HMT-West 2010 Participants

HMT-West Annual Meeting Held 7-8 October 2010, at Sonoma County Water Agency

HMT-West held its Annual Meeting on October 7-8, in Santa Rosa California. The meeting was hosted by the Sonoma County Water Agency. In the spirit of collaboration within HMT, the meeting was co-chaired by Tim Schneider of OAR (the HMT Project Manager) and Dave Reynolds of the NWS (the Meteorologist in Charge at the San Francisco Bay Area Weather Forecast Office).

The purpose of this meeting was to share and highlight accomplishments from HMT-West (from both NOAA and outside stakeholder perspectives), and to discuss next steps for HMT-West research, development, and research to operations (R2O). The target audience was the HMT-West Regional Implementation Team including key stakeholders and partners. The forty-one participants included the HMT Management Council and representatives a number of federal, state and local agencies: including NOAA OAR (ESRL & NSSL) and NWS (OHD, OCWWS, WR-HQ, NCEP, four WFOs, and CN-RFC), US-Army Corps of Engineers, US Geological Survey, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the CA Department of Water Resources, and the Sonoma County Water Agency.

Key outcomes include a raised awareness of HMT-West activities and successes and remaining challenges; ideas for a framework for planning and executing transitions from HMT-West for both NWS and external stakeholders; guidance to inform the development of a 5-10 year road map for HMT-West; and suggestions for improving the coordination of the coming season's field operations. Specific actions were identified in three categories:

1. In support of National Weather Service operations: Consensus was reached to pursue next steps on transition of research to NWS operations on the following topics: quantitative precipitation estimates; snow level products and services; ensemble model verification; and localized precipitation enhancements caused by barrier jets and moisture fluxes. Additional efforts will be focused on the development of hydrologic applications (distributed modeling and the requisite forcing data sets) and training on the use of new data, models and understanding (especially the role of atmospheric rivers). OAR and NWS staff were identified to follow through on these actions.
2. In support of key stakeholders: In partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, HMT will continue to implement and grow the "HMT-West Legacy" – a world-class long-term observational network and new modeling methods for extreme precipitation in California. The US Army Corps of Engineers reported on the successful usage of HMT concepts, observations and prototype forecast aids derived from HMT-West that were deployed in Washington State to assist in the mitigation of flood risk associated with the ongoing problems with the Howard Hanson Dam. Deployments and support will continue in FY2011. New activities are being considered on the Russian River in California, in conjunction with the Sonoma County Water Agency, the NWS and other partners (HMT staff participated in a tour of the basin and an exploratory meeting led by Rob Hartman of CNRFC on October 4-5, aimed at addressing water management issues in the Russian River Basin).
3. Climate: The CalWater experiment, sponsored by the California Energy Commission, and in partnership with other federal and state entities, is aimed at understanding and quantifying uncertainties in climate projections of California's water supply and flooding. CalWater heavily leverages and builds upon the HMT-West observing facilities and scientific research findings. A CalWater planning meeting was held in San Diego on October 4-5 and the coordinated FY2011 activities were reported at the HMT-West Annual Meeting. Multi-year climatologies from long-term HMT observations were also presented at the Annual Meeting, which have yielded insights into atmospheric river-driven extreme precipitation events and related phenomena. Bill Neff described the planning for the National Climate Service, and the key role of HMT in meeting two of the major "Societal Challenges" NCS is addressing, i.e., "climate impacts on water resources" and "changes in extreme weather and climate events."

Since its inception in 2004, HMT has grown considerably in both geographic scope and overall effort, and is engaging with a growing spectrum of stakeholders. It has developed new paradigms in west coast forecasting, which have been successfully demonstrated, and in some cases are being implemented long-term. In addition, a number of related projects, such as CalWater and components of NOAA's Rapid Response to the Howard Hanson Dam crisis, are built upon and/or leverage the HMT framework. This meeting assessed progress in HMT, and informed planning of future efforts.

Contacts:
Timothy.Schneider@noaa.gov (NOAA/ESRL/Physical Sciences Division)
David.Reynolds@noaa.gov (NOAA/NWS/San Francisco Bay Area Weather Forecast Office)