display of data and possible analysis
of data in one place.
- Provide directors with at least one “out
of the box” alternative
- The following process outlines a “To Do”
list in order to develop a study report:
- Review Pat Andrews framework on MFC –
done at meeting
- Review OFCM matrices – done at meeting
- Review NWFEA business categories – done
at meeting
- Update matrices based on previous three items
– done for Pat Andrews and OFCM items.
- Complete survey summaries:
- NPSG – Tom by 6/22
- OFCM – Larry by 6/22
- NWS – Eli by 6/22
- NWFEA – Paul by 6/22
- Validation of the data vs. system/network matrix
– decided that we need to talk again with
Joe O’Sullivan
- Action Item – Schedule
a conference call with Jim O’Sullivan
regarding MADIS questions and validation of
the data vs. system/network matrix –
Paul
- Write straw-man/analysis/conclusions
- The business categories were updated to include
“prevention.” Business categories
are below:
- Prevention
- Fuels
- Planning
- Suppression
- Fire Use
- Prescribed Fire
- Resource Allocation / Decision Support
- Fire Research
- Air Quality
- Rehab / BAER
- 3 Options discussed
- Leave ROMAN as a stand alone system
- Combine the functionality of WIMS and ROMAN
into one system
- Layer ROMAN functionality on top of MADIS
- User picks and chooses the data, RAWS
and non RAWS needed for the task at hand
- Future is gridded observations and forecasts
- Question - Should the one site have
access to or the ability to compute outputs
for all our typical applications? NFDRS,
FBPS, CFFDRS, etc.
- Use a neutral site to mitigate firewall
issues
- Examine the lifecycle risk of satellite infrastructure
or other support to observation networks.
- Include recommendation that fire weather needs
to be a core element for NOAA
- Zeke queried the FBAN/LTAN/IMET neighborhood in
MFC with 4 questions related to this assignment. Response
summary:
- Need more observations in Western complex terrain
- Need 15 minute observations
- Keep RAWS, most other networks are biased toward
pavement
- Need high quality data
- Most respondents did not see the value of gridded
data.
- They prefer to download data for their own
analysis.
- Greatly prefer ROMAN. They need a one-stop
shop for fire weather.
- Station ownership and maintenance issues: With
more folks accessing and depending upon RAWS data
and derivations from it, like live fuel moisture algorithm
in NFDRS, etc, we need a new philosophy for oversight,
management, and override. This affects green-up dates,
maintenance, and reliance on owners to add fuel model
G to all stations in WIMS.
- Some users are pulling RAWS data from Wallops Island
before it gets to ASCADS
- Enable national and local scale applications from
the same station independently. Current interface
in WIMS, for example, is too limiting.
- Miscellaneous items:
- NWCG will probably ask for budget items in
September. FENWT will discuss budget items in
July.
- Next meeting is December 4-6 in Reno, NV
- April 1-3, 2008 in Boise
- June 24-25, 2008 plan for virtual meeting:
multiple-hour call and net-meeting format
for parts of two or three days.
- Next conference call is June 29th to discuss
follow-up items from the June meeting
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