Fire Weather Customer Meeting

1. Fire Weather Customer Meeting December 13th 2006

2. Outline • Verification statistics - Brent • Red Flag/Fire Weather Watch • PFW product - Brent • Spot weather forecasts & feedback - Brent • Statistics • Feedback • Example • Ventilation Requests • Thunderstorm winds • Seasonal Long Range Forecast – Charlie • Open floor

3. Verification statistics RFW product

4. Red Flag Warning 2006 • Zones Warned: 195 (Up 129 from ‘05) • Total Zones Occurred: 146 (Up 107 from ‘05) • Warned Zones Verified: 140 • Warned Zones didn’t Verify: 48 • No warning issued/Zones Missed: 6 • POD (Prob of Detection): 0.96 (1.0 ‘05) • FAR (False Alarm Rate): 0.28 (0.41 ‘05) • CSI (Critical Success Index): 0.70 (0.59 ‘05) • Average Lead Time: 9.5 hrs (5.4 hrs ‘05)

8. Fire Weather Watch 2006 • Zones Watch: 173 (Up 125 from ‘05) • Total Zones Occurred: 146 (Up 107 from ‘05) • Watch Zones Verified: 114 • Watch Zones didn’t Verify: 59 • No watch issued/Zones Missed: 22 • POD (Prob of Detection): 0.78 (0.64 ‘05) • FAR (False Alarm Rate): 0.34 (0.44 ‘05) • CSI (Critical Success Index): 0.56 (0.43 ‘05) • Average Lead Time: 26.5 hrs (16.3 hrs ‘05)

12. PFW Product

13. What is the PFW? • Point forecast matrix • Tabular weather forecast with several weather variables • i.e Temp, RH, Wind, Haines Index etc • Issuance times • Fire Weather: 8 am and 330 pm • Aviation sites: 4 am and 4 pm • All year round

14. What is it? • Temporal Resolution • Every 3 hours through ~ 60 hours • Every 6 hours from 60 hr to 7 days out • Spatial Resolution • 2.5 km² grid box • Weather station contained in grid box ~ 2.4 mi² grid box→

15. How do you access it? ←Click on site

16. Useful? • Planning tool • Meet prescription objectives • Efficient use of workforce • Adds more Ventilation sites • Adjust numbers based on Grid Box elevation • PFW tends to come out earlier than Planning Forecast • Falls out of our grid forecasts • Product not edited • Planning not so much tactical

17. Spot Weather forecast & feedback

20. Turn around time • Subtract requested time from forecast complete time Avg: 33 minutes Avg: 35 minutes Avg: 30 minutes Avg: 31 minutes

21. AOP

25. Statistics 2006 Areawide

26. Types of Weather Feedback Feedback↓Button

27. Remarks Box Following Requests ↑

28. Remarks Section Initial Request

29. Faxed Fire line observations

31. Example: Spot request and feedback use (multi-day) event • Lajara prescribed burn • September 26th to October 4th 2006 • Jicarilla • Feedback • Used remarks section • Used permanent RAWS • Stone Lake

32. Initial Forecast Make sure to make note in Remarks each spot request

33. Another reminder • Choose the elements and time period you need.

34. Forecast vs Station reality

36. Feedback Remarks Section September 26th September 29th

37. Feedback Remarks Section September 30th October 3rd

38. What does the example show? • Feedback good! • Use of permanent RAWS and Remarks section • Forecasts fairly accurate • Customer only requested what they needed • Turn around times in getting the forecast out… • 20 to 30 minutes

39. Ventilation Requests Reminder

40. Ventilation Request reminder: Operating plan policy

41. Good example: downwind receptor

43. Reference Point Jemez RAWS→

44. Thunderstorm wind statement • Generic statement • Location within Spot? • Effective content/verbiage?

45. First example • Use of headline • When thunderstorms forecasted

46. Second example • Statement appended to wind section • When thunderstorms forecasted

47. Third example • Statement appended to wind section • When thunderstorms forecasted

48. Fourth example • Canned statement inserted at bottom • All-year round

49. Open Floor Questions/Comments/Suggestions

50. End November 14th 2006