From the Desk of the Meteorologist-in-Charge

By Dave Wert

I am extremely excited about this online newsletter. It has been a long time in the making, and I hope that it will serve as a means to provide you with needed information, address questions that you may have, and most importantly to show you just how important you are to us!

The National Weather Service has undergone significant changes during the past decade. Weather radars based on 1950s technology have been replaced by powerful new Doppler radars which are superior in their sensitivity and ability to resolve weather features and to directly measure the motion of wind within a storm.

New high-resolution weather satellites have been deployed which are unsurpassed in their ability to observe the development of weather systems and measure thermal and moisture fields. Automated weather observing systems have been deployed which observe the weather and take weather observations without human intervention.

NOAA weather radios broadcast are now driven by voice synthesized speech processors which convert transmitted information into audible broadcasts, thereby broadcasting critical weather information the second that products are transmitted. Extremely powerful computers integrate all sources of hydrometeorological information and display them in ways that help todays meteorologists put it all together to make improved forecasts with greater detail in time and space.

In a sense, the forecasters at the National Weather Service are like kids on a Christmas morning. At no time in our past have we had access to such powerful tools to help us complete our mission - to safeguard against the loss of life and property and to enhance our Nations economy through the timely issuance of critical weather information.

However, despite all of our technological advancements, the profession of meteorology is still as much an art as it is a science. Weather systems do not always behave as our numerical models of the atmosphere predict. What we see happening at one location or at one level of the atmosphere might not be what is happening at ground level - where people live. This underscores our need for reliable sources of information from people, just like you, who have been trained to accurately report weather information so that critical and accurate time-sensitive information can be relayed quickly to those that need it the most.

The National Weather Service is not able to perform its mission apart from you. In many instances, you are our eyes and ears. You are the ones who relay important information to us, and you are the ones who are often responsible for communicating information that we disseminate to others who can make the most use of it. Without you, the information that we receive and provide has little or no impact. You, and the partnership that we share with you, make all the difference in the world. The accurate and immediate relay of time sensitive weather information, and the way that it is received and acknowledged by others, can make the difference between life and death.

So, this newsletter is our way of acknowledging our appreciation to you for your partnership with and service to us! We hope that this newsletter will open doors to even greater communication and correspondence in the future, and provide us the opportunity to get to know you better.

We would love to meet with you and showcase the tools and technologies that we use to help make our forecasts and provide our service. Please feel free to contact us at any time to schedule a tour of the Blacksburg NWS office so that we can visit with you at your convenience.